Tips for All Scholarships

1) Consult Dean Bader. He wants you to win, so he will help you to think about travel, to find an appropriate scholarship, to craft a proposal, and to sharpen your prose. Call his office at 516-8216 for an appointment. 2) Think imaginatively. Scholarship committees read hundreds of strong applications. To stand out, a proposal must be fresh, unusual and interesting. 3) Be daring. Consider travel outside of Europe, especially outside England, France and Italy. This is your chance to ride a camel in India or explore the jungles of Indonesia. Make your proposal equally daring, even if your destination is Oxford. 4) Do what you want, not what you should. Do not rule out a project or destination because you think you are unqualified. You can learn a language before and during your journey. More countries than England speak English and many places reward effort over mastery. Your subject matter need not be in your major, though you need enough experience and/or coursework to be competent. 5) Commit yourself. Winning scholarships is hard work. You must invest time, energy and creativity to be successful. Proposals require serious research to deepen the writing and to make appropriate choices for location and institution. 6) Personal statements should magnify what makes you special. Find a way to show off what makes you different from others, such as your passion for Chaucer, your childhood in Zimbabwe, or your commitment to the piano. Family histories, critical experiences, or important values make good themes for these statements. 7) Proposals must be appropriate and feasible. Make the case that you must go to a specific place in a specific country to do what you want. That project, you must argue, can be done by you (as you are qualified), in a feasible manner (using sensible methods on a focused subject), and in a limited amount of time. 8) Write simply and clearly. Personal statements should tell a simple story that inspires the reader. Proposals should paint a clear vision so the reader easily can picture what you want to do. Follow any formatting instructions, but remember that any essay should make a lucid argument or present a unified theme. 9) Get started early. It takes a lot of time to put an application together, especially if you want a proposal that has benefited from good advice and editing. Most post-graduate scholarships have fall deadlines for seniors, so it is best to get started in the spring of junior year. 10) Watch for deadlines. Hopkins often has internal deadlines before final due dates, as we want to or must evaluate your application. Share a polished rough draft with Dean Bader at least three weeks before an internal deadline. 11) Always share rough drafts. Get feedback and editing from everywhere-advisers, faculty, friends, and family. The more eyes see your work, the more likely it is to win. Be certain your application is complete. You will need to gather transcripts, recommendations and other materials. Give yourself time to do so, and then be sure it happens.

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