Use all the white space

The online scholarship application allows you two areas to provide narrative on your Army ROTC scholarship application. I have already written an article regarding the personal statement, but the other block of white space for you to fill needs some exploring. First off, you need to understand that I have never personally filled out an Army Scholarship application online, so some of my suggestions are based on a little bit of speculation on my part. I do have visibility over the final product though, so my speculation is based on some pretty good information. The field I’m going to talk about shows up as “Applicants Additional SAL Achievements” in the Cadet Command Information Management System.

First off…

Don’t leave this or the personal statement blank!!!

I see it all the time, and Cadet Command will usually tell you that your personal statement is missing. Your applications is your argument for why Cadet Command should pay for your education and make you an Army Officer. So use all the space to make your case. Remember that we are looking for Scholar/Athlete/Leaders, so tell us about your scholar/athlete/leader attributes/accomplishments.

The best way I’ve seen to fill this block is to use your resume, and bulletize your accomplishments. I would suggest either a chronological organization, or organize the achievements by SAL criteria. For example:

2009
-Competed in a triathalon in Hawaii
-Selected to attend the national young leaders forun on national security
-Captain of the varsity chess team
-Voluteered 3 hours a week at the pet shelter
2010
-Boys State participant
-National honors society all 4 years of high school
-Secretary of senior class
-Clarkson University high school leadership award – given to a junior in top 15 percent of class who has outstanding leadership qualities and academic promise

…you get the idea.

This is your opportunity to add anything that you couldn’t add elsewhere, and your chance to expound on something you added elsewhere, but weren’t able to explain fully. Remember that if you were selected to be captain of the football team it might be to your advantage to explain that you led conditioning for 70 players, instead of just checking the block and leaving the board members to wonder what the captain of the football team does at your school.

some other Do’s and Don’ts –

Do proofread and have someone else proofread before posting

Don’t post the same information in both additional achievements and personal statement (I’ve seen it done)

Don’t make stuff up or fabricate your achievements

Do tell your story…this is your chance to toot your horn

Don’t toot too loud