How to Write the PRSA Chicago Fellowship Essay

For the PRSA Chicago Michelle Flowers Diversity Fellowship Program, keep your focus on fit, contribution, and trajectory. That means your essay should not read like a résumé in paragraph form. It should help a reader understand the person behind the accomplishments, the context behind the goals, and the reason this funding matters now.

As you annotate the prompt, underline every word that signals a decision criterion. If the wording emphasizes education, community, field of study, future plans, or lived experience, build your essay around those ideas rather than around whatever story feels most dramatic. Strong applicants answer the exact question asked, then add depth through detail and reflection.

Your opening should also begin with a concrete moment, not a thesis announcement. Avoid lines such as “In this essay, I will explain why I deserve this scholarship” or broad claims about lifelong passion. Instead, start with a scene, decision, conversation, or turning point that reveals your perspective and gives the committee a reason to keep reading.

Brainstorm in Four Buckets Before You Outline

A useful essay usually draws from four kinds of material. If you brainstorm them separately first, you will avoid the common problem of repeating the same achievement in three different paragraphs.

1. Background: What shaped you?

List the environments, responsibilities, constraints, and influences that formed your perspective. Think beyond identity labels alone. Include moments that changed how you see communication, representation, service, leadership, education, or professional possibility. Good material here often includes family responsibilities, school context, work experience, community involvement, language, migration, mentorship, or a moment when you noticed who was and was not being heard.

Ask yourself: What conditions made my path harder, clearer, or more urgent? What did I learn from those conditions that still shapes my choices?

2. Achievements: What have you done?

Now gather proof. Focus on actions, responsibility, and outcomes. If you led a student organization, organized an event, improved a process, created content, supported a campaign, mentored peers, or balanced work with study, write down what you actually did. Add numbers and scope where honest: team size, audience reached, funds raised, hours committed, percentage growth, deadlines met, or competing obligations managed.

Do not stop at the result. Note the challenge, the decision you faced, the action you took, and what changed because of it. That structure helps reviewers trust your claims.

3. The Gap: Why do you need this scholarship now?

This is the section many applicants underdevelop. The committee already knows you want support; they need to understand the specific gap between where you are and where you are trying to go. That gap may be financial, educational, professional, or network-based. It may involve access to training, time to focus on coursework, reduced work hours, or the ability to pursue a particular opportunity.

Be concrete and dignified. Explain what this support would make possible, not just that college is expensive. The strongest version connects present constraints to future contribution.

4. Personality: Why are you memorable?

Scholarship readers do not fund bullet points; they fund people. Add details that reveal judgment, voice, and values. This might be a habit, a phrase someone told you, a small ritual before public speaking, a lesson from a failed project, or the reason a certain kind of work matters to you. Personality is not decoration. It is what makes your essay sound lived-in rather than assembled.

Once you have notes in all four buckets, circle the details that best answer the prompt. You do not need equal space for each bucket, but most strong essays use all four.

Build an Essay That Moves, Not Just Lists

After brainstorming, choose one central claim your essay will prove. A useful formula is: Because of what I have seen and done, I am prepared to grow in a specific direction, and this scholarship would help me do that with greater impact. You do not need to write that sentence into the essay, but you should know it before drafting.

Then build a structure with one job per paragraph. A clear model looks like this:

1. Opening scene: a specific moment that reveals your perspective or motivation.
2. Context paragraph: what that moment means in the larger story of your background.
3. Evidence paragraph: one or two concrete achievements that show initiative, responsibility, and results.
4. Need-and-fit paragraph: the gap you are trying to close and why this scholarship matters now.
5. Forward-looking conclusion: what you plan to do with the education and support, stated specifically and credibly.

This structure works because it creates progression. The reader moves from who you are, to what you have done, to what you need, to what you intend to build. That is more persuasive than a flat list of merits.

Keep each paragraph centered on one idea. If a paragraph starts as a story about a classroom experience and ends as a paragraph about financial need, split it. Strong transitions should show cause and effect: That experience changed how I approached... Because I had seen that gap firsthand, I decided to... That work also revealed a limit in my current training...

Draft with Specificity, Reflection, and Control

When you draft, aim for sentences that show action and thought together. Reviewers want evidence of maturity, not just activity. That means every major example should answer two questions: What did you do? Why does it matter?

Here is the difference:

• Weak: I was passionate about communications and participated in many activities.
• Stronger: After noticing that first-generation students often missed internship deadlines, I helped redesign our student organization’s outreach calendar and peer reminders so key opportunities reached students earlier.

The stronger version gives the committee something to see and evaluate. It names a problem, an action, and an effect. Even if your work was smaller in scale, clarity makes it persuasive.

Reflection is what turns experience into meaning. After each example, add one or two sentences that interpret it. What did the experience teach you about responsibility, audience, trust, representation, collaboration, or your own limits? What changed in your thinking? Why is that change relevant to your next step?

Also watch your tone. You want confidence without inflation. Let facts carry weight. If you say you led, explain what leadership required. If you say an experience was transformative, show exactly what changed in your decisions afterward. Replace vague intensity with accountable detail.

Finally, write in active voice whenever possible. I organized is stronger than an event was organized. I revised our outreach plan is stronger than changes were made. Clear actors make writing more credible.

Revise for the Question Behind Every Paragraph: So What?

Revision is where a decent draft becomes competitive. Read your essay paragraph by paragraph and ask, So what should the committee conclude from this? If the answer is unclear, the paragraph is probably descriptive when it needs to be analytical.

Use this checklist:

• Opening: Does the first paragraph begin with a real moment rather than a generic claim?
• Relevance: Does every paragraph help answer the scholarship prompt?
• Evidence: Have you included concrete details, scope, or outcomes where appropriate?
• Reflection: Have you explained what each experience taught you and why it matters now?
• Need: Have you clearly shown the gap this scholarship would help close?
• Fit: Does the essay make sense for this fellowship, not just for any scholarship?
• Voice: Does the essay sound like a thoughtful person, not a template?

Then tighten at the sentence level. Cut throat-clearing phrases such as I would like to say that, I believe that, and throughout my life. Replace broad claims with proof. If two sentences do the same job, keep the sharper one. If a paragraph contains three examples, keep the best one and develop it properly.

One useful final test: ask a trusted reader to summarize your essay in one sentence after reading it once. If they cannot do that, the essay may lack a clear center.

Avoid the Mistakes That Make Essays Forgettable

Many scholarship essays fail for familiar reasons, and most of them are fixable.

• Cliché openings: Avoid lines like “From a young age” or “I have always been passionate about...” They tell the reader nothing distinctive.
• Résumé repetition: Do not simply restate activities already listed elsewhere in the application. Add context, decisions, obstacles, and meaning.
• Unproven claims: If you describe yourself as dedicated, resilient, or committed, support the claim with action.
• Overwriting: Big words cannot replace clear thought. Choose precision over performance.
• Generic need statements: Saying you need money is not enough. Explain what support changes in practical terms.
• Missing conclusion: Do not end by repeating your opening. End by showing direction: what you plan to build, contribute, or pursue next.

Also resist the urge to sound flawless. A selective committee is more likely to trust an essay that shows growth, self-awareness, and honest limits than one that presents a polished but generic success story. If a setback belongs in the essay, include it only if you can show how you responded and what that response reveals about your judgment.

Turn Your Draft Into a Personal, Credible Final Essay

Your final goal is not to write the most dramatic essay in the pool. It is to write one that is clear, grounded, and unmistakably yours. A strong final draft shows how your background shaped your perspective, how your actions demonstrate readiness, what support would help you do next, and what kind of person the committee would be backing.

Before submitting, read the essay aloud. Listening will help you catch inflated phrasing, repeated words, and sentences that sound unlike your natural voice. Check that names, dates, and details are accurate. Make sure the essay could not be sent unchanged to ten unrelated scholarships.

If you have done the work well, the committee should finish with a simple impression: this applicant understands where they come from, has already acted with purpose, knows what they need next, and will use support thoughtfully. That is the standard to aim for.