1. Make sure you’re eligible and stick to the word limit
To get through the first round of applications, you must fulfil two simple requirements. If you meet the scholarship’s eligibility criteria and you stick strictly to the word limit, you will automatically proceed to the next stage, where real people read your application.
2. Share your achievements to prove your worth
If you don’t share your achievements with the people reading your application, they won’t know your worth. Don’t worry about ‘talking about yourself too much’ or ‘boasting’. To decide whether to grant you the scholarship, they want and need to know your achievements.
Diona, who recently completed her master’s in Education, Inclusion and Special Needs at the University of Hull, says: ‘Don’t be ashamed to talk about all of your achievements and the extra activities you have engaged in over the last few years. I wrote a lot about different activities that I’d done in school. I was wondering if I should, but then I decided there’s no harm in sharing what you’ve done. I put it out there. It could be something as simple as being part of the school dramatics association. Just make sure you show how this has been beneficial, and how being involved has given you different skills and how you want to embrace them.’
3. There are no right or wrong answers
There are no right or wrong answers if you talk candidly about your experiences. Share your story, your capabilities and your ambitions in the best way that 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, Diona asked the assessors – after being offered the scholarship – why they had chosen her. She says, ‘They said that one of the best things about my application was that I was totally honest about who I am. They liked my flow of writing. Remember to make your writing like a story that reflects all of the positive ways you’ve been involved in different activities’.
In Diona’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 building, leadership and management. After graduating, she wanted to stay in the UK to grow her experience within the field of education before returning to India to found and run a special education institution.
‘I’m hoping to start my own school one day where there is inclusive education and a proper platform for special needs. Just teaching in schools is not going to prepare me. I also need to understand the management, the admin and the marketing side. There is so much that goes into it’, she says.