3 Powerfull Steps to Get Scholarships For Master Degree
Since i obtained scholarship and am working in education consultant company, i found common mistake that people usually do in their scholarship applications. Applying scholarship is quite different with apply for job or organiztions. So, i will share my experiences to make your application appealing for the scholarship institutions. These 3 steps will make the scholarship instution pay more attention with your applications. Lets begin.
1. Focus on Motivational Letters/Essays
Every year scholarship such as Chevening, Fullbright, DAAD or another scholarship receive thousand applicants around the world. They have to do screening to receive candidate based on their quota. Some of country may have different quota each year. For example, Indonesia got quota for Chevening around 60–80 person per year meanwhile, in Venezuela, they only receive 8 person per year.
it mean they have some parameter to select right candidate. Some elements such as IELTS, LOA may become consideration for scholarship hunter especially for some people have ambition to have more than 6.5 IELTS score. But, in scholarship instutions, they have differents perspective. They usually consider our motivational letter to ensure that their candidate is the right one. Motivational letter will be unique selling each person (you can check my motivational letter here). Each person has different experiences, expertise that express the scholarship instutions. For example, i am working as entrepreneur and build school in rural area. In the motivational letter, i told my outstanding experiences and helping people to get better educations. So, i can earn money and build social business in the same times. It help to be accepted in 3 scholarships.
How if i dont have any working experiences?
a. You can use your project or organizations experiences to tell your work
b. You can work in the company, and apply scholarship later
For me, i will chose plan B, since i like people who has experiences rather than not enough experiences. It will make the story in motivational letter more appealing.
2. Matching your goal and their goal
Since, we have to create good story in motivational letter, we intend to tell about our experiences and dream. It means, you have ambition to reach something in the future and need master degree to reach the goal. This goal is very personal and some of our goal didnt match with the scholarship institutions. I was failure to get my government scholarship since my goal to develop Small-Medium entreprises (SME) in indonesia. At the time, my government has concern to focus on technology, agriculture, and health to ensure that the scholar can help government when they back to indonesia.
Maybe, i can create story about technology aspect or business in agriculture. But, it was not my expertise and my background in curriculum vitae doesnt support it. So, i agree that i need to surrender and apply another scholarship that match with my goal as entrepreneur. I found Chevening scholarship and Chinesse Government Scholarship (CGS) that have program in SME development in Indonesia. So, i can write my goal will support their program when i back to Indonesia.
This tips will make our motivational letter align with their value. It will give you more opportunity to collaborate with them as scholars.
Where we can find Scholarship value?
As scholarship institution affiliate with institution, we need to access the program in their website. For example, Chevening Scholarship, some people can access easily gov.uk and search their program in your home country. Or you can read some article regarding their program in your home country.
3. Make Good and easy story
Having good experience, and knowing scholarship values doesnt mean that you can write it very well. It needs different skills when we talk about writing story. But, i have simple solution for that. you can use STAR method which help you to build easy story. STAR means Situation, Task, Action and Results.
Example
My passion in influencing people eventually brought me to aid the development of an SME in Tuban, Indonesia . I realized that the local have problem meet their daily need as they have low income profession worker or work as merchant who sell raw siwalan fruit with the very low price. However, this area has abundance of natural resources called siwalan tree and it can be processed to become high value product.
With my team, I managed to work together with the locals in making an innovative product based on legen, the sap of siwalan trees. We gave additional value to legen by giving it a proper packaging, a brand name, and also clinical tests so that it would be more popular and could be sold with a high price. The product was then distributed in various stores in several cities, namely Surabaya, Tuban and Jakarta. In the end, this product was also accepted by the large supermarkets, such as Carrefour and Giant and was distributed in all areas in East Java. I was so grateful that this project could increase their revenue of people in Tuban by 20%-30% and eventually assisted the development of a village in their area.
Situation
situation is condition which you tell the problem is. For example, doing project in company, solving social issue in rural area or something that you define as a problem. In my case, i tell the issue about the local people who have struggling to meet their daily needs.
Task
Dont worry about the task, it should be very easy to determine the task. By understanding the situation, you will find the task such as increasing the daily income.
Action
After we defining the task, we have to mention our clear steps to achieve our goal. I know that we have several solutions to achieve that. Such as my example, i only write one solution to make the story simple and i consider about the maximum word. So, you have to list the solution and pick 1–2 the best task
I mention in my essay : We gave additional value to legen by giving it a proper packaging, a brand name, and also clinical tests so that it would be more popular and could be sold with a high price. The product was then distributed in various stores in several cities, namely Surabaya, Tuban and Jakarta. In the end, this product was also accepted by the large supermarkets, such as Carrefour and Giant and was distributed in all areas in East Java
Results
after telling what we do in our essays. You need to write the results of the projects which solve the main problem.
How many words are neededs?
Some of people will ask about the how many word should be used to describe our work or experiences? the answer is that it depends on the scholarship requirement. Some of scholarship such as Chevening has 4 different essays topics including leadership experiences, networking, studying in UK and career plan. It means you have abundance word to show your work. In other hand, scholarship such as Erasmus has standard maximum up to 750 words.
Finally,
Creating good story needs some practices. I dont belive that you can write very good motiovational letter by writing once time. You need to start writiting, give some revisions, asking friend for proofreading, paying someone to check our grammar until doing last revision. For me, i needs 1–2 months to write the motivational letter. But, some people may different time to finish that.
Chevening Tips :
How to Write Chevening Essays
Tips Menulis Essay Beasiswa Chevening
How to Get LoA:
Personal Statement to Glasgow University, UK
Manchester Business School LoA
Motivational Letter to Peking University, China
Other Scholarship Tips:
3 steps to get Scholarship
Australia Award Scholarship
LPDP Scholarships
IELTS Tips:
IELTS 7.0 within 1 Month
