NUS Asean Scholarship Personal Statement-Key qualities.

Discuss, in no more than 2000 characters, your key qualities that will enable you to make significant contributions to the NUS community if selected as a scholar. You could, among other things, elaborate, on your exceptional achievements in the academic and co-curricular areas to support your statement.

Pursuing a degree in NTU

I believe that diligence is vital. Therefore, I prioritize important tasks such as homework, projects, assignments, and revisions to finish them soon. Only then I can utilize and enjoy the additional time well to read informative articles from the Internet as well as concerning the current affairs by reading newspapers every day. I will share the controversy social contents with my friends and exchange our opinions. For instance, Brexit and America's Presidential Election news. Besides, I often set out specific tasks for accomplishment or completion, then I will stick to the schedule, such as finish reading a book within two weeks and learn to cook in three months.

I respect my parents as they have nurtured me into a thoughtful and sensible adult to do things independently. I have done my part of job meticulously, such as doing house chores and assist them on using modern electronic devices, just to repay their kindness. On behalf of the eldest child, I respect my family regardless of their age. I will take note of their advice before making decisions as I believe that understanding is a two-way street, both sides have to play their roles well. Understanding is considering, this is what I practice in my life.

Thus, I believe that the values are able to convey my aspiration towards my future. Pursuing a degree in NTU is helpful in job seeking, learning wide range of knowledge, as well as guaranteeing in qualities of life. It provides an arcade for me to face all the challenges and obstacles in front of me to overcome them confidently. I hope that I am able to obtain the scholarship to sufficiently fund my studies. I will contribute to the society and make the community better with the ability I learned in tertiary education.

Please help me on this essay. Thank you!

Lim, your response needs to be changed. What you have written concerns more of your character traits that can help you become a good student at the university you are applying to. It does not reflect your abilities or skills that you can use to help enrich the NUS community as a scholar. In other words, why would you be an asst to the scholarship and why do you deserve the scholarship? The concentration of your essay should therefore highlight any organization based community service that you participate in, as well as any notable academic achievements or recognition that you may have received. None of these target presentations are present in your essay. You have to write a new essay that better offers an insight into these particular skills and abilities on your part. Let me offer you some examples. For the community service, if you are a member of the Boy Scouts, then explain why being a boy scout has helped you to make a difference in the lives of other people through scouting activities. For academics, name your most recent school award received for academic excellence or, any school based extra curricular activity that you may have been recognized for such as creative writing. Then relate those to how you can contribute to your chosen university using those abilities, mindset, or traits.

@Holt
Is this better? I have tried to keep it within the word limit. Thank you.

I am determined to pursue a degree in NUS, it will allow me to understand and apply theories to the dynamic financial markets. Having studied a repertoire of subjects during high school, I believe I am capable of making exceptional efforts in the field as well as communicating within multiple communities.

Firstly, I am capable of taking up academic and extracurricular knowledge. As an over-achiever, I obtained the second place in my class while working part-time, and serving the Library Society as a Group Leader. Taekwondo class was attained weekly and my reading habit was maintained. I won the first prize in school level Book Review Competition. My hard work pays off because of my consistent effort and diligence. Thus, I have tried to constantly improve and enrich my mind.

Besides, I have been awarded Duke of Edinburgh's Silver award for being all-rounded physically and mentally. I was the top 5 winners in my school of Business Zoom In Competition held by Taylor's University, Malaysia which aims to enhance student's understanding and awareness of business skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, and time management.

Lastly, I have worked in a successful team-based environment in my co-curriculum activity. As a group leader, I have assigned tasks to my members and following up with them frequently. The relationship among the committee remains close as we often concern recent situation of one another. We have organized mini book fairs and published a magazine. Hence, I am a good team player and are able to do things independently as well.

Ultimately, I am excited to be in the studious environment of NUS. Classroom discussions will be participated actively. I will make NUS proud that I was its student with my full effort. I will be able to use my knowledge to clear people's doubts after completing the course. The experience that I gain is able to help my colleagues and contribute to the society.

Lim, there are still some major points of correction in your essay that require an increased word count on your part. In order to fulfill the revisions I am about to suggest, you will need to delete your opening statement and your closing statement so that the character allotment can be reassigned to the discussion that requires it the most. Don't worry, the opening and closing statements are not important in this type of essay, getting to the point quickly is more important.

Let us start with your first paragraph. Unless you have become a blackbelt in Taekwondo, I do not see how this passage is important. There is no explanation as to why you would consider Taekwondo a key quality that will allow you contribute to the NUS community should you become a scholar. I believe that since that part of the essay is not properly developed in explanation, you can just remove it so that your essay will have a chance of coming in under the required character count.

In the fourth paragraph, it is important that you better describe this co-curricular activity. What class was it for? Why should your participation here be considered notable? The information you present here is very common among scholarship applicants and will not really impress the reviewer in the proper manner. Add more important information to this paragraph in order to make it more relevant to the requirements of the essay. Like I said, you can skip the opening and closing paragraph if need be, so don't be afraid to get into a relatively lengthened explanation of the points I have indicated.