Scholarship Office

Most scholarships receive more applications than the number of awards available. A strong essay can help your application stand out to scholarship reviewers and improve your chances of being selected for an award.

Tips for writing your scholarship essay:  

• Learn about the scholarship and read the essay prompt carefully 

• Outline your essay before you start writing 

• Write your essay in a word processing software (for example, Microsoft Word) first so you can save it and return to it later 

• Check your spelling and grammar carefully, either in the word processing software or by using a program like Grammarly 

• Read your essay out loud or ask someone else to read it to you to make sure it is clear and easy to read 

• Before you submit your application, make sure you have answered all parts of the essay prompt 

Remember!

• Most of your scholarship application essays will be read by review committees made up of faculty members, so avoid typos, emojis, slang, and grammatical errors

 

Sample Essay 1 - Please describe your educational and career goals, how you plan to accomplish them, and how your program(s) of study will facilitate those accomplishments. Please limit your response to no more than 300 words. 

I am a first-year student at Oregon State University, getting a bachelor's degree in Human Development & Family Sciences with a Child Development option. I love working with children and have volunteered to help kids learn how to read at Corvallis Elementary School and co-led a literacy group. Myself and other high school students talked about ways to better help kindergarten kids struggling with reading and writing. It was a hard challenge, but we gave it our all. This project made me realize I want to work with kids in the future.  

To achieve my goal of helping kids, I will work hard every day. By doing well academically, I plan to learn knowledge to be a better professional.  Having a college degree will enable me to be a teacher or work at a higher position in a school. I am not exactly sure if I want to be a teacher, so the HDFS degree is better for me to have more options after I graduate than an education degree. 

Also, during high school, I was named Most Helpful Volunteer by Key Club, and my fluency in Spanish will help. I will use my language skills to communicate with and support Spanish-speaking kids and their parents. It’s good for people working with children to be bilingual.  

I want to help positively impact the lives of children and their families. I am confident that I am on the right path to make a difference in the lives of children. I am grateful for the opportunity to be considered for this scholarship. 

 

Scholarship reviewers want to learn about you as a unique individual, so consider sharing more of your personality through your essay: 

• Include examples or stories that will help reviewers connect with you and your experiences 

• Ask people who know you well for suggestions 

• Be authentic in your answers—reviewers want to get to know the real you  

 

Sample Essay 2 - A revised version of Sample Essay 1 that includes more stories and examples

Volunteering with the literacy initiative at Corvallis High School has inspired my future career goals. Through this volunteer work, I realized my goal of helping children throughout my life and chose to earn my degree in Human Development & Family Sciences (HDFS), with a Child Development option. While I was co-leader, we brainstormed ways to support the kindergartners we worked with. One of the kids was having a very hard time reading aloud if anyone was listening. We knew about therapy dogs who help give children confidence while reading. After extensive research, I found a therapy dog handler who was willing to help. We brought the dog in, and that child read aloud for the first time that whole year! He was so proud of himself, and I felt so rewarded by his success. This is why I’m so focused on supporting children. While I’m not sure if I want to be a teacher or work with children in another way, my HDFS degree will give me many options after I graduate. 

Through my HDFS bachelor’s degree, I will learn about different stages of a child’s development and build a strong foundation for my future career. An internship with OSU’s Child Development Center will help me gain experience with children and allow me to recognize milestones. In addition to my HDFS degree, I will also minor in Spanish. I already speak Spanish fluently, but I plan to improve my written communication skills. Many of the families in this area speak Spanish, and being bilingual will allow me to connect with parents on a deeper level. I am confident that I’m on the right path to making a difference in the lives of children, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to be considered for this scholarship. 

Submitting a resume as part of a scholarship application is an opportunity to show the scholarship committee how you spend time outside of school. Be sure to include any experiences that give the scholarship reviewers a sense of who you are and why you are a strong scholarship candidate.

A strong resume is:

• Organized
• Uses accessible formatting and fonts
• Highlights your most important accomplishments
• Includes your experiences in addition to school and work, including family responsibilities, honors and leadership, extracurricular activities, etc.

See a sample resume for a scholarship application here. 

Many OSU scholarships are made possible by the generosity of our donors, and it is incredibly meaningful for donors to learn about the students their gifts support! We hope that you will help us thank them and encourage them to support future OSU students by submitting a thank you letter if one is requested.

• Tips and examples for writing thank you letters will be posted soon!