It’s rare, but still regular, that we get applicants who will explicitly state that they are very obviously the best candidate and that the committee will most certainly agree when they’ve finished reading his/her materials. Well, maybe. And maybe not. Don’t get us wrong, confidence in life is generally a good thing, but there’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance. And remember, the committee likes humility better than swagger. I’m not sure why that is, but it just is.
There’s a Part 2 here as well, and that’s the person who insists the scholarship is owed to them not necessarily because of their achievements, but because they’re currently going through a rough patch in life. These applicants say that because they’ve recently lost a job, come up short on money for their first-choice college, moved into an expensive apartment, etc., that they deserve (their word, not mine) this scholarship.
Well, not really. You deserve a scholarship based on the qualifications the scholarship committee asks for. Sure, we all need an infusion of good luck sometimes, but that doesn’t make you deserving of a scholarship. You’ve got to outshine all the other applicants first!
Complaining about other aspects of your life may resonate with some of the judges, because we too have aspects of our lives that aren’t going so rosy at the moment. But there are too many other applicants out there who aren’t complaining and ARE putting their best foot forward in their application for anyone to win the competition based solely on the fact that they’re having a run of bad luck.
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