Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-36894050-20180912144443

In advertising, effective ads follow a formula. It is very basic but so effective. Ads that fail do not follow this formula. The formula is this: Attract the attention of the viewer, identify and engage their interests, give them the facts so they could make a decision and give them a command so they can take an action. This is called AIDA. This formula may seem corny and old fashioned, but it works like a charm. The same formula should work in your scholarship application essay. Sadly, too few applicants use this formula because they go on and on and on about their background, about their accomplishments, about the stuff they have done in the past and their vision in the future, but they fail to zero-in on the decision element.

Do you see where this is headed? You go out of your way to come up with a fancy heading or come up with an overarching team that gets the attention of the awards committee member reading your application essay. You focus on certain parts of your personal story to get their interest. Then you end with I need this scholarship. There is something missing–the decision element. This should be the key to addressing why you need a scholarship. People can say everything they want, but if there are no facts backing it, their application is weak. Let’s put this way–you can say to somebody you love that person all you want, but if your actions and external evidence does not show that you love that peson, then even saying I love you a trillion times is not going to make a lick of a difference. Do you see my point? The scholarship application essay must be laser focused on why you need a scholarship.

Remember that very competitive scholarships have thousands of applicants. There are so many people competing for that pile of money. They do not have time to read your mind. They do not have time to read between the lines. They do not have time to massage your words. The desire must leap out of the pages and straight into their eyeballs to that in a split second, your application gets put on the maybe or yes list instead of the trash. It is that crucial. The decision component of this sales exercise called the scholarship application essay must be clear and to the point. It must answer this question very clearly–why do you need the scholarship? Notice that the keyword here is need.

Scholarships are determined based on the concept of deserving and deserving is often defined by need. You can say I need this all you want, but if you do not show a background that overcame, obstacles that were addressed and personal growth that produced achievements, you will never get to a clear exposition of why you are deserving because these elements form why you need it. Everybody can say, “I don’t have the money for school.” That is a given. The scholarship awards committee senperfect of member reading your essay already assumes you need the money or else you would not have applied for the scholarship. The key is do you have the facts to convince the committee that the need is real and you are deserving. 