Perhaps I’ll elaborate a bit on our experiences here since my kid has done over half a dozen alumni and/or scholarship interviews in the last couple of months. When he was framing his applications, we discussed how, inevitably, admissions officers have to present a student to the committee as “that kid who . . . .” I then asked him to think about how he would like for his application to be summarized in “twitter-length.” That helped him draw out two or three key themes that he tried to make sure were reflected in his overall application package for each school across the Common App essay and the supps.
For interviews, I suggested to him that he re-read his application, with particular attention to the “Why X” essay, where relevant, and perhaps take a quick peek at the college home page to see what was happening on campus that week. During the interviews, he tried to be relaxed and conversational but with a goal of making sure that he addressed each of his key themes at some point in the conversation where there was a natural spot to do so.
It takes some practice, but if you can do that, you can stay “on message” without sounding canned. And you also can relate your experiences to something happening on the target campus that you might like to be a part of. This last point is probably what a scholarship interviewer would like to evaluate – i.e., if we spend our scholarship budget here, what type of talents/skills/engagement will we be adding to our class?