Read carefully and understand the instructions that each college scholarship program provides for their personal statement. Some applications will require you to answer specific questions regarding your experiences, while others will provide a general prompt.
Choose several significant experiences from your life to discuss. Describe the actual experience in no more than two or three sentences. Focus on discussing how each experience demonstrates important qualities such as curiosity, initiative, creativity, motivation, diligence and perseverance. Examples of valuable experiences include foreign travel, extracurricular activities such as sports or volunteering and involvement in student government.
Explain why you have chosen your intended major. Try to link this interest to your larger life goals, like, for instance, your desire to become a leader in the field of neuroscience.
Highlight how each experience that you describe has changed you. Focus on how it helped you to define goals, develop an appreciation or to identify a belief or value.
Discuss any work experience relevant to your field of study if you are returning to college after an extended hiatus. Describe how the work experience has helped to develop your interest in this area.
Ask a friend or family member to read and critique your statement.