How to Write a Scholarship Cover Letter

Scholarship cover letters might seem intimidating, but with some planning and strong formatting, they are a great way to make a strong first impression with your scholarship reviewer. The following guide includes a thorough description of what you should address in the letter and how to format it.

First, let’s talk about the most fundamental question: what’s the ultimate goal of the cover letter?

Goals of a scholarship cover letter

Create a personal appeal by letting your voice come through

Most scholarship applications largely consist of forms and checklists, but cover letters are a great opportunity for the reader to hear you make your case in your own voice. While you should still maintain a formal tone, you should not be afraid to write personably.

Emphasize the importance of your accomplishments

Resumes and application forms are great opportunities to describe your duties at past positions you’ve held, but a cover letter is a great opportunity to go one step further.

Describe the skills developed in your past positions

Think about how past learning experiences helped shape your ambitions. For example, if you had an internship in the office of a local government official, you could use your cover letter to describe how your experiences helped hone your organizational skills and shape your sense of civic duty. 

Share what you hope to pursue and build upon

How will you work towards your future goals and build upon your past experiences? Scholarship readers want to award their funds to students with a strong sense of ambition and an exciting future. Emphasize that you have big plans for the future, and how you will use the scholarship to accomplish them.

Expert Perspective

No one can tell you better than you. Scholarship essays are an important opportunity to show who you are and what your values are. And how do you show your values? It’s important to show, not tell. Adding anecdotes or experiences that have changed the way you live your life can be really impactful. Look for those catalyst moments, and put them into your essays. Then find the values that are demonstrated in your anecdotes, and connect your values to what you would like to do in the future. That can be your future major, your career, or the way you want to show up on your campus. Ask yourself, how do you want to contribute to your community with those values? Showing how that all connects can be really powerful, and it can show the scholarship reviewer that you’re more than your grades or your classes or your major. It’s really about who you are now with your values and who you want to become.

Melody Lipford | Advising Specialist on the Virtual Access Team, College Possible

Highlight circumstances not addressed in the scholarship application

For example, if you have community service experience, but there was not a question in the application that allowed you to mention that, a cover letter is a great place to bring it up. This may not be specifically relevant to the scholarship, but speaks to your character and can help put you ahead of the crowd.

Differences between a scholarship cover letter and a scholarship essay

Scholarship essays and cover letters have a lot in common:

• They are both opportunities to write about your future ambitions and show how you have reflected on your past experiences.

• Both allow you to make a personal appeal to your reader, and to bring up relevant information that was left out of the rest of the application. 

However, while there is a lot of overlap between scholarship cover letters and scholarship essays, there are a few key differences:

• Scholarship essays are written in response to a prompt, but scholarship cover letters do not have an explicit prompt. For students who are used to prompts, this can be a stumbling block.

• One way to help overcome this open-endedness is to imagine the prompt as: “Tell me about yourself and why you would be a good fit for this scholarship.” Remember, the goal of a scholarship cover letter is to introduce yourself and to make a compelling case for your candidacy while highlighting assets not showcased in the rest of your application.

• Another key difference is in formatting; there are specific formatting rules for a scholarship cover letter, which we will cover below. 

See also: How to write a winning scholarship essay

Formatting tips

While everyone’s cover letter is different and some scholarships may have specific requirements, here are a few general formatting tips to make your cover letter a success:

• Cover letters should be 1 page long, and it can be beneficial to break them down into small paragraphs to help the reader digest them more easily.

• They should also include a header with the date, your name and address, as well as your email and/or phone number.

• After the header, skip a line, and write the date.

• Skip another line, and include the name and title of the person you are addressing the letter to, and the address of the organization if available.

Some scholarships will list the name that the letter should be addressed. If you can’t find the name easily, try doing a bit of research to see if you can find the name of the person who will be reading your application. This can help put you ahead of your competition by showing that you did some additional research.

If you can’t find a name, you can skip that part of the header and write: “Dear selection committee” in your introduction. Here is an example header for someone who was able to find the name of their application reader:

James Wright
580 Chase Ln
New Meadows, ID 83654
[email protected]

March 12, 2024

Ms. Carol Smith
Better Business Bureau
12639 W Explorer Dr
Boise, ID 83713

Dear Ms. Smith,

I am writing…____________________________________________________________

Good luck writing your scholarship cover letter!  Be sure to apply to all the scholarships you qualify for. Remember, there are scholarships for all demographics, including for women, high school seniors, and Black students. Some scholarships require essays and applications, but others are no-essay or easy to apply for scholarships. Remember, Scholarships360 is here to provide valuable resources and access to scholarships for students!

Key Takeaways

• Create personal appeal by letting your unique voice come through
• Emphasize the importance of your accomplishments and describe the skills learned in your past positions
• Share what you hope to pursue and build upon
• Highlight circumstances not addressed in your scholarship application
• Be mindful of any specific requirements when crafting your cover letter