SCHOLARSHIP ESSAYS In the era of technology please let your idea be wrong not

grammar because this will make the person reading your

essays question your linguistic ability or think you don’t take
the application seriously. Where you are compared to
thousands of other applicants, don’t be found lacking on
something so easily avoidable.

HOW SHOULD MY ESSAY DEMONSTRATE THE FOUR

POINTS?
It’s all about telling a story. Sharing a specific example of how
you completed a major task or project you were assigned, or
succeeded when presented with an obstacle, allows a
Winning essays start with understanding the personal listener/reader to visualize how you work by contextualizing
statement questions and answering them CONVINCINGLY. your experiences and skills. It demonstrates your ability to
Both the writing (use of English) and the content should be produce results and provides a concrete image for the
near perfect given the amount of excellent candidates out listener/reader to remember you. We recommend you create
there that will be equally contesting. Therefore, your essays examples using the following Situation Task Action Result
must demonstrate (STAR model) for each of your key accomplishments, as well
 Passion as your transferable skills and personal qualities. These
 Guts examples can be a fundamental part of developing a good
 Insight and essay and therefore are worth spending some time on.
 Impact
We shall talk about these in details later
It's also good never to be in a hurry to submit. It will do you
well to have someone read, correct, edit and vet your essays
before submitting. From my experience, it is better to submit 1
– 2 weeks to deadline and not too early. This is because you
get ideas every day. You can also use online sites to check for
grammar and other mistakes but don’t save your work online
as this will be considered to be plagiarized. The following are
some of the online links you can use to edit your work:
 www.hemmingwayapp.com Situation
 https://Prowritingaid.com Explain the situation that you were in. This should be a short
 https://www.grammarly.com description, it could be: ‘during degree’ or ‘whilst working’.
 https://www.grammarcheck.net/editor/

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Task everything you can find on writing winning essays. You see the
You need to briefly explain what it is that you had to do, and difference between the winners and those yet to win is simply
what the success criteria was. If you were working as a group WORDS! Not just words, but how they combine them to paint
explain what the overall task of the group was but be clear a beautiful collage. It is first word smith or word mastery before
about your own role. it has anything to do with profile. Mind you the essays are a
limiting step to progressing to the next step of the Chevening
Action application process.
This is the most substantial part (around 50-70%) of any
example and you need to include: For career plan essays, the STAR approach is usually not
 What you did. applicable, use the SMART approach:
 Why you did it.
 How you did it.
 What skills you used.

Result
There is little point in explaining the situation, task and action if
the reader is left wondering whether what you did made any
difference. So be prepared to explain:
 What happened as a result of the actions you took?
 What you would do differently or improve?
 What impact the result had overall on the team task?

Checklist
 Use an example that is up to date and relevant.
 Talk about action that you took not just a whole team.
 In the action part of the example cover the skill and
qualities that are being sought.
 Try to use an example with a positive outcome.
 Be concise.
 Give at least 2 clear examples.
 Include figures, percentages etc in your example
especially the results part, but don’t exaggerate.
You must let your desire for a scholarship, any particular one,
overwhelm you even before the application cycle draws near.
It should drive much of the things you read or research on
social media or scholarship groups. E.g reading much of

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The letters (SMART) have been explained above, so let us
take each in turn with an example that a friend of mine (Taty
from Mozambique) gave last year (2017):
Specific... "I want to end hunger" is a broad and vague
statement not a specific one....I want to contribute to hunger
reduction by engaging in rural extension/development
financing/input acquisition (or whatever route...these are
hypotheticals) to increase farmer outputs as farmers constitute
X% of whatever nation, community etc. Notice how there is a
how to a specific statement. It's not Miss Universe where you
can say "world peace and not qualify it.
Measurable....a goal should be measurable and how it is
measured should be clear in your goal statement e.g. in the
example above farmer output is a physically measurable thing
that is implicit in its measurability and i can choose to or not
elaborate....e.g. With my background in production of x, plus
my masters in y upon returning these skills can help me impart
the knowledge to increase farmer output of x crop (let’s say a
staple) from current level of say 40 tons per hectare to the 100
tons being achieved by more developed nations (say U.K
where you are going to study)...this can further be qualified in
a number of ways....will the output translate to more income?
Will that income translate to poverty reduction? Reduced food
insecurity index? Reduced malnutrition? Longer life
expectancy? Lower infant mortality? Happiness....notice how
all the latter are quantitative but happiness is qualitative so a
measure doesn’t need to be a number always. In some cases
you can quantify e.g. increase or decrease by xyz percentage
but in some fields you can’t put a number to things.
Attainable and Realistic....i will talk of these together as they
are entwined. Here we mean are your goals too large and
sweeping to the extent they are physically impossible given
resources or foreseen resources i.e. you cannot make claims
to single handedly end hunger for instance but you can
breakdown your contributing towards the cause of HUNGER
REDUCTION by tackling a SPECIFIC ASPECT of the problem
alone (improbable) but more likely as part of an organization in
a particular role therein which is why sometimes it's best to
discuss what you will do in relation to your organization,
immediate community etc rather than speak for the entire
country or sector. Attainability also has to do with coherence
e.g. i cannot say that I will cure cancer and yet have not
engaged in prior research for a considerable amount of time to
be respectable and the one year masters cannot magically
equip me to become a miracle worker. Yes you are studying to
progress but there should be a realistic link between prior and
future skills acquired through masters in attaining your goal.
Time bound (also linked to realistic a bit) as in how much
time? By when? Set time lines? "I will lose 20kgs weight" is
just a statement. No one can hold you to that. Do you mean in
1 year or in 10years? The timeframe of your goal gives a
realistic measure to an outsider whether it is doable or not. Are
you claiming to improve sugar cane yields across an estate in
only one year? You will be laughed at. So your claim must be
time specific. I will lose 20kg in one year tells someone
something they may support and believe you. I will lose 20kg
in one week with no lipp, no one will buy this.
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If you want to become an art director, your time-bound goals
might look like:
• Five-year goal: "Get hired as an art director."
• One-year goal: "Land my first paid graphic design gig."
• Six-month goal: "Graduate from my undergraduate
Bachelor of Visual Communications degree."
• One-month goal: "Find a graphic designer to intern
with."
• One-week goal: “Pull together a graphic design
portfolio of all my work so far."
Breaking down your macro goal into time-bound micro goals
will help you stick to the plan, make the most of your time and
keep you on track to achieve your overall career plan. Follow
this link and this link for further examples.
Chronology as relates to career goals. The same way you
don’t lose weight overnight is the same way your career is not
going to come to fruition overnight. You have an end goal?
Great. How will you get there? You have a short term goal?
Great. Does it end there? Make it clear what you will do in the
first two years after graduating and where you expect it to lead
you and how in 5 years and 10 years i.e. achieving your stated
SMART goals.
NOW UNIVERSITY PERSONAL/MOTIVATIONAL
STATEMENTS:
These are usually written for admission purposes. Please do
read the university website's instructions about it and answer
every question asked or cover every area needed. A good
personal statement can mean the difference between getting
an offer and being rejected. Your personal statement should
show the reader that you are the right person for the
course.You need to:
 carefully read the information required of you
 Research the course you are applying for, so that you
can explain why you want to study it. If you are
applying for more than one course, do not use the
same statement for all applications.
What should be the Structure?
Use a tight structure in your personal statement and make
sure each paragraph logically follows on from the one
before. Your personal statement must:
 have an eye-catching and interesting introduction, and
an engaging middle part and conclusion
 have an introduction that acts as a framework for the
rest of your statement, with the main part of your
statement detailing your interests, experience and
knowledge
 Be between 250 and 500 words but can be longer
depending on the university’s requirements.
 Have short sentences of no more than 25-30 words.
 Use headings (if you wish) to break up the content -
for example, 'Why this university?' 'Why this subject?'
'Ability', 'Personal experience' and 'Career aspirations'.
What should be the content?
Generally, include this in your essay:
 Why you are applying for the course - any skills or
competencies you envisage the course will offer you?
 Any specific course modules you're interested in/any
particular research areas you will want to focus whilst
doing your master's?
 Any particular tutor/lecturer you admire and want to
model your life in that way? Why that/those particular
lecturers?
 Your past academic, social, professional, economic
experience relevant to the course? This may show your
passion or ability to overcome challenges in a new
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 environment and also your ability to complete the
course.
 Why that particular university?
 Your career plan - immediate and long term.
 Explain any gaps in your CV and any low marks in any
particular area.
These cover nearly every personal or motivation statement
that the UK universities require. These are not cast in stone
though, they are subject to modifications. Whereas most
traditional universities don't place emphasis on why the
university, the upcoming ones may place greater emphasis
there. So you need to tailor your essay accordingly. If you're
applying for a subject that is in a different field to your
undergraduate degree, tell them why you have decided to
change your direction of study. Think about:
 how you will bring fresh insight to your new course as a
result of your undergraduate degree
 the reasons for deciding to change your field of study
 How changing your direction of study will help you with
your future career.
What should be the Language?
Your tone should be positive and enthusiastic. It should show
your willingness to learn and persuade the reader that you
have what it takes to succeed on one of the courses. You
should:
 Use fresh and exciting language to make your
application stand out, and use engaging opening
paragraphs
 Use accurate grammar, punctuation and spelling
 Use clear language in short sentences and avoid
extravagant claims
 Avoid using generic terms and talk specifically about
the course. Example:
Don't: 'I was inspired by the University's world-
renowned researchers and world-leading facilities.'
Do: 'I was inspired to study Animal Biology because of
the ground breaking work into the behaviour of bees
that is being led by Sussex Professor Francis Ratnieks.
I follow the work of the University of Sussex Laboratory
of Apiculture and Social Insects and would be proud to
study in such a renowned department and contribute to
its highly ranked research.'
 Proofread your statement and ask a friend or relative to
read it.
HOW TO CUT DOWN AN ESSAY TO REACH THE WORD
LIMIT.
 Choose your best examples
Some people might have more than 10 examples but
due to the word limit, you just have to give a few
examples: 1, 2, 3 or 4 depending on which ones you
are comfortable with. You have to choose your best of
the best examples that you have.
 Come up with your first Draft
You will find it difficult if you are going to write an essay
for the first time and expect it to be 500 words. Start by
first pouring your heart into your laptop or paper.
Whatever you are using, even if it’s 20000 words, first
write everything you want to say, read and then when
you finish, read through you will discover that some
things are irrelevant. Some things can be written in a
better way, begin to remove some things, leaving what
you need.
 Write your essays when your mind is rested (fresh).
When you are too tired, you won't think properly, if you
don't have an option, then work at night but utilize
weekends and early mornings. Ensure that you look at
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 your essays when your mind is fresh. You will see a
difference and you will change some things.
 Write your work in a Chronological order
Your work should not be scattered, for example, you
can start by saying; I work in a market. As a marketer I
sell vegetables, tomatoes and fruits. I am also a
counselor. I ensure that my patients recover from
depression and other related things. In the market, I
was selected as the head marketer because I always
got there in time and made sure my fellow marketers
had space to sell their products. Please let your work
be in order. Have an introduction, main body and
conclusion for your essays.
 Don’t start defining
Or quoting or even explaining general stuff that will eat
your space. Minimize on using quotes by famous
people. Unless it's extremely short and applies to your
example. No explaining e.g one who is a leader makes
sure the team mates are motivated, he/she finds
solutions etc. Please this stuff should not be in your
essay. Unless the question asks you to write about
who you think a leader is, instead personalize it and
say ; as the president of ABC, I made sure I motivated
my teammates. Furthermore, I came up with effective
solutions that were implemented and ABC happened,
Personalise your essay as much as possible, let them
talk about you and not the leader but the leader in you.
 Remove verbs and replace them with other words
This one is important. A verb is a doing word. For
example; I came to discover that Evelyn likes chocolate
can be replaced with; I discovered Evelyn likes
chocolate. I then went to talk to the chairman of our
village can be; I liaised with the village chairman. In
fact use good academic professional words if possible,
I negotiated with the village chairman, I collaborated
with the village chairman or I had successful meetings
with our village chairman over the matter. So look out
for verbs and replace them if possible. Instead of I
became use I was selected, I was appointed = 3 words
but Being appointed = 2words. My leadership skills
started when I was in high school when I was chosen
to be a head-girl = 18 words can be “My first leadership
role was in high school, as a head girl’ = 12 words or
during my high school days, I was selected as the head
girl. There are many ways of killing the rat so are the
ways of shortening it. So ensure that you look out for
irrelevant things. You will want to mention each and
every detail, but it's not going to all fit. Be brief but
detailed and clear.
 Get to the point
This will save you some words and enable you put
more examples in your essay.
FURTHER TIPS ON ESSAY WRITING:
The scholar’s journey writers have compiled a list of common
errors. Here is a compiled list of common errors from their
website that applicants often make when writing their
scholarship or admission essays. As usual, the emphasis is
Chevening Scholarship, although this is applicable to other
essay types. Ask yourself whether you are making one of
these mistakes as you tackle your essays. Avoiding these
essay traps could improve your chance of being selected.
1. Not Understanding the Essay Prompts: Make sure
you understand the essay prompts. Ask someone who
has mastery of the English language if you don’t. Do
not set your own questions. If asked to write about your
leadership potential and influence, do not start off
listing your academic exploits or writing a thesis on the
bad governance in Nigeria and how you’re the chosen
‘messiah’. Chevening, for example, is a scholarship
that is significantly tied to leadership, so essays that
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 ask about network impact ought to show team
leadership instead of focusing on how the entire human
race is your friend.
2. Essay Overload Syndrome: This means writing
everything that comes to mind and forcing them into
your essays. Writing your essays without first drafting
an outline will ensure that you create a disjointed and
lack-luster essays. Use the STARS model already
elucidated to structure the outline before tackling any
essay. Allow the essay prompts to guide you, as you
do this.
3. Generic and Vague Writings: Example, “I am a great
leader…I am a fantastic organizer…I am a creative
strategist and an excellent time manager”. What
exactly do you mean by these adjectives? Anybody
can say just that! Show, don’t tell. Demonstrate that
you’re a great leader, not by writing so, but by citing
specific examples of what you did, the challenges you
overcame, in what circumstances, and what you learnt,
and the impact you had. Genericity will increase your
chances of producing boring and ineffective essays. Be
highly specific. State the place, the time, the people
involved, quote the numbers affected and mention the
obstacles surmounted. Generic essays are written
without a clear message and they are boring and
worse of all, annoying. You can never go wrong being
over-specific, but you’re already wrong being generic.
Word of caution: Where you think the assessor may
not believe the statistics you quote (e.g. if you did a
project that benefited 5000 people and feel the
assessor is not likely to believe your accomplishment),
it is best you play down the stats, and say, “over a
hundred persons benefited”. This way, you are still
specific but moderate. This is better than the
vagueness of saying, ‘my project benefited many
people.’
4. Using Informal Writing Style: This will depict you as
very unserious. Avoid them. Writing stuff like: hey bro,
ain’t, legit, ur, lol, I wanna, I’m gonna, using slangs,
using shorthand, spelling errors, not observing
standard line and paragraph spacing, using local
language or vernacular, using too many slashes and
hyphen etc. These are all red buttons. No assessor
may read through on sighting these. Your application is
simply dropped in the trash even if the essay content is
as qualitative as a Pulitzer award winning novel.
5. Selfishness: Concentrating too much on what the
scholarship can do for you and not what you can do for
the scholarship sponsors, or for your home country.
For Chevening, too much usage of “I” can be a very
good thing, as the emphasis is you. Nonetheless, for
some other platforms, too many “I’s” can make you
come across as arrogant; balance your individual
accomplishment with your team involvement.
6. Going Back Too Far: Using accomplishments from
ages back, for instance, during high school, especially
after you have been working for 10 years, may not
come across as compelling. If you have to go back that
far, it is important to make sure the example is major
and has special relevance in shaping who you have
become as a leader.
7. Using Clichés, Common Wisdom, Sermonizing,
and Stating the Obvious: The selection panel knows
what conventional wisdom says. They care about what
you personally think or believe not what Socrates said
about leadership.
8. Overusing Quotes: Quotes indeed have a place in the
essays, but think long and hard before using up
precious space to quote some Greek poet or business
leader. The assessors are interested in your original
thoughts, not those of a dead philosopher.
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9. Not Answering the Question: Do not set your own
questions. If the question asks for leadership impact,
be sure to tell a story that clearly depicts you as a
leader. If the question asks for career plan, give
examples of SMART goals you hope to attain rather
than why you’re changing your career pathway. Don’t
beat about the bush. You will only annoy the
Assessors.
10. Not Being Memorable: Choose clear and relevant
stories that are in sync with the Scholarship Brand.
Unusual stories or a different take on a common topic
can be interesting and capture the mindshare of the
Selection Committee. Again, do not lie! Do not invent
stories. Write your ordinary story in a great way. Liars
are sooner or later found out! Originality and passion
are the most important strategies to creating memory.
11. Writing Too Many Essays at the same Time: Avoid
writing multiple essays for different schools and
scholarships at once. Tackle the essays one
school/scholarship platform at a time and complete
them before working on another school’s essays. More
so, do not underestimate how much time and work are
needed to develop a winning application. Give yourself
at least one month to complete the essays and add
another month or two for reviews. There is a reason
the Chevening application window is that lengthy.
Submitting too early will not earn you any additional
points.
12. Inappropriate Usage of Humor: Don’t be funny for
the sake of being funny. This will question your sense
of judgment. Your essay is serious business, and not
playing time. Trying too hard to sound funny will not
win you any friends on the Selection Panel. Humor if
ever used, should be subtle.
13. Being Too Stiff/Over-formal: This is the opposite of
the inappropriate humor mistake. It is expedient that
you open up and share personal (appropriate) stories
that give the assessors insight into who you are and
what matters to you. Concentrating all your essays on
your professional life misses the chance to show the
full range of your personality, motivations and
character.
14. Trying to Be Remarkable/Creative: Sometimes, less
is best. Plastic essays can always be detected by
expert psychologists after 3minutes. I’m not against
creativity but ensure that your creativity resonates with
the Scholarship’s theme and that it comes off well
instead of appearing like a scam.
15. Repetition: It is necessary to bring up different stories
to show the expanse of your personality, experience,
and perspective. Citing the same example recurrently
will suggest that you have a dwarfed experience-base.
16. Too Many Advisers/Editors: Too many chef spoil the
broth. Beware of the too-many-cooks syndrome.
Getting feedback from someone well acquainted with
you, especially if that person is a good writer could be
helpful, but it’s a disaster to have your twenty friends,
your entire family, and every other Dick and Harry
review your essays. This will produce a tasteless and
incoherent application. In my opinion, 3 proof-
readers/contributors suffices: An alumnus or current
scholar, an academic in your chosen field and
someone who knows you very well on a personal level.
17. Rush Hour Syndrome: Do not wait till the last
moments to begin your applications. True, some have
won the award by simply starting the application and
submitting on the same and final day, but you are not
some people, and you may not have their graces.
Proper preparation prevents poor performance. Don’t
be in a rush to complete your application. Rather, focus
on producing excellent applications. The best
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 applications are a result of intense introspection, focus,
and multiple revisions.
18. Plagiarism: Plagiarize to your own peril. Most serious
scholarship or grants commissions have got apps
which enable them to screen for plagiarism. If your
work gets assessed as 60% plagiarized, your
prognosis is already poor. Plagiarism involves
interposition, poor citation, failure to use quotation
marks where they should be, invalid citation,
paraphrasing, sentence plagiarism, multiple-source
plagiarism, paragraph and whole document plagiarism
etc. Plagiarism is a whole topic on its own, that I shall
write about sometime if heaven permits. It is the reason
why many essays as ‘wow’ as they were, could not be
selected, having failed the originality test. Some of you
may have templates or have seen winning essays
online, use them to glean wisdom only as to style and
coherence. Any ideas you catch therefrom must be
developed in your own words and in the context of your
own experience. Plagiarize to your own peril.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON ESSAYS IN THE APPLICATION:
 Your essays are excellent if they have followed the
STARS model for your leadership and networking.
They're excellent if the career plan followed the
SMART model and if the course choices showed clarity
of purpose as well as evidence of research.
 This year there will be loads of fantastic essays. Final
deciding factor for all the good essays submitted may
therefore rely on clarity and the level of evidence
produced. There, cite the links to the important stuff
you've done, name the personalities, name the group,
name the blogs, state the certifications and awards
received.
 Combine quantitative and qualitative evidences.
 Be needle-point specific.
 Don't be in a hurry to submit.
 Make your sentences shorter and clear.
 Use synonyms to contract phrases and save words.
 Maximize the word-count (do not exceed).
 Check your stuff for grammar and punctuation errors.
 Make your paragraphs proportionate (not one too
short, and the others disproportionately too long.
Above all relate your course choices and career plans
to Chevening priority and DFID goals (a lot of persons
forget this). We will talk about this later in detail.
 Importantly too, do not rely on Chevening alone, seek
other funding platforms. We will post other
opportunities later.
*Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are those
of the author and editors’ experiences and do not reflect
that of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and
its partner organizations.
References:
 The scholar journey website.
 Google
 Notes by previous scholars.
Issue Date: 24/06/2018
Compiled by # certified