3 essentials for scholarhsip applications 📑

Season’s Greetings everyone!

Although Christmas has officially passed, I’m taking some time to give you guys a special treat. Whether you celebrate or not, today I’m going to gift you with my 3 rules to applying for any type of scholarship. Getting a scholarship to study in Sweden, or anywhere for that matter, is no easy feat. I think that the tips I’m about to give you helped me set my application apart, allowing me to be shortlisted and granted a scholarship to study in Sweden. So, without further ado, here they are:

• Embrace your authenticity and uniqueness

I think this is the most important point to consider when applying to any scholarship. Any person reviewing a scholarship application is trying to answer the question, “What differentiates this person from the rest, and why should I grant them this award over everybody else?” The right answer to this question comes from your ability to speak to your accomplishments, your passions, projects and sometimes even just your unique point of view. Just listing these items won’t get you the scholarship though 😅. How you speak to those accomplishments, passions, projects or points-of-view is just as, if not more important than the achievements themselves. So how should you approach this? Let’s discuss.

My high school English teacher was always adamant that wherever we found ourselves writing, we needed to ‘PEE.’ ‘PEE’ is an abbreviation for point, example, explain. It’s pretty much self-explanatory, meaning that you should first make a point, then give an example of that point, and finally connect the two with the subject of your writing. Let’s say that you’re a student applying to study a degree in biomedicine, and while you were in school, you organized a campaign to raise awareness about the dangers of smoking. Your scholarship application should not only reference your successful campaign, but should also speak to your motivations for setting it up in the first place, and how you believe that the campaign aligns with your passion and study interest. Putting this all together, an example of this could be:

“I was always interested in phenomena associated with Biomedicine, especially those related to the effects of smoking. In fact, while I was in high school, I organized a campaign to raise awareness around smoking and its negative effects. The experience allowed me to deepen my understanding of smoking and I’m extremely excited to learn more about it, and other topics like it, during this program.”

On top of that, a nice tip to remember is that scholarship reviewers love to hear the stories behind your passions, and if you have an interesting one to tell, then by all means tell it. For instance, we could preface the statement above by saying:

“Growing up, I lived in a community where smoking was rampant. At the time, I didn’t understand the activity, or the effects that it could have on the people who engaged in it. As I grew older though, I began to recognize how devastating its impacts were on my community, having lost people who were close to me to illnesses linked to smoking.”

Speaking about your unique and authentic experience is a bit like writing a playbook about your life. The time you spend writing about the things you have done, and where you want them to take you, can actually be very eye opening and may even help you to do the second rule.

• Figure out why you’re applying to the program

This time of year tends to be a moment where we stop and reflect, spending some time with our families or sometimes just with ourselves. Luckily, it’s also the perfect time to do some planning. During this season, we start to ask ourselves questions like, “What are my goals for next year?”, “What have I achieved?”, “What are the things that I am enjoying or not enjoying in life right now?”, and “Based on my life thus far, where do I want to be going?” Don’t feel pressured to know for sure how to answer these questions. After all, it’s not easy, sometimes only time and experience can help us to truly understand where we want to go. Just be sure that you have some direction in mind – one that you can speak to. In the end, preparing this essay is just the first step, only requiring you to understand at a high level what you want for yourself.

• Be human

This tip is especially for those who are submitting videos as part of their applications. For me, applying for a scholarship to study in Sweden meant that I needed to make a short video explaining who I am and why I think I should be the recipient of that award. Making the video took a few tries, but ultimately, the video I chose to submit wasn’t a perfect one. I did stutter, I slipped on a few words, and I may even have laughed a little. The thing is, people tend to connect with emotion and vulnerability. Now, I’m not saying that you should take the video lightly, I’m saying that, contrary to popular belief, being vulnerable is not something to be ashamed of, it’s actually something to appreciate. So smile in your video, talk about something that makes you feel happy, don’t be afraid to be your authentic self!

Well, that’s it for this post. I hope these scholarship tips will help you with your applications! Feel free to comment any questions or other ideas you have! See you next time!