This week, we will unravel two more scholarship excuses:

photo credit: quinn.anya

My grades aren’t good enough/I’m not “smart.”

I’m not an athlete.

You don’t necessarily need great grades to apply for scholarships.  Some scholarships require at least a C average, and some require an A+ average.  You don’t even necessarily need to be an athlete.  While it is true that many scholarships require good grades or athleticism or a combination of these attributes, not all scholarships do.  And plus, as we will discover in a subsequent scholarship post, everyone is “smart.”  Everyone has some kind of special talent or skill or characteristic.  The key is to find a scholarship that rewards such a trait, and not to disqualify yourself.  There are scholarships for everyone, and I mean, everyone!

photo credit: hectorir

I don’t do anything besides school.  I don’t have any extra-curricular activities.

Sooo…ummm…get some.  No, really.  While some scholarships don’t require some sort of extra-curricular or altruistic pursuits, many do.  Such activities demonstrate the well-roundedness of a person.  It makes you seem interesting and dimensional, and, to be quite frank, you want to be (or at least should want to be) an interesting and dimensional person, scholarships aside.  They prove to a scholarship committee that Person A didn’t spend the last four years of their life locked up in a library somewhere, lacking social skills and never seeing the light of day, or that Person B, while being a stellar athlete, also cares about his or her community.  The key is to get involved in an activity or initiative about which you are absolutely passionate – whether it be basketball or basket weaving.  This way, such an activity becomes less of a chore and more of a hobby or past-time, increasing the chances that you will be able to find the time to do it as it becomes more enjoyable and important to you.  Admittedly, it is harder to get involved if you commute to school as a university student, but many clubs have flexible schedules or don’t meet as often.  If you can’t find something that suits your interests or schedule, get a few friends together and start your own club.

Scholarship committees can also smell a fraud like durian fruit in a supermarket.  It looks suspicious if you have no record of involvement, but suddenly joined ten clubs during your last year of high school/university, or the year in which you apply for the award.  Scholarship committees want to see consistency and dedication to an initiative.  It impresses them if you helped develop that initiative over a period of time and took some leadership.

In short, it doesn’t matter what you do, just do something (productive) and stick with it!

Author: Simone Samuels