Scholarship Essays: Get Insight into What Committees Look For

[sydneyfranke]

Just a quick question. I have some essays to write for this scholarship and I just wanted to maybe get some insight into what committees often look for.

I have 3 of the five written so far, and I really just tried to be genuine and personable. Is this a wise route or should I go more strict and direct?

Also, there is a maximum character for these essays. 3 are 1500 character and 2 are 1000 character (I don't know why they call these essays, that's barely a paragraph). Anyways, I've gone over on pretty much all of them. Its an electronic application and the text box counts spaces as a character. Is this going to be a problem? I think its going to take me longer to shorten it that it did to write the darn thing. One I'm about 300 characters over (1500 max) and the other around 120 over (1500 max), and I got the other one down to 51 characters (1000 max). Is this something that is going to be frowned upon? I realize they have quite a few to read and so they don't have time to read some sap's life story, but I don't really know how to shorten these up any more without making them seem incomplete. But I don't want to come off right out the gate as someone who can't follow instructions.

Anyways, any help would be appreciated.

 

[Choppy]

I can't say what these particular committees will look for, but what you have to remember is that everyone else is in the same boat. If it's an electronic form that counts characters, chances are it's got a filter that will exclude anyone who goes over - not always, but you know, if I had to read a hundred essays, I'd be using the filter to chuck any that went over.

So that means you're stuck trimming your answers down. If you can't explain your answer in the space given and cutting out words here and there doesn't work, try starting over from scratch. Figure out the single most important point you need to communicate for each answer and build from there. Often what seems necessary really is not.

If that's still not working, try a completely different answer. Remember not to aim for the absolute optimal answer to the question, but the optimal answer you can give under the conditions of your reply.

 

[sydneyfranke]

Excellent point. Thanks.