Scholarship Hacks: It is All About YOU!!!

We are continuing our exciting new blog series “Scholarship Hacks” this week exploring ways to secure and ace scholarship interviews. Furthermore, we will also provide you volunteer opportunities and internships that can go a long way in helping you secure scholarships. Previous BridgeTO Youth Students will also continue to provide tips on how they secured enough money to go to University for FREE, so if you would like to know how to get a step up from the competition, read on!

It is All About YOU!!!

This week we will be diving into how to perfect your scholarship applications to make sure you are able to secure interviews and - of course - how to master your scholarship interview.  Before we get started I would just like to underline an extraordinary opportunity coming up, the BridgeTO Hack: Your Voice is Power event on May 29th.  It is a unique new learning experience that explores the ways music, computer science, and entrepreneurship can be tools to advance racial equity.  After the event, you’ll be able to submit your song into a final competition to have the chance to win $5000 college scholarships and a call with Pharrell. And the winning team of the BridgeTO Hacks event will walk away with an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil!  Furthermore, even if you do not win any of the prizes, participating in this event would look extraordinary on any of your scholarship applications.   

In any part of the scholarship application process, you must always be thinking of ways to best represent yourself; applications are about putting the best version of yourself forward.  Also, it is about verifying your good character with cleverly conscripted essays, strong references, and strong descriptions of activities you participated, led, or volunteered in.  Before starting a scholarship application make sure to brainstorm all your experiences, obstacles, initiatives, and activities you have completed throughout your life.  Then organize them based on how long has this event been a part of your life, how much of an effect this event had on you, your family, or your community, and how unique and significant this event is.  After organizing these events you can now decide what aspect of these events you can use on your scholarship application to ensure you are putting the best version of yourself forward in an effective and unique manner.  An example of this would be using different events to display key characteristics: for leadership, I would use my background leading and organizing community and school initiatives alongside my continuous effort to volunteer with organizations that lead change in my community.  Following up a scholarship application with a reference that can validate and advocate for this good character strengthens your application, and provokes a desire for scholarship committee members to see this person for themselves.  

After ensuring your application is in-depth, focus exclusively on elaborating on these experiences and connections to your exceptional character - utilize the tool of the show not tell (provide a personalized description of your experiences to help your application stand out and engage the reader).  Establishing a personalized scholarship application that effectively demonstrates your good character, allows your application to be unique and provocative, which ensures you at least make it to the interview stage.

Now you have received an email requesting an interview, yay, time for the fun to begin.  Before your interview, go over your application and underline key experiences you would like to elaborate on, also include any new experiences you would like to share.  During your preparation it essential you go over the scholarship requirements, and the characteristics they are looking for (connect these characteristics to the experiences you plan to discuss in your interview).  It is also a good idea to check out previous scholarship winners to see what characteristics they all share (it good to be similar, but always make sure you focus on pushing forward your own unique character).  These interviews are all about you, but you must ensure you're putting forward a version of yourself that exemplifies the characteristics the scholarship is looking for.  On the day of your interview triple-check the time and location of your interview, do a trial one all the way up to starting the actual call.  In the excitement of the moment, you might misread an email and end up being late to your interview - take it from the guy who made this mistake and lost a 10k scholarship, RECHECK THAT EMAIL!!!  No matter the format of the interview (phone call, in-person, zoom call) dress to impress, get into that mindset of being the best version of yourself.  Ensure your interview space is clear of clutter and is a private place with good reception.  For the interview show your excitement and your jitters, it okay, it helps loosen up the atmosphere and put the judges in a good mood (make sure to maintain an optimistic and positive attitude throughout the interview).  Now for the questions, TAKE YOUR TIME: only say what needs to be said and answer the question concisely and effectively.  Do not repeat your scholarship application, create a dialogue and bring in unique experiences that make the interviewer ask you to elaborate or clarify something (I sometimes use acronyms or weird events names to provoke the interviewer to ask a question).  Going back to the point only say what needs to be said this is important in two different scenarios: when asked a question you do not have a good answer for, provide a concise answer so you are able to move on to better questions and not waste time; when asked about your financial situations focus on underlining the struggle (you are as broke as you tell them you are, so make yourself sound dirt poor) of course do not lie on the application that never workout, but focus on the barriers you face, your family background, and the astronomical cost of textbook, tuitions, and classes (also if you have to support your family make sure to include that in your interview).  Lastly, at the end of your interview make sure to show the judges the utmost respect, thank them for their time and considering your for the scholarship, and also if time allows it give a one-minute elevator pitch of what makes you an excellent candidate (this should be a recap of your application and interview that allow the judges to better understand why you are such an exceptional candidate),