It’s no lie that paying for a good education is tough. Often, post-graduate courses abroad can widen your horizons on the job market and put you in a better position in a competitive world. Getting a scholarship can certainly help you get there without the financial burden. Here are a few ways to nail that application.
- BE AN EARLY BIRD
You wouldn’t want your scholarships of choice going to someone else because you were late or because a particular scholarship exhausted its budget. The earlier you apply, the better chance of you receiving a grant. It will also help you keep on top of applications if you are considering more than one scholarship.
- DO YOUR RESEARCH
Use the internet wisely to scour through the thousands of scholarships available online. A cursory search of culinary scholarships will run into dozens of pages. Use filters and keywords to find those that best suit your interests, requirements and goals. The James Beard Foundation, for example, offers scholarship opportunities to multiple universities in Europe.
- REVIEW YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE
Many scholarship judges don’t quite bother with what you post online but some do, and it’s better to err on the side of caution. Harmless fun and quirky memes really won’t affect their impression of you; it’s just questionable material that might make them think twice. Go through your profiles and clean up derogatory content. Posts about your hobbies and extracurricular activities might actually help.
- BE THOROUGH
Go through every application as if it were the only one you were sending in. Read carefully through all the requirements, ensuring that you meet all the qualification criteria and that you are well within the deadline. Gather the documents correctly and follow the submission procedure to the ‘T’.
- SET YOURSELF APART
Culinary scholarships receive thousands of applications. Consider what will set you apart from the rest and highlight those. Perhaps you have done an internship at an offbeat hospitality venture, or know the nuances of an exotic cuisine, or a major life event drew you into the field. You can explain it all coherently in the submission essay.
- APPLY IN MANY PLACES
Spread your net to give yourself the best chance of success. You might doubt yourself at times because of the high competition, but there’s never any harm in trying. Brace yourself for rejection letters – many because perhaps you didn’t quite fit the criteria. But keep on applying.
- KEEP ON TOP OF DEADLINES
All the hard work of research will go in vain if you miss the submission deadline. This is particularly important when you have many applications with different deadlines across the year. Keep a calendar to help you stay on track.
- ASK FOR HELP & ADVICE
It’s never a bad idea to check in with alumni, mentors and industry leaders for their help and advice. You’ll find all of these in one place at Kamaxi College where faculty are happy to help improve your applications or write you letters of recommendations.
- PROOF-READ
Finally, before clicking on the submit button, ensure you’ve proof-read your application carefully to avoid any factual or grammatical errors. It helps to have someone else read through for a fresh set of eyes.
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