Ask ThroughMBA : Scholarship Essays- theme and structure

Hi Alex,

i wanted to know something about Scholarship essays.

For Tuck they have asked for A brief biographical essay. How many words should we limit ourselves to? Also how is it different from Tucks Last essay about adding value? Are we supposed to mention about our financial constraints?

Hi daffy

For Tuck scholarship essay, we normally advise a two page essay(about 1000 words). A biographic essay should stuff two parts. A flavor of your life and another one showcasing your best attribute. Since you would have mentioned a part of this in the 4 essays above, its a challenge to pick another style.

The two stories one encompassing the life in one to remember you as a candidate. It should be the theme.Look across your notes, across all the things you've done and all the things you are and all the ways you do things, at your memories, your stories, your preferences, your aspirations. Look for patterns and themes - words, ideas or situations that show up repeatedly.

Label yourself through your the second story. Make it more towards a person who is more rememberable rather than remarkable. So a creative problem solver wins over IT Guy.

How it is different from the "new perspectives" and "life experiences" essay?

First lets see what the last essay wants in totality : It wants a match found message.

--- A picture of knowledge, interests and perspective of the candidate with its exact impact on Tuck community
--- It requires a really good exercise of finding out the clubs, associations etc. A campus visit mention would have been impressive.
---It subtly tells you are fit for Tuck, structurally
---Take pride in associating your background, culture and any other unique factor to TUCK or the reason for your selection
---complete the essay establishing a CONNECTION between you and Tuck

Now for this scholarship essay:
You can pick a label for yourself.
Your label is important because it makes a difference if you become labelled with something interesting and valuable-sounding that can have a positive influence on undecided members of the committee, or something generic or flippant-sounding that could harm your chances. This label is merit-nature based.

You can mention the financial constraint as another story element.

Hey Alex!

This is a really old thread so not too sure if you're still around.

Would you mind sharing tips for an Insead scholarship essay? The questions are fairly straight forward - I only wonder if it is ok to send in an essay similar to my application essay or should it be somehow more suited to a need based scholarship.

Thanks!

Mayank

throughMBA was a fake consulting and hence now they are not in picture anymore. Their website, facebook page everything is down. They were up for just one season, made a fool out of people and now gone into oblivion.

I really believe that the structure of an essay is a big problem for many students. More practice and more material on essays is needed.

It looks really useful, thank you so much for sharing this with us