Previous Post – Part 1

Make Learning Their Mission Your Mission

There is no mystery to fguring out why organizations give away money. In most cases, the organizations come right out and tell you what they are trying to achieve with the award.

Start by carefully reading the award description. Oftentimes organizations spell out what they are looking for in the description of who is eligible for the award. Sometimes they provide the criteria that they use for judging the competition. Criteria can include qualities such as academic achievement, community involvement, leadership, specific career goals and character.

These requirements are valuable clues. Is there a minimum GPA? If there is and it’s high, then academic achievement is probably important. Does the application provide a half page to list your activities? If so, then your involvement in organizations and projects outside of school is probably a fairly signifcant part of the selection criteria. Do you need to submit an essay on a specifc topic or a project to demonstrate your profciency in a feld of study? All of these requirements are clues about what the scholarship committee thinks is important. Visualize yourself  filling out their application. Would you have enough information to fill all of the blanks and answer all of the questions? If not, then you may want to consider passing on this award to focus on one that you are more qualifed to win.

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