What to Avoid in Your Law School Scholarship Essays
By Alice Foley, Director of Pre-Law Programming
We always say that you should never pay sticker-price for law school. Aside from merit- or need-based aid, law school scholarships are a great opportunity to help fund your law school journey.
Most law school scholarships — both internal and external — require an essay that helps the scholarship committee understand why you are a perfect fit for their scholarship. In this blog post, we’re going to cover some of the key things you should avoid doing in your law school scholarship essays.
Before we jump in, I want to address what you’re probably thinking right now. You’re tired and don’t have any more essays in you after the whole admissions process. If that’s you, then I need you to power through. It is absolutely worth it to take the time and put in the effort.
Every scholarship that you receive is money that you don’t have to pay to the law school and you don’t have to pay back. Trust me when I say that having fewer things to pay back when you finish law school is always a great idea.
Would you rather listen to this blog post? Listen to our What to Avoid in Your Law School Scholarship Essays episode on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Avoid Disregarding the Prompt
If you’ve been keeping up with us, you know how often we remind you to read the instructions that you are given. There is a lot of time and effort put into the prompts; they are looking for something specific. Even when the prompt is broad, they have asked you for specific information that you need to give to them.
If you’ve gotten so far as looking at the prompt itself, it’s something that appeals to you. You have things to pull from; you don’t need to go rogue on these prompts. You have the stories to tell in order to answer them.
This is more important here than your previous admissions essays (personal statement, etc.). A lot of the law school scholarships will be pushed out of sync from the application, meaning they’ll be before your application is due or after decisions are released.
At both of the law schools I worked at, we would push out scholarship opportunities around February once many students had already been admitted. We had an idea of what our class and budget would look like, and understanding our funding was key.
The reason why it is so important that you answer the question that was asked in the prompt is because what is tied to the scholarship fund is something very specific. A contract was signed that sets up the parameters for who can receive the money from the fund. The law school will only spend the money out of that fund for whatever parameters were made.
If you ignore the prompt, you may no longer qualify for the scholarship because you didn’t tell them about the aspects that made you eligible in the first place.
Also take this as a reminder that your formatting and page limits should follow the instructions given as well, just like your admissions essays.
Avoid Over Generalization
As I said earlier, I know you’re tired. When faced with the opportunity to recycle, I understand the appeal. But when you’re recycling something that you’ve already written, chances are that they’re going to be pretty general.
If there are pieces that require you to talk in detail about the school, program, or scholarship to which you are applying, you want to do your research and be as specific as possible. You want to tie in what makes you a good candidate to the things that are important to the organization, donor, or school. When you don’t take the time to do that research, you are not making those connections as strongly.
Specifics are your friend. You want the reader to have no doubt that there isn’t a single candidate that is better for the scholarship than you. You want to leave them thinking “I found them.”
One of the things that is super helpful is mirroring the language that they use in their prompt or when they describe the origins of the scholarship. If you can mirror that and apply it to what you have to offer, do so.
Finally, make sure you have the right school or program name. As an admissions officer, I constantly received essays that named schools I did not work at. It showed me that the applicant was not paying attention. Make sure you use the proper name, at least the first time that you write it — this means West Virginia University College of Law vs. WVU Law.
Avoid Bad Writing
This should be your best writing mechanically. Your commas should be where commas go; your hyphens should be where hyphens belong; you should be writing in complete sentences. If you are not doing this, we have a problem.
You should have been doing this in every other piece of writing you may have done before now. Just keep up the good work.
The other part of this is content. Make sure you are answering the prompt completely, as I said before. But you still need to engage your reader.
A lot of the time, scholarship prompts sound like they just want you to list your resume. Do better than that. Tell me a story that is going to make sure that I get what it is from your resume you have put here or share a different story.
This is where mechanics and storytelling come together. If you have a beautiful, impactful story but it is not well-written, it will not land. As a reader, it would take me significantly longer to read your story and I would have to work to really get the most out of your essay. Some admissions readers don’t have the time to do that and won’t put in the work.
The takeaway should be the story, not how difficult it was to read it.
To wrap up:
Follow the directions and avoid being vague.
Avoid generalizing and over-recycling previous essays. Bring the specifics.
Share good stories and make sure it’s your best writing.
You can absolutely do this. You know how to write; you’ve already done it before. But this one gets you money for law school (and who doesn’t want that?).
The team at S. Montgomery Admissions Consulting is here to support you through this law school application cycle! Whether it's through personalized one-on-one counseling, our Essay Editing Combo Plans (yes, you can submit scholarship essays!), or just downloading our free Essential Guide to Applying to Law School, there is definitely something we can do for you to help make this process a little bit easier.
As always, feel free to reach out to us at hello@smontgomeryconsulting.com with any of your questions! You can also submit a question to be answered on our weekly Break Into Law School® Podcast, streaming wherever your favorite podcast service is.