College Apps and FIRST

[KenWittlief]

is this a format they asked you to follow, or something you came up with on your own?

When my daughter applied for the FIRST scholarship at NorthEastern they asked her to write a short essay about herself and her involvement in FIRST.

She wrote mainly about two things, how her involvement in the team grew over the 3 years that she was a member, and an interaction she had with a young girl who was a spectator at an exposition match during her last year. My daughter was the team driver during her last year, and when the young girl (~12) realized a girl was controlling the robot she suddenly became very interested.

My daughter did not get the official FIRST scholarship from NE, but they offered her a full scholarship anyway.

I would say to keep your essay on a personal level. Talk about yourself, how you have changed and grown. People who are evaluating candidates are interested in 4 things:

Situation: what was the situation you were in. Was it a big successful team, or a small floundering team, well established or rookie, big corporate sponsor or meeting in someones garage....

Task: what was your task on the team? what things were you personally responsible for

Approach: What was your approach? did you wing it by the seat of your pants, did you look to mentors for guidance? Did you follow a process or make things up as you went along?

Results: what was the result of your involvement? Did things go as planned? did your team go down in flames? was it a positive experience for the people involved? Did you see peoples lives changed or altered as a result of the efforts of the team?

These four things are easy to remember: interviewers are looking for a STAR to be a part of their organization (university student body, clubs, teams, employees....)

For the community services part of this, if you can tell how your involvement on the team directly benefitted specific individuals your essay will have far more impact than general statments like: we showed the robot to 3rd graders on science day, or we were in a parade....

also, keep in mind that talking about yourself is not egotistical in this case, because you were part of the community, and FIRST reached out to you and altered your life. That is the experience you are most qualified to talk about.