Get a Second Opinion for Your Scholarship Essays
If you are trying to write an essay for a college scholarship, you might want to get it checked out by a couple different people before turning it in. They will be able to give you feedback on your writing so that you can make your essays as good as they can possibly be. It can’t hurt to have multiple people look over your essay because that will give you different ideas to play around with. You just have to make sure you contact the right guys (or girls) for the job. Here are five people you should ask to review your scholarship essays.
Professors or Teachers
Your instructors are going to be the best people to review your scholarship essays. Ideally, you need to ask your English teacher or professor to look over everything to check for grammar and punctuation. You might also want to ask an instructor related to the subject of the essay, like having a history professor read an essay about an event from the past.
Academic Advisors
Your guidance counselor or academic advisor might be more in tune with what scholarship committees look for than other people would be. Have him or her look over your essay from a board member’s perspective. If you know someone on the scholarship committee for the award you are applying for, you could speak to them about ways to improve your essay. That person many not be able to give you a direct opinion, for neutrality purposes, but he or she could point you in the right direction.
Financial Aid Advisors
If you are in college or you have access to the college you want to attend, contact a financial aid advisor for help with your essays. If they cannot assist you directly, they may be able to tell you about other essay review resources available through the school. Many colleges these days have writing centers that you can visit to get helpful advice from graduate students, assisting professors, and other qualified people who can improve your writing.
Your Friends and Classmates
Your friends are going to be brutally honest with you, so at least you can get the truth out of them. They may not fully know what to look for, but they can tell you if your essay sounds like a bunch of bull.
Also, have a couple of your peers review your essays and offer to do the same for them. These should be people who do not know you well. Hopefully they will give unbiased opinions that will help you out in the long run.
Successful Scholarship Recipients
If you know other people who have received the scholarship you want, ask them to look over your essay. They obviously know what they’re doing, so they can theoretically help you find the same success. Some scholarship search programs, like ScholarshipOwl, will allow you to connect with past winners online to get advice on what they did to win their awards. If you can apply those theories to your essays, you have a good chance at winning the scholarships you want.
If you can get some honest opinions from those people, you should be well on your way to getting the money you need for college.
