Not every scholarship application is successful, and scholarship request rejections are a frequent cause of worry for students who are more than capable of excelling at a top college but do not have the financial resources to pay the tuition bills in full. Most colleges separate scholarship requests from admissions, and thus, even if you are applying for a scholarship and have your application rejected, you can still study at that college if you can come up with the money. For students, this means the possibility of having to take out a student loan, which is a burden since it needs to be repaid after graduation, and having to work at one or two part-time jobs to pull themselves through college.

The first thing to consider when you are applying for a scholarship is to be realistic about your chances. If you are applying for a full scholarship in an ivy league college and you don’t have the academic profile to merit a scholarship, you might as well be wasting your time. It is far more prudent (and this will save your time) if you pursue a combination of a multiple avenues of funding your college expenses, thus aiming for a partial scholarship instead of a full scholarship.

The most important thing in your scholarship application is the letter of request. It is your chance to convince the college why they should let you benefit from their scholarship fund at the expense of other students (eventually, the money you get is the money someone else does not get, and vice versa). While this does not mean that you should shun competition, the idea is that when applying for a scholarship, you should present the strongest possible case, and the most prominent component of your application is your letter.

In your letter, take care to highlight what you offer to the college as a member of their student body. The best way to do this is to do some research and find out what the college is looking for (take note of the specific wording in the prospectus) and emphasize those factors of your profile that match. While everyone approaches scholarship letters with the mindset of ‘asking for money’, try to write your letter by focusing on what you can offer to them. The switch from ‘asking’ to ‘giving’ is a powerful marketing and psychological strategy; why not use it in when you are applying for a scholarship?

By structuring your scholarship application according to what the target college is looking for and at the same time making a reasonable scholarship request, you will stand a much better chance of success when you are applying for a scholarship.