Scholarship Essay Suggestions

Applying for the GSCD Scholarship requires an essay. Are you wondering what you should put in your essay? Read on…

  1. THE CONTENT – Your essay should be about why you would be a good fit for the scholarship and why you think we should select you.
  2. WHY YOU? -Think about what things you bring to the table to make you stand out as someone whose career we should support with the scholarship.
  3. DO SOME RESEARCH – Find out who the GSCD is and what it does. Often we received applications from students that guess at what we do based on our name. The result? They effectively write their way out of a scholarship.
  4. HONESTY REALLY IS THE BEST POLICY – Be honest. Write from your heart.
  5. PUT YOUR HEART INTO IT – We are looking for a heart-felt, well-thought-out essay. 
  6. MAKE SURE WHAT YOU SAY HAS VALUE – Forget the fluff and fillers. Fluff and fillers are a bunch of empty meaningless words that fill the page. They won’t win you any “brownie points.”
  7. CON JOBS WILL GET YOU NOWHERE – Have you ever read something that you know is a load of donkey dung? Forget trying to write what you think we want you to say. You just need to tell us YOUR story.
Young man working on an essay with the world behind him

8.  BE CLEAR ABOUT YOUR PLANS IF YOUR MAJOR DOES NOT FIT NEATLY INTO OUR CATAGORIES – Our scholarship is only open to those who are studying Agriculture, Natural Resources, Large Animal Medicine, or a related career. If your intended major is not one of these but you legitimately intend to do something that will SUPPORT one of these focus areas here in Garrett County or the surrounding area when you graduate, you need to explain in detail. Tell us how your career supports or advances agriculture, natural resources or large animal medicine. Don’t leave it up to us to try to read between the lines. 

Here’s a little tip. Our Board goes through and throws out any applications that don’t fit the rules before they seriously look at possible winners. If you are going into engineering for example, but you are doing so to try to obtain a job at Soil Conservation District, you need to get that information squeezed in along with the answer to your intended major. Then, your essay needs to explain all about how you plan to use this major in a way that would be consistent with our goals.

9. IF YOUR GPA IS TOO LOW AND THERE IS A GOOD REASON – If you don’t have a high enough GPA and there is a reason, you need to make a note next to the GPA field and you need to explain this clearly on your application. That doesn’t mean it will exempt you from the requirement, but it can’t hurt. A legitimate reason that you have a lower GPA may be that you have a learning disability and an IEP. In this case, it would also be a good idea to address how you will succeed in college in your essay. For example, if you have an IEP in high school, you may be planning to seek help from the Office of Disability at the college. Another good reason may be due to a major health problem or a catastrophic situation. Explain if this is the case. Don’t just put down the lower GPA. If your situation is highly sensitive and you do not want to write it in an application, if is perfectly acceptable to request that we contact you so that you can explain it verbally, allowing it to be kept confidential between only the Board and the two administering staff members.

10. CHECK OVER YOUR ESSAY BEFORE SUBMITTING – Make sure you check for spelling and grammar mistakes before you submit your essay. It goes a long way in telling readers how much you want this scholarship. It also sub-consciously gives people the impression that you are a hard-worker and want to succeed.

11. HAVING AI WRITE YOUR ESSAY IS A BAD IDEA – We have already checked with AI to see what it would say in an essay, so it won’t be hard to spot essays that were written with AI. You could use it to get ideas, but if your essay looks like an AI essay, we’ll just assume you didn’t want to take the time to do it yourself. We want something meaningful that you cared enough about to write yourself. It is also worthwhile to note that AI didn’t do its research because it specifically tells individuals to say a couple things that will get your application rejected.