Reusable Materials 8: Adapting Essays to Multiple Applications

Thursdays we discuss how reusable materials help you WOW committees and save time

Barbara sought multiple scholarships. The scholarships search engines described many of the possible scholarships as essays. Writing essays bothered her. She felt like every application asked for a different essay, so she kept writing each essay from scratch. We taught her how to adapt essays she had already written to qualify for the scholarships.

Use Essays You Already Wrote

Last week we shared essay topics currently requested by scholarship committees.

You will notice, as you review the topics, that you probably already wrote essays about some of those topics. The titles may not match exactly, but you can adapt them to do so. You may also change a few phrases or sentences in existing essays to adapt them to what the scholarship committees want.

For example, you may modify any essay you wrote about:

• “What you wanted to do when you grew up” for essays on “Future Career Aspirations”and “Where do you want to be in 10 years?”.
• Family members or historical figures for “Describe a person you admire” or “Who has been the biggest influence on your life? Why?” or “Name someone you feel changed the world.”
• A current event or societal issue for “Pick a controversial problem on college campuses and outline a solution” or “What do you consider to be the single most significant issue in society”

Adapt Phrases and Sentences

You may also expand your themes and home run statements into essays. For example, adding more details about each of your home run statements can create a 350 word essay for the following essay topics:

What traits will enhance your education and future employment?

Describe how you have demonstrated leadership both in and out of school.

Why are you a good candidate to receive this award/scholarship?

What have you done in the last six months to make the world a better place?

You can also ask English teachers to change the topics of class writing assignments to scholarship topics.

Saturday we share a caution about scholarships that appear too easy are usually scams