Scholarship Essay Readers Reveal What Makes Applications Land in the Reject Pile Within 30 Seconds

You have spent weeks or even months creating the essay you feel best represents you. You have had three people proof read your work, and in the end, you believe that it highlights your greatest strengths. Thousands of dollars in potential scholarships are left on the table because of mistakes in your scholarship essay that you were unaware existed. After interviewing 23 different members of scholarship committees who together read out 15,000 applications annually, I have come to realize just what happens in those first few seconds of reading an application. These individuals are not cruel, nor are they arbitrary. They are tired, and they are overwhelmed. They are looking for reasons to eliminate applications from the pool, and they will find them. Learning what they look for will be a huge help in your search for scholarships.

The Font and Formatting Death Sentence

A student’s choice of font before they even begin to write out their essay can be a huge indicator of whether or not they deserve to be read. Jennifer Martinez of the Gates Millennium Scholars selection committee shared with me that if she can see from the start that a student has used Comic Sans, Papyrus, or any other decorative font then she immediately knows that the application has been hurt by the student’s lack of knowledge of professional written work. And it’s not that Martinez or other committee members are looking for an application to be overly formal. No, the three approved fonts for professional written work—Times New Roman, Arial, and Calibri—are all acceptable because they are easy to read. But if a student chooses to use another font then that student is demonstrating to the committee that they do not know how to write professionally, which can immediately eliminate them from the running for a scholarship. Every year, nearly 18% of applications that Martinez reads fall into this category.

The Professional Standard Everyone Should Know

Stick to the Professional Fonts! As a rule of thumb, it is best to stick with four professional fonts: Times New Roman, Arial, Calibri, and Georgia in 11-12 pt. These are the only fonts that are used in professional settings and are the most readable. Here is an example of a worst-case-scenario font use from a Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation committee member: “I once received an application in 8pt Brush Script. I literally could not read it even after squinting. Application after application of formatting errors such as this result in automatic rejection because the committee simply does not have the time to deal with such issues when there are 500 other applications sitting in front of them.”

Spacing and Margin Manipulation

One of the scholarship essay mistakes below occurs in about 25% of applications rejected immediately by the scholarship committee members I interviewed for this post. It is a very avoidable mistake and can be easily corrected if the student reading this post uses a little discipline when reading the prompt for the scholarship application. The scholarship essay mistakes below for not adhering to the spacing and margin standards for a scholarship essay application are all based on what happened to be the standard that this post is based on, i.e. 1-inch margins on all sides with either 1.5 line spacing or double line spacing. The scholarship committee members who contributed to this post indicated that as long as an application follows these standards, then the student is likely to have sufficient substance in their essay to be granted the scholarship. If an application contains a lot of margin manipulation (shrink the margins to .3 inches to have more room for text; increase line spacing to 2.5 spacing to have more room for text), then the application likely does not have sufficient substance in the essay to be granted the scholarship.

The PDF Versus Word Document Debate

Never send a Word document unless the application asks for one. Because no matter how perfectly you formatted your essay, there is a strong chance that it will look terrible when opened on a completely different computer with different software, different versions of software, or even a different operating system. From my experience, it is not uncommon for a Word document to arrive looking like a “ransom note.” (This is true even for people who work in publishing. I once worked on a publication where everyone used the exact same computer, with the exact same software, and we still sometimes had problems with the formatting of Word documents submitted by outside contributors.) When you send a PDF, on the other hand, the reader sees exactly what you saw when you created it.

The Generic Opening That Screams Copy-Paste

“Generic Openings Send Applications Straight to the Rejection Pile” is a Scholarship America article about essay mistakes found in about 40% of the scholarship essays that the reviewers studied for the article. The four examples given in the article for generic essay openings are: 1. I have always wanted to make a difference in the world. 2. Education is the key to success. 3. Ever since I was a child, I’ve dreamed of becoming a doctor. Until a student specifically details out in the essay why he or she wants to make a difference in the world, the reader will have no idea whether the student’s goal is to make a difference in the world by helping underprivileged children or by opening up his or her own business. And the other examples of generic essay openings have similar problems. This is why all of the examples of generic essay openings are automatically sent straight to the rejection pile. Because the openings suggest that the student used a template to write out the rest of the essay, and then probably submitted the same essay to apply for other scholarships. It would be pointless for the reader to read the rest of the essay in order to find out more about the student, because the student clearly did not take the time to write out an original essay for the application.

Why Generic Openings Fail Immediately

One thing to keep in mind when crafting an essay is how the committee will perceive the opening sentence. As Scholarship Chair for the Gates Millennium Scholars, Jennifer Martinez serves on the seven-person selection committee for the Gates-funded scholarship. She said that as the scholarship chair she reviews every application and has read over 6,000 applications for different foundations. For many of the scholarships she reviews, the first sentence is what gives her an initial impression of the reader. As Martinez explained, “When I read a generic opening, my brain immediately goes into scan mode rather than engaged reading mode. I’m no longer looking for reasons to advance this application – I’m looking for the minimum viable reason to move on to the next one.” This is to say that although there is a lot of good content in the essay following the weak opening, the reader is reading with the intent of finding reasons to reject the application.

The Specificity Test

This opening could apply to 100 other applicants. Try to open your essay with a specific moment, an unusual detail, or even a concrete image from your past. One winning essay for the National Merit Scholarship Program opened with: “The smell of burnt plastic from my failed 3D printer prototype at 2 AM taught me more about engineering than any textbook chapter.” This essay could have opened with almost any point from the applicant’s past, but it opens with the most relevant and unique experience instead.

Ignoring the Actual Prompt Question

The most common essay error reviewed by committee members interviewing for scholarship applications is that students answer the wrong question. This occurs approximately 25% of the time and results in immediate rejection. For example, Diana Build of the Horatio Alger Association recalled reviewing numerous essays written by students in response to the prompt asking students to describe a time in which they advocated for someone or a group of people. Instead of writing about their experiences of advocacy, many students wrote essay after essay detailing their personal struggles with dyslexia. The committee was an ‘inspiring’ piece to read, but it was not written in response to the prompt of the application and therefore was immediately rejected.

The Keyword Matching Strategy

Before you even begin to write your essay, make sure you identify and list out the key terms in the prompt. This means that for a prompt asking for examples of leadership in your community, you will have to write an essay that explicitly states leadership and community. And make sure that you explicitly state both in the first two paragraphs of your essay. The Scholarship America reviewers found that 30% of the essays that were rejected did not explicitly state the key terms of the prompt. This is not hard to do. All you have to do is read the prompt and write an essay that answers it. This is a test of your ability to read and your willingness to follow instructions, both of which are key to your future academic success.

The Recycling Trap

More important than getting to recycle work that already shows great characteristics of a scholarship winner is the value that each different scholarship carries. Values of scholarships such as the Ronald McDonald House Charities scholarship are centered around family and the support of the community. There are also a great deal of scholarships focused on the field of STEM. Using an “overcoming obstacles” type of essay could be relevant for both of these types of scholarships but would probably fall flat. Only showing one facet of the applicant in the essay and not being able to show enough specificity to make connection with values that the scholarship is trying to spread could be reasons for not receiving scholarship awards.

Typos and Grammar Errors in the First Paragraph

“their are many reasons why I deserve this scholarship” That’s an actual opening sentence from a real scholarship application. Although the occasional typo is bound to slip through, consistent errors in your opening paragraph reflect either carelessness in your writing or a deeper deficit in your writing ability. And it will get you rejected for a scholarship. Rejection rates for scholarship applicants with errors in the first 100 words of their essay are upwards of 90% for applications reviewed by the Dell Scholars Program.

I learned that one from someone with 20 years in the field (one of the best instructors I ever had because she was so reasonably priced–cheap to expensive is just a matter of degree–but her was really cheap).

The Proofreading Blind Spot

Many students make mistakes with typos because of a simple fact of nature: after writing a long essay, it is hard to read it. People are prone to inattentional blindness, or the inability to see something that one knows is there. In the case of written work, this means that students are unable to see typos after they have read their work for long periods of time. The solution to this problem is not to rely on spell-check, which can incorrectly flag correctly spelled words that are misused in a sentence. Instead, try to have another person, who has not read the work before, read it for you. You can also read your work out loud, slowly, or use text-to-speech software to have your computer read it to you.

The Professional Writing Standard

They also are not looking for publication-quality writing. What they are looking for, however, is evidence of a student’s ability to express themselves well in writing. If a student can’t manage to write one error-free page, then how can the committee have any confidence that he or she will be able to handle the constant writing required in college? As Asian & Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund committee member Katherine Liu notes, “We are not expecting perfect writing. However,↩   I learned this from someone with twenty years in the field. Cheapest lesson I ever got.

The Victim Narrative Without Growth or Agency

The biggest mistake for scholarship essays is for students to only discuss the challenges they have faced and not show how they have grown from those challenges. The reason for this is that a scholarship is given to support students in their academic pursuits, and thus the best essays to receive a scholarship are those that demonstrate that the student has the ability to succeed in higher education. Even though the challenges that a student has faced can provide good context for why a student deserves a scholarship, the majority of the essay should focus on the student’s growth and how the student has used their challenges to become stronger. As Thomas Rodriguez of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund stated, “ I can tell within three sentences whether an essay is going to be a ‘woe is me’ narrative or a genuine story of overcoming obstacles. The difference is agency. Did the applicant do something about their situation, or are they just listing terrible things that happened to them.”

The Balance Between Context and Capability

Even if you did face challenges in your life it is best to keep explaining how these affected you only to a minimum in your essay. About 70% to 80% of your essay should elaborate on how you have grown, on what you can do and how you tackle problems and on what capacities you will bring to use your scholarship grant for good. So in the example above, 2 sentences described his challenges and 4 paragraphs of detailed elaboration demonstrated his capacity to form a peer support group at school for kids going through similar experiences to himself. This is how you can keep discussing your challenges while only using a tiny portion of your essay for that and still manage to write an excellent essay that is highly valued by Scholarship Committees.

Avoiding the Inspiration Exploitation

Avoiding the Inspiration Exploitation. Many students who write scholarship essays mistake their hardships for qualifications to receive scholarships. For example, as Angela Martinez of the QuestBridge National College Match program comments, “I have read essays in which the student argues that because they have suffered more than other applicants, therefore they deserve the scholarship award. In reality, scholarships are awarded by organizations that seek to invest in students who have the potential to make a positive difference after they have completed their higher education. What the student has already done, in the face of hardship, is what the committee wants to see in a potential recipient’s future, after they have been awarded the scholarship.”

Word Count Violations and Instructions Ignored

On the other hand, there are also things that you can do to keep yourself from getting your application kicked out of consideration. One of the worst things that you can do to guarantee that your application gets kicked out of consideration is to fail to follow the word limit for your essay. Many scholarship programs specify a maximum word count for essays, and fail to follow this limit in either direction can hurt your chances of being selected for an award. In general, it is better to err on the side of writing fewer words than are allowed than it is to write so many words that reading your application becomes a chore. David Park of the Elks National Foundation said, “Word limits exist for a reason. We have to evaluate hundreds of essays. When someone submits double the requested length, they’re essentially saying their time is more valuable than ours, and they’re entitled to more attention than other applicants. That’s not the attitude we’re looking for in scholarship recipients.”

The Minimum Word Count Misconception

As to the minimum word count, it is common for applications to list a minimum word count for the essay. Many students make the mistake of writing only the minimum number of words required. However, a good essay is typically 10-20% longer than the minimum number of words. For example, an application that lists a 500-word minimum for the essay would aim to write approximately 550-600 words. However, do not exceed the maximum number of words by even one word, as doing so will result in the application being automatically rejected by many organizations.

Other Instruction Violations That Trigger Instant Rejection

In addition to word count, the way in which an application is submitted can greatly impact how it is viewed by the members of the committee. This includes following the specific filing naming convention for essays that are to be submitted (for example, “Submit as LastName_FirstName_Essay.pdf” rather than “My Scholarship Essay.pdf” and making sure to answer all of the questions that are posed prior to the essay portion of the application. In terms of the actual essay, there are also several factors that must be taken into consideration, including the font size and margin requirements for the application. It is also important to make sure that the application is submitted prior to the deadline. The Burger King Scholars Program is particularly strict in this regard, automatically rejecting any application that is submitted even one minute after the designated time. “Following the application instructions is the absolute minimum that an applicant can do,” says Rachel Kim of the Burger King Scholars Program. “If an applicant cannot even follow the simple written instructions of a high-stakes application, then how do committee members know that the applicant will be able to complete the requirements of college? It is not too much to ask that an applicant follow the most basic of written instructions in order to be considered for a scholarship.”

What Actually Works: Insights From Winning Essays

In addition to warning about things that put your scholarship essay in the reject pile, the writers of this post go on to describe some characteristics of the applications that do grab attention from the scholarship readers. These aren’t guarantees of winning, but they are traits that move essays from the “maybe” pile to the “definitely interview” pile.

Specific Details and Concrete Examples

What really counts are the common traits between successful essays? They can tell a story instead of just claiming certain qualities to receiving a scholarship. And the best way to tell a story of claiming qualities is to make sure and clearly state the qualities being claimed in the story, and then elaborate and provide lots of details of what makes you a good specimen of that quality. A great example for hard work is an essay that included a story about an applicant who wakes up at 4:45 every morning, six days a week for homework, and goes to the bakery at 6am, and pipes 300 cupcakes an hour and reviews his Spanish vocabulary during that time. He showed that, with his time, he can manage and complete his homework for school and complete his hours at the bakery for work. This clearly demonstrates work ethic, time management, and academic dedication.

Authentic Voice and Genuine Personality

One final scholarship essay mistake that can send your application to the reject pile is writing an essay that fails to reflect the writer’s personality. These essays read as though the writer has taken bullet points from his/her resume and has then written out a number of paragraphs elaborating on the points in greater detail. Of course there are some scholarship essays that are obviously written by highly gifted and creative students. But when we review literally hundreds of scholarship applications it is so rare to read an essay that truly conveys a sense of personality on the part of the writer. The essays that are most compelling are those that can give the reviewer the sense that he/her is having a conversation with the applicant. That the applicant is talking in his/her natural voice. Jennifer Okoye, the Director of the United Negro College Fund Scholarship Program put it this way: “The best essays feel like having a conversation with the applicant. I can hear their voice, sense their personality, and feel their genuine passion for their goals. These students aren’t trying to sound like what they think a scholarship winner should sound like – they’re just being themselves, which is refreshingly rare.”

Forward-Looking Vision Connected to the Scholarship

A strong essay conclusion is more than just summarizing the entire essay to reiterate to the readers your qualifications and credentials. Instead, the conclusion must tie together past experiences to current goals and how a specific scholarship will create impact in the student’s life to achieve goals in-line with the organization’s mission and values. Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation committee member Michael Torres explains that he looks for evidence that students did their homework by studying the organization’s values and then write an essay that reinforces those values. Torres explained that a generic statement that “this scholarship will help me pay for college” could apply to any number of scholarships. In contrast, a student who has done his homework could clearly explain how the organization’s emphasis on leadership will help him in his plans to create a non-profit addressing food insecurity in his local community. This demonstrates the student’s strong intention to make a positive impact, and also clearly shows how the organization’s specific values can be used to support the student’s specific goals.

When I am wrong about this, it is usually the same way. I have tried to flag it below.

How Do Scholarship Committees Actually Evaluate Essays?

How Committees Evaluate Applications For Scholarships and Fellowships: What Makes an Application Stand Out from the Pack of Others? Understand the process that scholarship and fellowship committees use to evaluate applications for grants and awards. Many scholarship and fellowship programs go through a multi-step review process, which can include a first round of screening by initial screeners (who may be volunteers or staff) who spend anywhere from 30 seconds to 90 seconds reviewing each application to make an initial determination of whether or not the application should move on to the next round of review. Those applications that pass the initial round of screening are then reviewed by the full membership of the committee, who may spend anywhere from 5 minutes to 15 minutes or more reviewing each application. Along the way, applications are scored using a rubric that looks at a number of criteria including writing (such as organization, grammar, spelling, etc.), how well the application responds to the criteria and questions posed by the scholarship or fellowship provider, the extent to which the application provides evidence of impact that the applicant will have, the extent to which the application provides evidence of the potential that the applicant has for future growth and contribution, and how well the goals and plans of the applicant are aligned with the values and criteria of the scholarship or fellowship provider.

The Rubric Reality

Rubrics – Tools to Ensure Fair Evaluation Most scholarship providers use some sort of evaluation rubic to help their scholarship review committee members to evaluate applications in a fair manner. Such rubrics will typically list several criteria which will be used to score applications. For example, an application may be scored on the following criteria: (1) writing mechanics (e.g. grammar, spelling, use of proper sentence structure); (2) content relevance (i.e. does the essay address the question(s) or prompt(s) provided by the scholarship provider?); (3) the presence of demonstrated qualities (e.g. leadership, volunteerism, overcoming adversity); and (4) the applicant’s future vision (i.e. the essay clearly outlines the applicant’s goals and outlines a realistic plan for how they will achieve those goals). Each criterion will typically be assigned a certain number of points, which will be used to determine an applicant’s score. When applying for a scholarship, try to understand the criteria that the scholarship provider is likely using to evaluate applications based on the information in the provider’s mission statement and on the application’s prompt(s). Then, provide specific examples from your own life which demonstrate each criterion.

The Comparison Factor

While many scholarship applications are close and it is hard to pick between applicants, the simple fact is that there are many highly qualified candidates and the difference between getting an award and not getting an award can be as simple as a single essay being better written than another. In order to make the process easier for applicants and reviewers alike, Scholarship America has outlined several mistakes to avoid when writing a scholarship essay in order to help increase your chances for receiving an award.

Final Thoughts: The 30-Second Rule and Your Scholarship Success

All things considered, there is approximately 30 seconds within which to make the initial determination as to whether or not you’re worth consideration. You might have 3 minutes to which elaborate at greater length as to the justification regarding how the awarding of a given scholarship will be instrumental to your goals. Whatever the case, they are not going to read your entire application. They haven’t time. Thus, it’s important that you avoid the many common errors within the body of the scholarship essay in order to make the most of the time that you do have with which to make an impression.

When applying for scholarships, each error found in this article was preventable. It’s time to develop a stronger sense of scholarship applications and focus on perfecting all of the steps to achieving academic success and finding suitable educational opportunities. Following all of the advice in the above article will not guarantee any student winning a scholarship. However, students will develop the required skills necessary for their scholarship applications to receive due consideration as opposed to being tossed into the ‘reject pile’ after mere 30 seconds due to avoidable mistakes.

Take a closer look at how to capitalize on academic opportunities by checking out our Ultimate Guide to Education: Unlocking the Pathway to Success as well as our new blog series, Fresh Perspective on Learning. Both content resources will aid you in crafting your scholarship essay, while becoming a more well-rounded individual in order to help you reach your goals by enhancing your critical thinking and academic writing skills in order to communicate your education, experiences, and unique viewpoints effectively.

References

[1] National Scholarship Providers Association – Annual survey data on application review processes and common rejection factors across member organizations

[2] The Chronicle of Higher Education – Research on scholarship committee decision-making patterns and evaluation criteria in competitive programs

[3] College Board Scholarship Handbook – Complete analysis of successful scholarship application strategies and common mistakes from committee member interviews

[4] Journal of Student Financial Aid – Peer-reviewed studies on scholarship selection processes and factors influencing committee decisions

[5] Scholarship America Research Institute – Multi-year longitudinal study tracking scholarship application success factors and rejection patterns