Statement of Purpose/Letter of Motivation
How to write a perfect Statement of Purpose (SOP) for Scholarship Applications
My SOP writing tips which earned me 2 partial scholarships for master’s degree
Treat it like a business pitch
Note that you are convincing strangers to invest in your dreams. Just like a great business pitch, include all relevant stats (your wins) in your SOP because you are the business of interest here.
Show, don’t tell
Which would you take more seriously — ‘my business is doing well’ or ‘my business has recorded a consistent 60% revenue growth in the last few years’? In the same vein, don’t say ‘I am passionate about economics’; show what you’ve done to demonstrate that passion without explicitly stating it.
Rephrase the Scholarship Question
The most common essay question is “Why are you applying for this scholarship?” but what they are actually asking is “What makes you worthy of this scholarship?”. By reframing the question, you avoid the risk of focusing solely on your financial situation, showing instead why you deserve the scholarship.
Avoid humility
Humility is not allowed when writing an SOP. It’s your chance to brag about all you’ve done and achieved to prove your worthiness for the scholarship and your passion for the subject of interest. You are here to impress my friend, so put all your RELEVANT cards on deck.
Align Long-term goal
Showcase how your long-term ambitions align with the scholarship values and effectively give yourself a competitive edge. Each scholarship has unique values and goals. Some seek to foster humanitarianism, favoring applicants with strong a commitment to create positive changes while certain scholarships prioritize academic excellence. The key lies in selecting scholarships that resonate with your own long-term goals.
Always include a background
Connect with reviewers by sharing a bit about yourself beyond achievements and goals. While other applicants may share similar goals and achievements, your unique story — beginnings of your journey or your interest in the field — sets you apart and helps you build that connection. Always include a brief background, ideally at the beginning of your essay.
Professional Review
Lets face it, writing isn’t everyone’s strength. It is therefore important to have someone better or a professional SOP writer/reviewer review your essay. The good news is, I offer an SOP review/writing service and I know my onions.
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Leverage AI
I leverage AI to rephrase my sentences when writing SOP. Emphasis on “REPHRASE,” please. Do not use AI to WRITE your SOP if you mean business. Sometimes, you might not have the right words to convey a message or make your point as powerful as you want it to be. This is where my friend, ChatGPT, comes in to save the day. A prompt like “Is the statement below powerful and inspiring” helps me refine my words, making them more impactful and inspiring.
Avoid irrelevant details
Talk about your achievements, but only include wins that are relevant to that scholarship. For example, when applying for my scholarship at the University of York, I focused more on the community services I did during my NYSC and less on my academic achievements because I figured the scholarship is looking for community services. So, I ignored
Personalize your SOP for different scholarships
As mentioned before, each scholarship has different goals, and even if they do have similar goals, submitting exactly the same SOP for different scholarships is a sign of laziness. In fact, it shows that you are not worthy of that scholarship. So, make sure to personalize each SOP for each scholarship.
Just write
Don’t wait until you have the perfect idea in your head; just start writing something, no matter how bad it may seem. Write down your ideas as they come to your head, sleep on it, then edit, edit, and edit. However, to be able to edit so many times until you are satisfied, you need to start writing your essay early.
There you have it, 11 tips to writing scholarship winning SOP.
Thank you for reading!
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