Are you considering applying for a Great Scholarship? 2021-22 India Great Scholar Deona shares with you her top tips based on her experience of the application process to help increase your chances of success.
1. Make sure you qualify and stick to the word limit
To get past the first round of applications, you must meet two simple requirements. If you meet the scholarship’s eligibility criteria and you stick strictly to the word limit, you’ll automatically move on to the next step, where real people read your application.
2. Share your achievements to prove your worth.
If you don’t share your accomplishments with the people reading your application, they won’t appreciate you. Don’t worry about ‘talking too much about yourself’ or being ‘proud’.
Dionna, who recently completed a Master’s in Education, Inclusion, and Special Needs at the University of Hull, says: ‘Don’t be shy about talking about all your achievements and the extra activities you’ve been involved in in the past. What has been done over the years? I wrote a lot about different activities that I did in school.
Great Scholar at the Scholars Ceremony in London, 2022.
3. There is no right or wrong answer.
If you are open about your experiences, there is no right or wrong answer. Share your story, your skills, and your ambitions as best you can, and try to structure your answers in a way that makes the most of the limited space you have.
To learn from the process, Dionna asked reviewers – after the scholarship was offered – why they had chosen it. ‘They said the best thing about my application was that I was completely honest about myself,’ she says.
They liked the flow of my writing. Remember to make your writing like a story that reflects all the positive ways you have been involved in various activities.
4. Talk about how the scholarship will affect your life.
People reading your application will want to know what you hope to gain personally and professionally from receiving the scholarship. Your answers are your chance to show how receiving a scholarship will affect your life.
In Deona’s application, she wrote about how getting her master’s in the UK would be the first stop on her journey to achieving her career goals. The course she applied for at the University of Hull focused on job creation, leadership and management.
‘I hope one day to start my own school where there is a proper platform for inclusive education and special needs. Teaching in schools alone will not prepare me.
A student is writing by hand in a workbook. She is wearing a blue top and we can only see her hands and her workbook. She writes with her right hand and her left hand is decorated with intricate henna designs.
‘I hope one day to start my own school where there is a proper platform for inclusive education and special needs’.
5. Show how receiving the scholarship will benefit people in your home country.
You will be assessed on your ambitions, including the long-term, and in relation to the value that receiving a great scholarship will add to your home community.
In her application, Deona emphasized that beyond her career ambitions, she hopes that the school she wants to establish will ‘make education in India more accessible and inclusive to students of diverse abilities. will make, and not just for those who can afford it’.
6. Go for it, and if it doesn’t work the first time, keep trying
That’s probably what they’re thinking. And if you don’t try, you’ll never know. So it’s worth taking your chances. And if at first, you don’t succeed, or you don’t find exactly what you’re looking for, there are always other options that will help you achieve your goals.
‘If you don’t get accepted for a scholarship, don’t worry about it,’ advises Deona. Instead, see it as a learning experience. Ask for feedback from the panel that received your application and implement what they tell you in future scholarship applications.
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