How to Improve Your Community Essay for Scholarship Applications

When applying for scholarships, many students find the essay to be the most daunting aspect. However, with proper preparation and understanding of common prompts, writing a compelling essay can become a manageable task. While scholarship essays may vary in their specific questions, many touch upon similar themes and ideas. By exploring these common prompts and understanding how to answer them effectively, students can significantly improve their chances of winning a scholarship.

Understanding Common Scholarship Essay Prompts

Scholarship essay prompts are a crucial part of the scholarship application process. They are designed to help scholarship committees assess a student’s writing skills, creativity, and fit for the scholarship. Understanding the prompts is essential to writing an effective scholarship essay.

To write an effective scholarship essay, students should take the following steps:

Read the prompt carefully: Take the time to read and understand the prompt before starting to write your essay.
Identify the key themes: Look for the key themes and ideas that the prompt is asking you to address.
Use specific examples: Use specific examples and anecdotes to support your arguments and ideas.
Show, don’t tell: Instead of simply stating your qualifications and achievements, use specific examples to demonstrate them.
Be concise: Keep your essay concise and to the point, avoiding unnecessary words and phrases.

Common Scholarship Essay Questions and How to Answer Them

Here are some common scholarship essay questions and tips on how to answer them:

1. Tell Us About Yourself

This can be one of the trickiest college scholarship essays to write, not because it’s complicated, but because it’s so broad. Typically, students shouldn’t just give an overview of their life stories. It’s also wise to be a bit future-focused, discussing not just where they’ve been but where they hope to go.

Read also: Creating a Strong Student Resume

2. How Will This Scholarship Make a Difference for You?

Generally, students have a few options for addressing this question. First, they could showcase how the scholarship money helps them overcome a relevant financial hardship. Second, they could concentrate on how the scholarship will help them achieve their academic and professional goals. Students should focus on how the scholarship eliminates roadblocks, though the exact type of obstacle can vary. Winning this scholarship will allow students to cover college financial issues that may hold them back from reaching their career.

3. Can You Tell Us About a Time You Failed? What Did You Learn from That Experience?

For many students, even figuring out how to start a scholarship essay introduction for this topic is hard, let alone writing the whole thing. However, honesty is the best policy. Students should start by outlining the scenario and giving an overview of how the failure occurred. After the overview, it’s all about a quick pivot. Students should explain the lessons they learned and what they would do differently if faced with a similar situation again. This scholarship essay prompt is incredibly common for volunteering scholarships or awards focused on service. Additionally, it’s smart for students to spend some time explaining how the experience impacted them. They may also want to touch on any plans they have to continue to remain active in their community, as that can help them stand out. Scholarship providers understand that no student is perfect, and they want to know how you learned from a failure - this can be an academic, professional, or personal failure. Break down how you failed, why you failed, and how it made you better.

4. Tell Us About a Contribution You’ve Made to Your Community

This scholarship essay prompt is incredibly common for volunteering scholarships or awards focused on service. In this essay, describe your experience in community service, explain how you’ve given back, or share volunteer opportunities you’ve participated in. How have you learned or grown due to your community service? How do you plan to continue to support your community in the future? Bonus points if your college plans (which they’d be partially funding!) help you further contribute.

5. What Are Your Academic (or Professional) Goals?

With this common scholarship essay question, students need to clearly outline what they want to achieve, either academically or professionally, depending on exactly what they are asked. Usually, it’s best to start off with the basics. Students should explain what they want to study or the career path they hope to have. However, they shouldn’t stop there. It’s also wise to dig a bit deeper, diving into precisely what motivated them to head in this direction. Some students do this by sharing their epiphany moment, while others talk about how it’s the culmination of a life-long passion. If the essay is very short (say, 100-300 words), be clear and concise. Explain what you want to study, and then what kind of career you want to lead afterwards.

6. Tell Us About a Time Where You Stepped Up as a Leader

Leadership is a hot topic for college scholarship essays. Many committees ask questions like this one to see what applicants bring to the table. There are a lot of options for approaching this. Heading up a school project counts, as well as captaining a sports team. Again, exactly what your student chooses is less important than how they describe it. You’ll also want to look forwards and not just backwards. How will you take your sports experiences with you, into college and beyond?

7. Who Has Been Your Biggest Influence (or Inspiration)?

Many scholarship essay questions want students to talk about their heroes. As they describe why the person influenced or inspired them, they incidentally talk about how they are motivated, their priorities, and their values. It also allows the reader to learn more about what shaped your student’s goals and aspirations, which can be quite enlightening. Ideally, students want to be story-oriented. While they can certainly discuss the person’s traits and background, the focus should largely be on moments that inspired or influenced their way of thinking and helped them define success. Scholarship providers are basically asking, “Why should it be you?” with this scholarship essay prompt.

8. Why Do You Want to Go to College?

For some students, this question is surprisingly tough. Many students saw college as a must from a relatively young age, essentially viewing it as anything as optional. Scholarship committees want to know that heading to college isn’t an afterthought or something a student is doing solely because they were pressured in that direction. Ideally, students should discuss personal motivations or goals that made college the right choice for them. That way, their passion can shine through. Have you studied abroad? Visited a foreign country on a family trip? Had a thought-provoking discussion with a teacher, religious leader, or friend? Think about an experience or a moment that challenged - or even changed - one of your beliefs or ideas. Explain what your original understanding of the idea was, when that idea was challenged, and how you felt about it afterward.

9. How Are You Planning on Financing Your College Education?

If a scholarship is focused on financial need, your student may face questions about how they intend to fund their education. This can be a difficult topic, particularly for students who may not be able to afford school without outside support, such as scholarships or grants. Students should actually start their essay by giving the committee insight into their situation, particularly regarding personal or household circumstances that make affording college difficult. After the overview, students should outline all of their efforts to secure enough funding. Often, scholarship committees appreciate it when students are taking every chance to find ways to pay for college. It lets them know that the student is passionate enough to go the extra mile and demonstrates that they aren’t afraid of challenges if it means achieving their goals.

10. Why Do You Deserve This Scholarship?

Writing an essay about why they deserve a scholarship can be hard for any student. However, it’s a topic they need to be ready to discuss. Your essay must stand out from the competition while still being humble and appreciative. Your essay will be unique to your experiences, but there are some general guidelines you should follow. Explain how the scholarship money would contribute to your long-term goals. You’re asking the scholarship committee to invest in your future. They want to ensure their investment goes to a worthy cause. Focus on the purpose of the scholarship. While writing your essay, keep in mind what the scholarship is for and where it comes from. Don’t be afraid to promote yourself. This may be your only chance to tell the committee about your achievements. Use a thesis statement, just like you would with any other essay. You should refer back to the thesis throughout the essay and tie it into the conclusion.

11. Reflect on Your Personal Growth and Development

Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your personal growth and development. Be genuine and honest in your reflection, and don’t try to present a perfect picture. Scholarship committees love genuine self-reflection. Use specific examples and anecdotes to show your growth and development. This makes your essay more interesting and relatable. How have you progressed and grown over time? What have you learned from your experiences? This shows you can learn and adapt. Use a clear and concise structure to tell your story, intro, body, and conclusion.

Read also: Creating a Strong Brag Sheet

Additional Tips for Writing a Winning Scholarship Essay

Brainstorm and Outline: Before writing, spend time brainstorming ideas and creating an outline to structure your essay effectively.
Be Original and Creative: Stand out from the competition by being creative and offering unique insights.
Show, Don't Tell: Use stories, examples, and anecdotes to illustrate your points and make a stronger impression.
Develop a Theme: Decide on a theme that sums up the impression you want to make and write about experiences that develop that theme.
Know Your Audience: Tailor your essay to fit the interests and requirements of the specific scholarship organization.
Submit a Neat and Readable Essay: Ensure your essay is neatly typed, double-spaced, and has adequate margins.
Proofread Carefully: Check spelling and grammar, and share your essay with friends or teachers for feedback.
Seek Guidance: Review scholarship essay examples and research essay writing techniques to enhance your skills.
Consider Reusing Essays: Write a great college essay and re-use it when writing scholarship essays for similar prompts. Combining essay prompts will not only save you time, it’ll actually result in a better essay.
Highlight Your Uniqueness: Everyone has a trait, a quirk, an activity that makes them unique, whether it’s sports, their upbringing, their hobbies, or interests. Share a story about your family culture, how you were raised, moments that shaped you into being who you are today.

Examples of Successful Scholarship Essays

To gain further insights, it's beneficial to review scholarship essay examples that have won awards. These examples can provide inspiration and demonstrate effective writing techniques.

Example 1: Peter Kang

Peter Kang won the Kang Foundation Scholarship ($1000), Kingdom Dreamer Scholarship Fund Scholarship through Sarang Church ($2000), and the national contest from the Lamber Goodnow legal team ($1000).

Prompt: Open topic.

Kang's essay showcases his commitment to family, resourcefulness, and passion for engineering. He effectively uses storytelling to illustrate his values and experiences.

Example 2: Ana

Ana won the New York University College of Arts and Science $39,500 Scholarship.

Prompt: Explain something that made a big impact in your life.

Ana's essay highlights the impact of ice skating on her life, demonstrating resilience, work ethic, and the ability to overcome challenges. She connects her passion for skating with her ability to tutor Spanish, showcasing her resourcefulness and dedication.

Example 3: Christine Fung

Christine Fung won the North Coast Section Foundation Scholarship for $1000.

Fung's essay emphasizes her responsibilities as a child of immigrant parents, her passion for the medical field, and her leadership skills. She effectively communicates her values and future aspirations.

Example 4: Steven Fisher

Steven Fisher won the Fund for Education Abroad Rainbow Scholarship $7,500.

Prompt: The Fund for Education Abroad is committed to diversifying education abroad by providing funding to students who are typically under-represented in study abroad. Please describe how you and/or your plans for study abroad could be viewed as under-represented.

Fisher's essay addresses the issue of diversity and acceptance, highlighting his personal experiences and commitment to creating a more inclusive environment.

Example 5: Jesús Adrian Arroyo-Ramirez

Arroyo-Ramirez's essay discusses his experience as an undocumented immigrant, highlighting his resilience, academic achievements, and determination to succeed despite the challenges he faces.

Community Essay

On the Common Application, a number of colleges have begun to require that students respond to a supplemental essay question that sounds something like this: Tell us a bit more about a community you are a part of. This essay is largely asking about your place within that community, it is a great opportunity to share more about you, and how you will most likely engage with that community (or other communities) on your future college campus.

Create a “communities” chart by listing all the communities you’re a part of.

Example 1

Korean or American?

A student discusses his identity crisis and how he learned to embrace both his Korean and American identities.

Example 2

The Storyteller

A student discusses his community of storytellers and how he uses theatre to entertain and educate young audiences.

Example 3

The Pumpkin House

A student discusses how growing a pumpkin in her front yard became a catalyst for creating interactions and community.

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