It might be a bit to late now to ask about scholarships, but our school has said jack-all about scholarships and i don't even know where to start....
Before I visit my school carrer adviser (hopefully thats helpul! I want to ask you guys (especially those who have recieved the schoalrship/ know someone who has receieved the scholarship) What exactly are they looking for ? Acacdemics? Extra curricullar? => if so whats sort of extra curricular? Sport? (but at what level of sports really matter? just a local club? State level? reps?) I don'r really know what sort of extra curricular activties make an individual stand out... :/ Any help/ info would be appreciated
Thanks in adnvance
This is my personal opinion but I feel like most co-op scholarships want to get to know you as an individual (i.e. what kind of person you are, what is your personality etc). So you should probably talk about or include extracurricular activities that can showcase your leadership skills, your team work skills, your ability to take initiative, time management, perseverance, and your reaction to pressure. But of course, as tklawl mentioned, it would be pretty good if you manage to participate in activities that are related to the course you are trying to get a scholarship for - this shows interest/passion, and if you actually are interested in your desired course, there should be no problems or anything stopping you from doing related activities.
I received offers for UTS BIT/WiEIT co-op scholarships and UNSW BIS/CIS co-op scholarships (except my ATAR was too low, but that's ok, still got an offer) and these were my extracurricular activities: St John First Aid Cadets, Girls Programming Network, charity work/volunteering, and I talked about a few conferences/activities I went to that were about technology/programming. I also managed to talk about stuff I did at school that was related to tech. NOTE: I wasn't prefect/never held any official leadership role at school so what I did instead was talk about leadership experience in group work and extracurricular activities.
As for academics, it depends on the scholarship. For example, UNSW has a firm requirement of 96+ ATAR (as merely a threshold, so it doesn't matter what you get as long as it is above 96) for their co-op programs, whilst UTS and their co-op program is a comfortable 85+ ATAR requirement. However, other scholarships may further scrutinise your academics to gauge your drive and the consistency of your work ethic, so your school assessment rankings etc may play a heavy role in determining if you get into the interview stage or not. My academics were sub par - I only held high rankings for 1 or 2 subjects which is probably why I got rejected for interviews for other scholarships as they were searching for higher academic standards.
Also --> for those cadetships/scholarships that require you to take online assessments - tip: choose the ones that show you taking initiative, they're usually the answers they're looking for.
Good luck !! Don't stress, just let the interviewers/application reviewers know you as a person, and not just by the stuff you do.
