Queen’s is one of the top universities in Canada! In addition to offering excellent programs, hopeful students can apply for the Queen’s Chancellor Scholarship. This award provides students with $36,000 over the course of four years—that’s enough to cover your tuition! Here at GrantMe, we’ve helped students apply to and win this prestigious award. Watch our YouTube video or read the blog below for our top advice on how to win the Queen’s Chancellor Scholarship. 

Breaking Down the Application

The application asks you to respond to three essay questions:

1. Provide us with an example of your volunteerism in your school or community. What was the impact of your involvement? What was your motivation to engage in this? How will your past experiences relating to volunteerism lead to continued service while at Queen’s?

2. As part of an experience where you demonstrated your leadership, what challenges did you encounter? How did you respond and what did you learn about leadership from this experience.

3. Original and creative thinking are attributes we assess when considering the recipientsfor our major admission awards. Please attach a one-page document that demonstrates in your own way how you meet this criteria.

Acing Question 1 and 2

There are a few guidelines you should follow to make you successful in the first two questions:

1. Discuss your top leadership roles

Your application is your chance to show the scholarship committee why you deserve to receive the Queen’s Chancellor Scholarship. You want to make sure you’re making the most out of the limited word count that you have. 

Be sure to highlight your most impactful initiator roles first. These are volunteer roles in which you started an initiative like a new club or project. Then highlight any leader roles you have. These are a step down from initiator roles like being a coach or a camp counsellor. Lastly, include any member roles in which you volunteered as part of a team. For more help on choosing which involvements to highlight, check out our article here!

2. Connect Your Impact

You want to communicate a high level of community impact in your essays to demonstrate why you are the best candidate for the Queen’s Chancellor Scholarship. Describing how you solved a problem or fulfilled an unmet need in your community is the best way to do this! Fore more support, check out our article here! 

3. Use STAR Structure

To help you clearly and powerfully communicate your experiences, use STAR structure! STAR is a 4-part acronym that will help you powerfully describing a specific volunteer or extracurricular experience. 

• S — Situation (who, what, when, where)
• T — Task (your objective)
• A — Actions (what you did, how you did it, skills you used)
• R — Result (qualitative or quantitative proof of your success) 

Use this formula to discuss your volunteer involvements in your essays! STAR will not only make your writing powerful and easy to follow, but it also seamlessly answers the essay prompt. For example, when you describe your Actions, you can talk about the challenges you faced and how you overcame them . When you describe your Results, you can talk about what you learned  from the experience! For more help using STAR, check out our article here!

Acing Question 3

The last essay question on the Queen’s Chancellor Scholarship application is a bit more open-ended than the others. Here are some tips to help you succeed!

1. Think of something you are passionate about!

You want to be authentic so that you can best demonstrate your originality and creativity. Focus on something you’re passionate about. This could be anything! Here are some ideas to get you thinking:

• Subjects— science, art, music…
• Activities— soccer, writing, tutoring…
• Values— equity, responsibility, justice…
• Social issues— sustainability, racial justice, youth mentorship…

2. What is the problem that you want to solve?

Now try to connect this to impact you’ve already made in your community or impact that you want to create in the future! This will help you to really demonstrate your leadership and why you’re the best candidate for the Queen’s Chancellor Scholarship. 

Consider a problem you work to solve in your community through one of your current volunteer involvements. How did you demonstrate original and creative thinking in solving this problem?

Or think about a problem that you want to solve in the future through your volunteer work, education, or career! How will you demonstrate originality and creativity in solving this problem?

3. Show Don’t Tell

You might have heard this writing advice before: show don’t tell. Instead of simply telling the committee that you are original and creative, you want to show them how you are. This is where STAR comes in handy! Be sure to describe specific examples and instances of how you demonstrate creativity and originality. Focus on describing your Actions and their Results to accomplish this. 

Follow this advice and you’re sure to submit a strong application for the Queen’s Chancellor Scholarship!

If you want even more support, GrantMe can help you stand out. We provide personalized scholarship matches, essay editing, and mentorship from past winners to maximize your success. Complete our short scholarship eligibility quiz to learn more about how GrantMe can help you achieve your post-secondary goals.