Scholarship Application for Beginners

1. Profile Assessment: Some scholarships are skewed towards people with certain academic or extracurricular profiles; for example, people with first-class or strong second-class upper, leadership, or demonstrated academic research capabilities. One would need to do their due diligence to ensure what is obtainable before throwing in their weights.?

For example, my colleagues who won scholarships from Commonwealth Shared, Erasmus Mundus, Mastercard Foundation, or some federal government of Nigeria-sponsored programs like SPDC, PTDF, NLNG, etc., had first-class or second-class upper: I have yet to meet any with second-class lower or who had just HND. Conversely, I have met colleagues who won Chevening Scholarships who graduated with second-class lower or had HND from the polytechnic; however, they had solid leadership or social enterprise engagements.

2. Gain Broad Knowledge About the Scholarship: Reading about the specifics of the scholarship gives one the talking point to mention in one’s essays and interviews. For example, a scholarship that is focused on climate education and sustainability would most likely require the applicants to demonstrate their interest in the same using varied nuance approaches across their essays.? Knowing this would help the candidate to be thorough in the choice of examples they use, how they describe their vision for the world, and how they see the scholarship helping them bridge the gap. Furthermore, this would ground the applicant in knowing about the specific opportunities the scholarship provides for their scholars as part of their developmental process.?

For example, part of being a Mastercard Foundation Scholar at the University of Edinburgh includes opportunities to participate in the transformational leadership experience at the Baobab Summit, being a part of the Ekasi Podcast, Placement-based Dissertation in their home country, Scholars’ Retreat, and opportunities to make pitches for their enterprises at the Edinburgh innovations. Every scholarship has its specific opportunities: reading about it would enable the prospective applicant to know how to mention them. These can be discovered on their website, social media, and interactions with past or current scholars.

3. Read About the School and the Specific Programs: Spending time reading about the school is a useful endeavor. It gives insights into the rankings, areas of strength of the school, unique achievements, and quality of the faculty. These are aspects that when they appear in one’s essays show that one has done their due diligence.?

For example, the University of Edinburgh is ranked 22nd in the 2024 QS World University Ranking, a member of the Russel Group, ranked top-five in the UK for research power, and 290+ student societies. For an MSc program like Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the triple-accreditation of the Business School, the diversity of the course, and componentry like company treks to London, consultancy projects with leading organizations, and the case method used in courses like Managing Innovation in Context make the program a good choice. Mentioning specific components like those delineated above and justifying their relevance to one’s vision makes an application come across as strong.

4. Improve Your Writing: Strong writing encompasses the use of tenses and techniques. Understanding frameworks like the STARL approach or the Rule of Three, having the skills to know how to distribute the word count across the components of the acronym, using the right words to convey one’s intent, and deploying the right example outputs a strong essay.?

For example, for a scholarship that emphasizes climate education, where one is asked to give a leadership example, citing how one is teaching low-income students Mathematics might not be a good example. In choosing a fairly good example like tree-planting, where the count is 250 words, it does not make much good to use 150 words to describe the scenario that led to the action. In listing one’s actions, listing 10 activities is probably watery: how about putting them in three broad categories and describing the actions under each with at most three activities??

There are several ways to improve one’s writing. Googling scholarship essays, for example, would pop up a lot of results- from essays to YouTube videos- and spending time to read through them is useful. Also, spending time reading books, articles, and research papers is a good use of time, too. Lastly, learning to optimally use generative AIs like Claude and ChatGPT would be to some advantage. For example, using them to generate initial drafts, improve your essays, or get feedback.

5. Use Your Word Count: I am yet to understand why a scholarship would candidates to write 500 words for example and candidates choose to write 150 words and hang their pen. Learning to optimize the word count is very important. It is an opportunity to convince the reviewer about your candidature to get the maximum possible point in the rubric. Furthermore, I am equally consternated about candidates who just SINCERELY say they do not have any experience with a given prompt that would be graded.?

For example, if an essay asks about the challenges you face when you work in a group then you sincerely say you do not have any challenges you face when working with others. That sincerity probably did not show a lot of reflection or skills in breaking down words. Lately, if any essay provides you an opportunity to tell the reviewers or the scholarship board any additional information about you, it might be a good idea to use it especially if there are components in your application that might not be too advantageous, for example low CGPA, unique challenges experienced and how one navigated it, or specifics about your family.