<p>Well, my mom has been pushing me to check out some scholarships and I've run into some trouble.</p>
<p>Almost all the scholarships require you to tell them why you deserve the money, and that's my problem. I honestly don't know why I would deserve it. I work hard in school, but so does everyone else. My father was killed tragically and I have a single parent, but so do many other kids. I don't have a long laundry list of spectacular EC's. My mom told me she makes about 80K a year, which means I'm not economically disadvantaged. I get decent grades and have pretty good test scores, but there are many people who have scores that crush mine.</p>
<p>I just can't think of anything to write for these essays that isn't cliched or generic. It's so frustrating. I tried addressing my mom on this issue, as she was the one who pushed me to apply for the scholarships, but she won't have any of it. I recently won a 20k per year scholarship at a University of Michigan summer camp, so now she thinks that I can win any and every scholarship. I'm trying to think positive like her, but it's tough when you read all these stories about other extraordinary and brilliant students.</p>
<p>Anyone else struggling with scholarship essays?</p>
<p>I don’t know if this will help, but… last year I applied to the PA Governor’s School of the Arts, which is a free summer program that gives free instruction to exceptional students in various areas (arts, sciences, medicine, education, business). I had to write a narrative statement explaining my journey as an artist, struggles I’ve overcome, and what sets my apart. I was applying in theater and piano and at the time my drama experience consisted of participation in two school plays and my piano as taking lessons for many years. Nothing extraordinary. I certainly hadn’t had the grab-your-attention tragedy or disability that took years of struggle to overcome.One issue I had was feeling self-conscience about performing and I wrote about how viewing performance as a gift given to the audience helped change this. The Governor’s School ended up being canceled due to budget shortfalls, but they had a replacement program and I got in for piano. One of the women who had read the narrative statements said mine was one of the best she had read.
So that is a lot of back story (with I’m sure a lot of unnecessary detail) to say just write about something that’s important to you. I didn’t write something that proved how great I was, but I was honest and I think this helped a lot.
Do you have a goal for you life that you dream of accomplishing?
Have you worked on a project or class so that you’ve thrown your entire self into it?
What is an experience that has changed you as a person ( I know you’ve had one…)?
What do you love to do?
What is a challenge you have faced and overcome?
Use one of these questions as a leaping point-brainstorm and you’ll be sure to related it back to the main question “Why do you deserve this?” Believe me, none of the others applying for the scholarship have saved the world either.</p>
<p>If even you can’t think about why you deserve that money, then why should anyone give it to you?</p>
<p>You don’t have to be extraordinary and brilliant to earn scholarship money. Small projects and activities can be worth just as much as larger projects and activities. Maybe you didn’t save a busload of children, but you tutored some struggling elementary school child in math. Maybe you didn’t cure AIDS or plot the human genome at Harvard but you’re an excellent science student with a lot of potential who wants to work on the cure for cancer or AIDS. And so on.</p>
<p>When you write these scholarship essays think about the person that you want to become, and how that person will have an impact on our world, and how your past preparation in high school has helped you develop potential for becoming that person, and how your preparation in college – aided by the scholarship – will further develop your potential for becoming that person.</p>