The Winner Scholarship Essay Format | Guide & Sample

Once you get admissions to a school, whether it is a high school or an institution of higher learning, you have an open window to apply for a scholarship. Most students apply for scholarships to help them cover tuition fees or sometimes even other living expenses. The first parts of the application process might come across as the easiest part as one is required to complete several forms and attach their academic documents. Applying for a college scholarship might seem like an arduous task until you learn the basics of writing a scholarship. Our scholarship essay format guide and sample will give you the basics of how to write a winning scholarship.

In most instances, application for a scholarship requires the student submits an essay. In recent times, the advancement of the application process requires that you submit an essay alongside the application transcript or form. The essay is usually the integral part of the application process as it gives the committee a better understanding of who you are as a person and long-term goals. As such, you might need to write a scholarship essay that is informative, relevant, and logical. The smartest way to start your writing process is to learn the scholarship essay format that will help you develop a good essay.

What is a Scholarship Essay?

A scholarship essay is a document or an essay by a scholarship applicant that explains why they need or deserve that scholarship. Typically, the scholarship applicant submits the essay alongside the application form and other supporting documents as per the requirement of the application process. The scholarship essay is usually an integral part of the scholarship application process. You might have passed your exams with exemplary grades and provided all the necessary documents, but how you write the essay will determine whether you win the scholarship or not. The scholarship essay should be exemplary with full details of who you are, your long term goals and why you deserve the scholarship.

Scholarships are financial aids offered to deserving students by organizations to support their academic journey. What determines whether you deserve the scholarship or not? Your financial and academic background might implicate that you deserve a certain scholarship. However, you must fully express yourself through the essay scholarship for the committee to understand your situation better. As such, you must write a scholarship essay to demonstrate your background, your passion and align them with the beliefs and interest of the organization. This way, you get to demonstrate how the scholarship will provide holistic growth to you as an individual.

Scholarship Essay Format Guide

Before you start the writing process of a scholarship essay, you must familiarize yourself with the scholarship essay format. Most students who have been writing school essays tend to imagine that scholarships essays are similar to college essay. This imagination is where most students go wrong. There is a difference between a scholarship essay format and a college essay format. As much as both essay types tend to express the thoughts, beliefs and opinions of a student, they also exhibit distinctive features.

• Purpose of the essays: School essays, i.e., a high school or a college essay experience the opinion of the student on the subject matter. However, scholarship essays, on the other hand, demonstrate your overall personality and how you share in the interest and beliefs of the organization offering the scholarship.
• Length of the essays: The length of these types of essays also exhibits their major difference. Usually, a scholarship essay should have a maximum of 500 words. However, school essays usually have a length that exceeds 500 words—the length of school essay and on the depth of the subject matter. In case the subject is shallow, the essay will contain fewer words. However, when the subject matter has a wider scope, then the essay will have a more word count.
• Prompt of the essays: Typically, the prompts offered in school essays have are broader the scholarship essay prompts. In addition to this, most college essays have an open window for the selection of a topic while scholarship essay requires that you answer the specific question given. A most common question in scholarship prompts, “why do you deserve this scholarship?” Here you are supposed to align all your thoughts towards answering the question. Any diversion from the topic of discussion will make you not win the scholarship.

How Do You Write a Scholarship Essay?

Our scholarship essay format guide will provide you with the basic outline of a scholarship essay. Familiarising yourself with the basic scholarship essay would be a great step towards achieving your winner scholarship essay.

The Outline of a Scholarship Essay

Your winner scholarship essay should have the following outline:

Introduction:

The introduction to your scholarship essay should grab the attention of the person reading our essay. This way, you will give them the urge to continue reading your essay. If you provide a ‘boring’ or irrelevant introduction, the person reading your essay might form a poor judgement of what is to follow after the introduction. Ensure that you also issue a thesis statement at the end of your introductory paragraph to uphold the topic of the essay.

Body:

The body of your winner scholarship essay should address the following issues:

• A major challenge that you have experienced in your life
• What strategy did you use to overcome the challenge?
• Your short term education and career goals
• Your long term education and career goals
• Why was the particular school your institution of choice?
• What are the reasons for choosing the study field you are in?
• How will the scholarship help you in achieving the short term and long term academic goals?
• How will your educational goals help you to bring an impact on society?
• Examples of a real-life situation to support your arguments

Conclusion

The conclusion of your scholarship essay should provide wrap up the essay by providing a summary of the points discussed within the body of the essay. At the end of your essay, you should always restate the thesis statement given in the introductory paragraph.

Scholarship Essay Writing Guide

Now that you understand the basic scholarship essay format, you can proceed to the writing process of a winning scholarship essay. Below is a guide on how to develop a scholarship essay:

How to start a scholarship essay

The first part of a scholarship essay is the introduction of the essay. The process of writing a relevant scholarship essay should begin even before the introduction of the essay. First and foremost, you must always allocate adequate time for the writing process. Writing a scholarship essay requires that you have ample time without having to bump on the deadlines. Ensure that you begin the writing process at a time when you won’t have any pressure to complete and submit. When you decide on the right time to begin the writing process, here are the steps to follow:

Familiarize yourself with the scholarship essay prompt

Whenever you want to start your scholarship essay, you must keep in mind that your goal is to win the scholarship. Hence, you must always aim at understanding the scholarship essay prompt to ensure that you do not provide material that is not required. First, ensure that you write an essay with a word count that does not exceed 500 words. Your essay should always demonstrate why you deserve the scholarship. The following questions should guide how you would develop the scholarship essay:

• What are your reasons for applying for the scholarship?
• Why do you think you are unique?
• How do your interest and beliefs integrate with the beliefs of the organization offering the scholarship?
• What are your career goals?
• What are your academics goals?
• How would you use the scholarship to contribute to society?

Choose a relevant topic.

At this point, your main focus should be to persuade the scholarship committee to grant you the scholarship. As such, you should always make them understand why you think you deserve the scholarship. The topic of your scholarship essay should always reflect the purpose of writing the essay. You can consider the following questions before choosing the most relevant topic for your essay.

• What are your accomplishments in life?
• What makes you stand out as an individual?
• Have you experienced any challenges in the quest for education?
• What were the challenges or obstacles?
• How did you manage to move past the obstacles?
• How did the challenges or obstacles change you as an individual?
• What are your aspirations in life?

When you answer the above questions, you might find ideas that will help you formulate a relevant essay topic.

Write a captivating introductory paragraph.

Upon choosing a relevant essay topic, you can now begin the actual writing process. As a recommendation for all academic essays, you should always write an introduction that grabs the attention of the reader. The introductory part acts as the hook of the essay. The hook of your scholarship essay is the main part of the whole essay. Remember, there are hundreds, if not thousands of other students who are interested in getting the scholarship. Therefore, the scholarship committee will have to through the essay to pick the deserving student(s). For this reason, you have to make your introduction as captivating as possible.

The first sentence of your essay should be an attention grabber. Ensure that you make it memorable. You could grab the attention of the reader by providing a quote or a fact. Ensure that the statement is relevant to the topic of discussion, which relates to why you think you deserve the scholarship. After the first sentence, develop a strong introductory paragraph while maintaining a smooth flow. Here are a few tips on how you would continue to develop the introductory paragraph:

• Ensure that you provide an introduction that concise.
• Provide brief background information for the topic of discussion.
• Ensure that any information that you provide within the introduction is relevant and equally helpful.
• Try to be unique in the introductory part of your essay, always clichés
• Write an introduction that will make your reader want to read the rest of the essay.
• Ensure that you add a supporting thesis statement at the end of the introductory paragraph

The above tips will help you develop a strong introduction that will compel the reader into reading the rest of the essay.

How to develop the body of the scholarship essay

The body of the essay is the most informative part of the essay. Here, you should provide all the information that will exhibit why you deserve the scholarship. Ensure that you include only the relevant information in the body of your paper. The following ideas will help you develop a good essay body:

• Highlight any challenges that you might have encountered and overcome
• Discuss some of your achievements
• Highlight and discuss your short term and long term goals
• Explain how the scholarship will help you towards the achievement of both short term and long term goals
• Discuss what motivates you toward achieving your goals
• Support your claims by giving real-life experience

As you write the body of the essay, ensure that you avoid adding general information in your essay. Remember that your goal is to ensure that the committee understands who you are as an individual. As such, always ensure that you integrate the interests of the organization with the material that you present.

How to end a scholarship essay

The end of your scholarship essay is the conclusion of your material. A firm conclusion will make your essay memorable. The memory of your essay makes your stand out from the hundred or a thousand other applicants. In the end, your essay is likely to become the winning scholarship essay.

The reflection of your voyage: demonstrate how you appreciate all your challenges and how they have made you grow as an individual.

Indicate your future plans – In conjunction with the short reflection, ensure that you mention how these experiences will affect your future plans. Explain how these challenges or experiences have affected your general outlook and how they will impact your future actions or decisions.

Restate the thesis statement- It is always advisable that you conclude your scholarship essay with a statement that restates the thesis statement given in the introductory part. Using this approach will make the reader connect your essay from the beginning to the end.

The Winner Scholarship Essay Writing Tips

Learning the scholarship format is not enough to make you create a winner scholarship. There are some extra tips that you need to add to the scholarship essay format for you to win the scholarship.

Below are the extra tips:

• Ensure that you are eligible for the particular scholarship before attempting to write the scholarship essay and submitting any document.
• Once you confirm that you are eligible, read and understand the instructions provided and take note on the deadlines.
• Consider drafting an outline of the essay before starting the work. You could use our scholarship essay format to create your essay outline. Organize all your thoughts and ideas to develop a consistent scholarship essay.
• Ensure that your scholarship essay addresses every part of the provided instructions
• Ensure that you personalize all the information provided in your essay
• Use simple and clear language to elaborate all your thought and ideas.
• Support your thoughts and ideas using real-life experiences
• Ensure that you use proper transitional phrases throughout your essay to differentiate between the ideas.
• Always proofread your essay to eliminate any chances of grammatical errors

Winner Scholarship Essay Formatting

In addition to the scholarship essay format, the style of formatting greatly influences the outcome of your essay. Correct formatting of the essay exhibits that you not only know how to follow instructions, but you are also keen on the organization of your work. Unless stated otherwise, scholarship essays should always use the following formatting:

• Times New Roman Font
• Double spacing
• 12 point font size
• One inch margins (top, bottom and the sides)
• An indention before each paragraph

Scholarship Essay Sample

Myhomeworkwriters.com provides a winner scholarship sample that will help you understand how to write a scholarship essay. Most students usually ask questions such as, “how do you write a 500 word scholarship essay?” and, “What are examples of scholarship?” The following sample is a 500 scholarship essay sample that will provide answers to these questions.

Our sample provides an example of a scholarship essay with the following prompt :

“Describe an experience in your life that has greatly contributed to your perception of the world.”

“Ever since I was a young child, I have always been very observant of the happenings in my surroundings. At the age of 10 years, I asked my father to teach me the art of playing chess. I had previously observed how keen my father and his brother were whenever they played chess. The idea of me wanting to learn chess fascinated my father, who later on signed me up for a chess class. Whenever I look back to that moment, I usually acknowledge that my early learning of how to play chess has been of great impact to my holistic growth.

Mastering the art of playing chess has significantly impacted how I view things. In addition to this, I can testify that playing understanding has immensely impacted on my understanding of various happenings in the world. Just like chess, the world needs you to deal with any unexpected changes. With this in mind, you somewhat learn how to be resilient. This resilience in life has helped me deal with several setbacks in my life. I have realized that I tend to adjust to new plans and situations quickly. The flexibility enables me to create new plans which simultaneously makes me rise above any kind of inconvenience.

As a Haitian citizen, I was greatly affected by the 2010 earth quickly that left my country in pieces. I was lucky enough to be among the survivors of the massive earthquake. Displaced, my family and I had to adjust to new environments and continue with life when all the dust had settled. The resilience in the face of hardships has greatly impacted who I am as a person. As much as my educational journey was affected, I resumed education when everything had settled. I have been studying hard with a vision to use my knowledge in helping my country manage alarming situations. As such, I am currently a holder of Bachelor of Science in Disaster Preparedness and Engineering Management.

Over the years, I have learnt that it is always important to give other peoples’ thoughts and opinions on a situation before making a decision. This way, I can navigate through a certain situation using informed decisions. I have learned to get an insight into how others would react to a certain situation and compare them with my personal judgement.

My love for chess has driven me into exploring how different people incorporate new strategies and methods in playing chess. As an international citizen currently living in Illinois, I have integrated with people of diverse backgrounds and learnt how differently they respond to different situations. This urge to learn about different cultures has dramatically influenced how I interact with people from diverse cultures.

As an aspiring Masters student, I can comfortably confirm that playing chess from a young age has shaped me in several ways. Most importantly, chess has dramatically influenced how I think and how I understand the world. My urge to learn and understand how people react to situations gives me a better understanding of disaster management. This way, I am in a better position to practice my disaster management skills.”

In conclusion, writing a scholarship essay requires that you understand why you are writing and incorporate your life experiences to create a compelling essay. Our scholarship essay format will guide you on how to develop a winning scholarship essay. In case you need help in writing a scholarship essay, place an order at Myhomeworkwriters.com to receive a high-quality essay. My Homework Writers harbours a team of professional writers who will write your essay at an affordable price.