Who Should Review My Scholarship Essay

Your scholarship admission essay is a very important part of nabbing that all-important application that gives you entrance into your dream school – while high test scores and extracurricular excellence get you partly there, it’s a great essay that makes you really stand out from a pool of similar applicants. One key step in delivering a great essay is to get someone (preferably a few people, actually) to review your essay. But who should review my scholarship essay? Who will have a valuable outside perspective?

First off, go against your first instinct and don’t have your parents review your essay. The problem is that many parents are so encouraging of their children that they’ll actually be unhelpful when it comes to giving you real, constructive advice rather than just telling you everything looks great! If you still want your folks to look it over, tell them to go through your scholarship essay for specific, objective mistakes like spelling and grammar errors rather than broader considerations like structure and theme.

Who should review my scholarship essay, then? An honest friend who knows you well and isn’t afraid to give you constructive criticism is a good choice to review your essay. One of the best types of advice you can get from a close friend is how much your own voice comes through in your essay – and your friend should be able to tell you if you’re expressing yourself or if you just come across as dull and ordinary.

Another great person to have check out your scholarship essay is a teacher. Teachers are knowledgeable and have no reluctance about giving feedback since that’s an integral part of their job anyway! In addition to the obvious choice of an English teacher, try to find a teacher who will be close to the target audience of your actual essay to review your essay. If you’re applying for a scholarship to an engineering major, for example, try getting one of your math teachers to check it out.

Your scholarship essay is very important, so make sure you take all the necessary steps and get your essay reviewed!

*Photo of student writing an essay courtesy of Shutterstock

Posted in International Scholarships