Questions to Ask Scholarship Applicants
For scholarship committee members and volunteer panelists who have applicants to interview and a decision to make afterward. The questions follow the order of the conversation: an opening that settles nerves, then study and goals, money and need, character, service, and a close. Each has a note on what a strong or a worrying answer sounds like and how to score it fairly from one candidate to the next.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Opening
Tell us about yourself, beyond what is in your application.
Why ask it
It is the easiest question to start on, and the last six words stop the applicant from reciting the form back to you. A good answer picks two or three things and connects them to where the person is headed. If you get the activities list read back to you, ask what a friend would say about them that the form leaves out.
Why did you apply for this scholarship?
Why ask it
'Because I need the money' is an honest answer and should not count against anyone. What separates applicants is whether they can also say why this award: its purpose, the person it is named for, the field it backs. Score it against what your fund is for, since a strong answer for a merit award and a strong one for a need-based award are not the same answer.
Why should this scholarship go to you?
Why ask it
Many applicants find it uncomfortable to argue for themselves, and in some families it is simply not done, so do not mark down modesty. Listen for evidence over adjectives: 'I kept a B average while working twenty hours a week' tells you more than 'I am hardworking'. An applicant who answers by running down the other candidates has told you something too.
What do you know about this award and why it exists?
Why ask it
You are checking whether they read past the dollar amount. An applicant who can name the donor, the trade or the town the fund was set up for has made an effort that many do not. Go easy if little about your fund is public, and tell them the story yourself when they do not know it.
What achievement are you proudest of, and why that one?
Why ask it
The 'why' matters more than the achievement. Some applicants pick the biggest trophy. Others pick something small that cost them a great deal, such as passing a class they nearly failed, and that kind of answer says more about how they will meet a hard first semester.
What does an ordinary week look like for you right now?
Why ask it
A job, younger siblings to look after, a long bus ride or the care of a relative rarely appears on an activities list, and any of them explains a thin one. Hear this before you judge anyone's extracurriculars. It also settles nerves, because nobody gets their own week wrong.
What do you do for fun when you have a free afternoon?
Why ask it
Nothing here needs a score. It gives a nervous applicant one minute on a subject with no right answer, and you will often hear the voice the rehearsed answers were hiding. It is the first question to cut when the slots are short.
Study and goals
What do you plan to study, and what drew you to it?
Why ask it
A reason with a moment in it, a class, a job, someone they watched at work, is more convincing than 'I have always wanted to'. Undecided is a fair answer from someone who can say what they are choosing between and how they will decide. If the award is tied to a field, this is where you find out whether the interest is real or was written for the form.
Why did you choose the school or program you are going to?
Why ask it
Good answers mention something specific: a course, a cost they compared, a campus close enough to keep a job. The answer also shows who made the decision. An applicant who cannot say why may be going where they were told to go, which deserves a gentle follow-up and no penalty.
What do you hope to be doing five years after you finish?
Why ask it
Nobody will be held to the answer. Score whether the plan connects to what they are doing now and whether they know what stands between here and there. A job title with nothing behind it is weaker than 'I am not sure of the job yet, but I know I want to work with patients'.
What is the first step toward the career you want, and have you taken it yet?
Why ask it
Any five-year plan sounds fine until you ask this, which is what separates a plan from a wish. Shadowing someone, a first certification, an email to a professor, a part-time job in the field: any of these counts. If the answer is no, ask what has been in the way, because the obstacle is sometimes the very thing your award is meant to remove.
Have you talked with anyone who does the work you want to do? What did you learn from them?
Why ask it
Applicants with professionals in the family will answer easily, and those without may have nobody to name. So score the effort to find out, such as a teacher they questioned or a nurse they asked at an appointment, and never the connections. From a student who would be the first in the family to go, 'nobody yet' is a fact about opportunity, and your fund may be able to make an introduction.
What would you do if your first plan did not work out?
Why ask it
A second route to the same end, such as starting at a community college or moving to a related major, is the strong answer. 'That will not happen' is confidence more than carelessness and no serious mark against anyone. Still, note who has a fallback: those are the applicants who have looked at what could go wrong.
What has been your favorite class so far, and what did you take from it?
Why ask it
The transcript shows where the high grades are, which is not always where the interest is. A favorite class with a middling grade beside it is a good sign: they liked the work more than the result. If the reason is all about the teacher, ask what that teacher did that they would copy.
Which subject has been hardest for you, and what did you do about it?
Why ask it
The grade is already in the file, so listen for the response: tutoring, a change in how they studied, a conversation with the teacher, or waiting it out. Someone who has asked for help once knows how it is done, which matters in a first year away from the adults who used to notice.
What have you learned on your own that no class required?
Why ask it
Fixing engines, a language picked up from a grandparent, editing videos, reading everything the library has on one war: all of it shows curiosity that will outlast the scholarship. Ask how they went about it. Take care not to favor the hobbies that cost money over the ones that are free.
What problem would you most like to help solve, in your field or where you live?
Why ask it
Strong answers are close to home and specific, such as the nearest clinic being an hour's drive away. World hunger in a single sentence usually means nobody has asked them before, so ask what made them notice it. If your award exists to serve a place or a profession, give this one extra weight.
What do you expect to be the hardest part of the coming year, and how are you getting ready for it?
Why ask it
Applicants who name something real, living away, harder math, paying rent for the first time, have pictured the year. Expecting no difficulty is not disqualifying, but try it another way: what would they do if the first exam went badly? The preparation half is where the points are.
Money
How would this scholarship change your plans for next year?
Why ask it
This is the kindest way into the subject of need, because it asks about the future and not the family's bank balance. Concrete answers sound like fewer work hours, living on campus, or one loan not taken. If nothing would change, that is worth knowing for an award meant to decide whether someone can go at all.
How are you planning to pay for your education as things stand?
Why ask it
Knowing the numbers, what the year costs, what is covered and what the gap is, marks an applicant who has faced the problem. Many have left it to a parent, and not knowing is a reason to point them to the financial aid office, not a mark against their character. Check with whoever administers your fund what the application already collects, so that you do not ask a nervous applicant to recite a family's finances out loud.
If you received this award, what would the money go toward first?
Why ask it
Tuition, books, a laptop, a bus pass, tools for a trade program: a specific answer shows they have priced the year. Before you ask, find out from your administrator what the award may cover and how it is paid. Some funds pay the school directly, and then the question needs rewording.
What costs worry you most apart from tuition?
Why ask it
Housing, food, travel home, lab fees and the wages they will no longer earn can decide whether a student stays enrolled, and an applicant who has thought about them has done the math. If they have not, you have done them a favor by asking. The answers can also tell your committee whether an award restricted to tuition is solving the right problem.
Do you work now, and how do you expect to fit a job around your studies?
Why ask it
A part-time job is evidence of reliability that panels can overlook because it is not a club. Ask how many hours, and what gives when work and school both pile up. If the honest answer is that they will need to work close to full time, weigh what your award could buy back.
What other scholarships or aid have you applied for?
Why ask it
Asked plainly, it shows effort: a student who has sent ten applications is taking the funding problem seriously. Agree beforehand how the answer will count, and ask your administrator whether other awards affect this one, because the rules on combining aid differ from school to school and fund to fund. Without that, half the panel will reward other awards and the other half will penalize them.
What would you do if you were not selected?
Why ask it
It sounds harsh, so say first that you ask everyone. Answers run from 'more loans' to 'a year off to work' to 'I could not go', and that range is exactly what a need-based committee has to see. Do not let a brave face count against anyone: some applicants were raised never to say how tight things are.
Is there anything about your financial situation that the forms did not capture?
Why ask it
Income figures miss a parent's recent layoff, medical bills, or a household supporting relatives somewhere else. Make it plain that they may say as little as they like, and do not press. What you hear belongs in your score and nowhere else once the day is over.
What have you learned so far about handling money?
Why ask it
A first paycheck, saving for a phone, helping a parent with the bills: small stories, but they are what an applicant has to show for how they think about money. Skip this one if your award is paid straight to the school, where it tells you little. Do not expect a spreadsheet from someone who has never had money to budget.
Character
Tell us about a mistake you made or a time you fell short. What did you do next?
Why ask it
Leave the choice of story to them, and expect a missed deadline or a lost game more often than a disaster. The second half is what you score: whether they owned their part, who they told, what they changed. If the story stops at 'and it all worked out', ask what they would do differently.
What is the hardest thing you have had to get through? Share only as much as you want to.
Why ask it
Some applicants have lived through things no interview should make them relive, which is why the second sentence belongs in the question. Never score the size of the hardship, because a committee that rewards the saddest story teaches applicants to perform their pain. Score what they did or learned, and thank them for telling you.
Who has had the biggest influence on you, and what did you take from them?
Why ask it
'My mother, because she works hard' is where most answers start, so ask for one thing they do differently because of her. Whoever they name, a parent, a coach, a boss at a summer job, the score is in what they took. An applicant who can describe a habit they copied is describing themselves.
What would a teacher or coach say is your greatest strength, and what would they say you still need to work on?
Why ask it
Borrowing a teacher's eyes makes it easier to be honest than the usual strengths and weaknesses question does. If the file holds recommendation letters, you can see whether the two accounts agree. A real weakness with a step taken, such as 'I leave things late, so now I start papers the day they are assigned', beats 'I work too hard'.
Tell us about a time you did the right thing when it would have been easier not to.
Why ask it
Small and true beats grand. Handing back extra change, telling a coach about a scoring mistake in their own team's favor, or owning up to something a friend would have covered: that is the scale of story to expect from a student. Be wary of an account in which the applicant is the only decent person in it.
How do you define success?
Why ask it
First answers tend to be a sentence the applicant has said before, about happiness or helping others. Ask whose life looks like that to them, and you get a person, a job and a reason. Then notice whether that definition and the plan they described earlier point the same way.
How do you handle it when you have more to do than time to do it?
Why ask it
A method is a good sign, whether that is a list, a calendar or asking for an extension before the deadline and not after. So is admitting what gets dropped. This carries more weight if your award has a grade or credit requirement for renewal, because a crowded week is what puts those at risk.
What is something you worked at for a long time before you were any good at it?
Why ask it
An instrument, a sport they never starred in, a second language, a stutter. The length of the effort is the point, and the lack of a prize makes it more believable. This one gives applicants whose files are short on awards a fair chance to show persistence.
What piece of criticism has stayed with you?
Why ask it
A good answer names who said it, why it stung and what changed. If nothing comes to mind, try 'what did a teacher write on your work more than once?' An applicant who is still arguing with the criticism is showing you how they take feedback.
When have you changed your mind about something that mattered to you?
Why ask it
It is harder than it looks, so allow a pause. A real example, about a classmate, a career, a subject they had written off, shows someone who learns from what they see. Keep clear of what they believe about politics or religion: you only need the story of the change.
Service
Which of your activities means the most to you, and what keeps you going back?
Why ask it
A long list on the form says little about depth. The one they choose, and whether they can explain it without mentioning how it looks on an application, points to what they will keep doing when nobody is counting hours.
Pick one activity from your application. What did you do in it from week to week?
Why ask it
Titles are cheap: a club president may have run every meeting or signed one form. Ask for the last ordinary session and their part in it. A vague reply to a question this specific is one of the clearer warning signs a panel gets, and a detailed one from a student with no title deserves full credit.
Tell us about a time you led a group. What was hardest about getting others to follow through?
Why ask it
Leadership without a title counts: organizing shifts at work, coaching a younger sibling's team, getting a study group to meet. The second question is the real one, since anyone who has led has been let down and had to decide what to do about it. A story in which everything went smoothly may not be about leading at all.
Who depends on you, at home, at work or in your neighborhood, and what do you do for them?
Why ask it
Translating for a grandparent at the clinic, running the sound desk at a place of worship, checking on an elderly neighbor: none of it comes with a certificate, and all of it is service. Ask this before you decide that an applicant with no volunteer hours has given nothing. Count it on the sheet exactly as you would a formal role.
Who benefited from your service, and how do you know it helped?
Why ask it
Most students have never been asked the second half. Those who went back to check, or who can name a person and what changed for them, were paying attention to the people and not the hours. 'I am not sure it did', followed by a thought about why, is an excellent answer.
What have you learned from the people you were helping?
Why ask it
It separates service done with people from service done to them. A student who tutored and found out how hard reading is for some children, or who served meals and learned the regulars' names, saw the people. If the answer is only about how grateful everyone was, ask what surprised them.
How do you expect to keep up your service once your studies begin?
Why ask it
Everyone says they will, so favor modest and specific over ambitious and vague. 'One campus group, and I will keep coaching in the summers' is believable. If your fund expects recipients to volunteer, mentor or report back, say so now and watch how the news lands.
Once you are working, how do you picture giving back?
Why ask it
Listen for a kind of giving back that fits the person you have just met: the tutor who wants to mentor, the future mechanic who would take on an apprentice. If your fund was set up to bring nurses, teachers or tradespeople back to one town, ask plainly whether they see themselves returning, and take 'if there is work' as the honest answer it is. For any other award, where a graduate settles is their own business.
Closing
Has anything changed since you applied, such as your school, your program or other awards?
Why ask it
Purely practical, and it saves trouble later. A file can be weeks old by interview day: acceptances arrive, majors change, a parent's job changes. Pass the answer to the administrator and leave it out of the score.
If you are chosen, is there anything in the award's requirements that would be hard for you to meet?
Why ask it
Read the conditions out first, whatever yours are: full-time enrollment, a grade point average, a dinner to attend, a letter to the donor. Get the list from your administrator, since every fund's is different. A plan to defer a year or study part time is far better heard now than discovered after the award is announced, and raising it honestly is to the applicant's credit.
Is there anything in your application you would like to explain or add to?
Why ask it
A dip in grades, a gap in activities, a short essay: give them the chance before the committee guesses. Take the explanation at face value unless the file contradicts it. Put this to everyone, not only to the applicants whose files have a visible hole.
What question were you hoping we would ask?
Why ask it
Prepared applicants light up at this and hand you their best material. Unprepared ones get a second chance at something the earlier questions missed. Let them ask it and answer it, then score it under whichever criterion it fits.
A year from now, what would you want to be able to tell this committee?
Why ask it
It turns the award from a prize into a commitment without demanding a promise. Listen for something you could check: a first year finished, a grade point average held, a clinical placement started. If your fund asks recipients for a report or a letter, this is the natural moment to mention it.
What do you want us to remember about you when we make our decision?
Why ask it
After a long day of interviews a panel may hold on to only one thing about each applicant, and this lets the applicant choose it. Write the answer word for word at the top of your notes. If it matches nothing else you heard, raise that in the discussion.
What questions do you have for the committee?
Why ask it
Keep real time for it, not thirty seconds at the door. Questions about what recipients go on to do or how to stay in touch show interest in the fund itself. Having none usually means nerves or good manners, so leave it unscored, and finish by telling them when and how they will hear.
How to run a fair scholarship interview
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before the interviews
Agree what the award is for
Every later argument on a panel comes back to this. An award for need, one for merit and one meant to send people into a trade or back to a town all want different questions and different winners. Read the donor's wording or the fund's charter together, and put the purpose in one sentence that every panelist can repeat before the first applicant walks in.
Write the scoring sheet before the questions
List the three to five things the award is meant to reward, such as goals, need, character and service, and decide how much each counts. For each one, write a line on what a low, middling and high answer sounds like. Then choose questions from this page that feed each line. A question that feeds none of them is small talk, and one criterion with no question behind it will be scored on impressions.
Give every applicant the same core questions
Pick one or two from each group and put them to every applicant, word for word and in one fixed order. What you ask next can vary, since it depends on the answer you got. This is what makes answers comparable at the end of the day. A panel that improvises will find it has asked the confident applicants interesting questions and the quiet ones easy ones.
Fit the wording to your applicants
Most of these questions are phrased for students leaving high school. If your award also goes to adults returning to study, graduate students or apprentices, change the words and keep the point: 'a teacher or coach' becomes 'a supervisor', 'next year' becomes 'this program', and a question about activities becomes one about work and family. Make the change on the sheet before the day, so every applicant in the same pool hears the same version.
Count the minutes
Allow two to three minutes for a good answer with one follow-up. Work out how many core questions your slot holds once you take off the welcome and the applicant's own questions, and cut the list to fit. Fewer questions asked properly beat a dozen rushed.
Find out what you may not ask
What an interviewer may ask about family, health, religion, immigration status, age and similar subjects depends on where you are and on who runs the award. Ask the school, foundation or sponsoring organization for its rules before the day, and ask what the application already collects about income. A useful habit whatever the rules: if an answer could not appear on your scoring sheet, do not ask the question.
Read the file, then ask what it cannot tell you
Grades, test scores and the list of activities are already in front of you. Interview time is for what paper hides: how the applicant thinks, what they did inside those activities, and what their week is really like. Mark one or two items in each file to ask about by name, such as 'you wrote that you rebuilt the food pantry's schedule. What was wrong with the old one?'
In the room
Spend the first two minutes on nerves
For many applicants this is the first interview of their lives. Introduce the panel by name, say how many minutes you have together, and explain that every applicant gets the same questions and none of them is a trick. Offer water. An applicant who has settled gives you answers you can score, and one who is frightened gives you only the fright.
Share out the questions
Decide who asks what, so that one person leads each group of questions while the others listen and take notes. It stops panelists talking over each other, and it stops the day's loudest voice from running every interview.
Ask for the detail
'What was your part?', 'what happened next?' and 'when was the last time?' turn a prepared speech into something that happened. Use one follow-up for each answer. Applicants who have been coached come with polished first answers, and the follow-up is where coached and uncoached applicants end up on level ground.
Let a silence run
A pause after a hard question usually means thinking. Count to five before you rephrase or rescue. If the applicant is truly stuck, offer to come back to it later, and then do come back.
Go gently on need
Start with the questions about plans and costs, and reach for the direct ones only if your award is decided on need. Let the applicant choose how much to say. Nobody should leave the room feeling they had to put their family's hardest year on display to be considered.
Keep the conditions the same
Same length of interview, same panel where you can manage it, same format. If some interviews are by video, hold all the scoring to what was said and ignore the connection, the background and the room behind the applicant.
Scoring answers fairly
Score alone, then talk
Each panelist fills in the sheet straight after the applicant leaves and before anyone speaks. The moment the committee chair says 'she was wonderful', every sheet still blank gets a little more generous. Independent numbers first, discussion second.
Score the answer, not the delivery
Eye contact, a firm handshake, a smooth voice and a good suit reflect practice and the home someone comes from as much as merit. Some applicants have had mock interviews and others have never been asked a formal question. Go back to your notes on what was said and ask whether the content met the line on the sheet.
Weigh what they did against what they had
A student who founded a nonprofit with a parent's help and a student who worked twenty hours a week and still tutored a neighbor have shown different things. Neither is automatically ahead. The fair question is what each one did with the time, money and adults available to them, which is why the question about an ordinary week comes early.
Check yourself against the order of the day
The first applicant tends to set the mark that later ones are measured against, the one who follows a star can look weaker than they were, and by late afternoon everyone on the panel is tired. After the first two interviews, compare scores to make sure you are all using the sheet the same way. Before deciding, reread your notes on the earliest applicants.
Write down what was said
Notes such as 'works weekends at the feed store, covers her brother's school pickup' can be compared across candidates. Notes such as 'nice kid' or 'seemed off' cannot, and they would not be pleasant to hand over if your organization ever had to share them. Ask the fund how long notes are kept and who may see them.
Step aside when you know the applicant
On a local committee somebody will know a candidate's family, have taught them, or employ a parent. Say so before the interview. Ask the fund what its conflict of interest rule is. If it has none, the simplest practice is that the panelist does not score that applicant.
Making the decision
Start with the numbers, then discuss the gaps
Add up the independent scores and look at the ranking before anyone argues for a favorite. Give the discussion time to the applicants on whom panelists disagreed most. A wide gap usually means two people heard the same answer differently, and going back to the notes settles more of these than debate does.
Settle the tie-breaker in advance
Close calls are normal. Decide before the interviews what breaks a tie: greater need, a closer fit to the donor's purpose, or the larger difference the money would make. A rule chosen before you have met anyone is fairer than one invented to favor the applicant the room happens to like.
Keep outside information to one rule
Panelists will have heard things: a rumor, a social media post, a neighbor's opinion. Decide as a committee whether anything beyond the file and the interview may be considered, and apply that answer to every applicant. If one candidate's online life gets looked at, everyone's does, or nobody's.
Tell everyone, promptly and kindly
Applicants plan their year around the answer, so send every result by the date you promised, including the ones that are a no. A short, warm note costs little. If your fund allows feedback, one sentence of encouragement is enough. Do not explain how other candidates ranked.