Guidelines for Completing your Leadership Application

In an essay, please: 

• Describe the activity or project you propose to undertake and how this experience will challenge you and allow you to grow as a leader.  

• Include a discussion of why this initiative matters to you, what you expect to distinctly contribute, and your goals for developing your leadership potential. Make sure to explain how you will carry out your project over your two quarters of award. 

• What do you need to learn about leadership and about being a leader yourself? How will you keep track of and evaluate what you are learning? 

• Consider how your mentor and the context of your project (e.g. collaborators, partners, other resources) will provide the support you need to meet your learning goals. 

Essays should be a maximum of three pages (double-spaced, in 12-point font, 1-inch margins); in-text citations are included in the four-page limit. One additional page may be included for references, images, or figures, if applicable; this optional page of supplemental material is not included in the page limit. 

Most students who are successful in the leadership scholarship application process are those who are beyond the “idea” stage and have begun planning or implementing their ideas. Planning may include activities such as making contact with involved persons, scheduling and organizing meetings, recruiting volunteers or participants, writing a mission statement, or getting elected to office. The scholarship committee members need to be able to imagine you in action.

Below are some questions to think about as you develop your application materials. Use these and other questions you identify about your own learning and leadership goals to help you focus your writing and respond to the application prompts. Rather than trying to separately answer each of these questions, use them to craft a coherent narrative that will allow your reviewers to get to know you and your project.

Leadership

• What does leadership mean to you?
• What experiences have informed these understandings?
• How will your activity and your role in that activity deepen your thinking about leadership?

Project

• What activity do you propose to undertake with this scholarship? (Be specific)
• What is your unique role in this project – how does your individual initiative and creativity shape your project?
• Who do you collaborate with to make this project happen and to grow as a leader? Make sure to reflect on the mentorship you are hoping to receive, but also to consider partners and other collaborators.
• How does this project or activity provide a way for you to develop as a leader?

Outcomes

• What do you hope to know, be able to do, or become as a result of your experience with your proposed activity?
• How will you know you have achieved these goals?
• What difference will accomplishing these goals make in you and your role in a community?

Impact

• What do you hope to learn through your involvement in the activity you describe?
• How does your activity foster this learning?
• How does this learning connect to your larger educational and/or life goals?

The writing of a Mary Gates Leadership essay calls for a balancing act between describing your ideas on leadership and personal development as well as the project or idea that you are using to move your leadership development forward.

Here are some components that we have found make for a compelling leadership essay:

Write your essay in your own voice:

• There is a clear and consistent voice of the writer that lets the reader connect on a personal level.
• The reader has a clear sense of what the writer feels about leadership on a personal level.
• Readers also have a sense of how the writer identifies themselves as a leader.
• These thoughts on leadership are tied to personal narratives and experiences within the essay.

Effectively illustrate a clear plan and timeline for your project:

• There is a clear description of the project or set of ideas within which the leadership experience will be framed.  Your essay gives the reader confidence that you have thought carefully about how to approach the project, have  the necessary support to carry it out, and that the project will be challenging but ultimately do-able (at some level).
• The essay is organized well with a natural flow between sections and is not cobbled together.
• For previous applicants/recipients: Acknowledge your prior application/award and cite the major goals you will set for yourself with this new application. Reviewers and interviewers will want to know what you have accomplished since your last application, as well as your plans for the new award period.

Show your enthusiasm and commitment to the work:

• The writer describes how they know they will have accomplished what they are setting out for themselves both personally and concretely.
• There is mention of how this project/process is connected to the writer’s ultimate goals.
• The reader is left with a clear understanding of the passion that the writer feels about their leadership project and is excited to meet with them to learn more!

Describe how your mentor guides/supports your role in your project:

• The essay explains clearly how the mentor was chosen and why.
• There is also a clear sense of how your partnership with your mentor will evolve through the project.

One of the goals of the Mary Gates Endowment is to invest in scholarships that help students achieve their educational goals. Starting in Autumn 2025, the application will include an impact question.

Prompt for the impact question

In one page (double-spaced, 12-point font, 1-inch margins) please describe how the leadership project you plan to pursue during your award period enhances your education and the development of your future plans. Please also include how receiving the scholarship will benefit you and your growth as a leader through your project. 

In this answer, you should include: 

• Your future goals and how this leadership experience will help you achieve them. Think about specific leadership skills you are gaining from your project, as well as the mentorship you will receive, and how they will move you closer to the goals you envision for yourself. 

• A description of how the financial award will allow you to engage in your project and how the scholarship and becoming a Mary Gates Scholar will enhance your educational experiences at UW and beyond.  

Please UPLOAD your answer as a PDF. Thank you. 

Essays should be a maximum of three pages. Essays should be double-spaced, 12-point font, 1-inch margins. You may include one additional page for references, images, or figures, if applicable; this one additional page of supplementary material is not included in the page limit and may be formatted differently as long as it is clear and legible. If you are using figures or images, make sure to include a caption.

The impact answer should be a maximum of one page. The same formatting of the essay applies: double-spaced, 12-point font, 1-inch margins.

If you refer to a figure, graph or image in your essay that is not your own, be sure to credit the source. Essays with figures and/or images lacking proper citations may impact the evaluation of your application. You are welcome to use the citation style that is common in your discipline/major. Information on proper citation format can be found at:

• UW Libraries Citations Guide

Please only include sources, figures and/or images that are relevant to your project.

Your mentor will provide you with the best feedback on your essay’s representation of the work you are doing and how it fits into a larger framework. Someone else – a peer, another instructor, or adviser – will be able to tell you if your essay is clear to an outside perspective, and if you have conveyed a sense of enthusiasm and commitment for the work you describe. Be sure to leave yourself enough time to get feedback from these key people before submitting your application. Always provide your readers with the prompt and review criteria.

If you would like to discuss your application/proposed leadership project with a Mary Gates team member before submitting, we highly encourage you to schedule an advising appointment with us. 

During each application cycle, we host application workshops that applicants are encouraged to attend. These workshops will give applicants more in-depth advice on how to structure their application materials and what to include. Applicants are asked to bring a draft of their application to the workshop as well, as there is allotted time for peer reviews and for applicants to ask specific questions pertaining to their project/application. Register here for our application workshops!

We expect that previous awardees have a deeper understanding of their leadership, are taking up more responsibilities in their project or are working on a larger-scale effort, and can clearly articulate previous accomplishments as well as opportunities for new learning and achievements during a second award period.  We also expect a strong connection between the leadership work and a student’s longer-term goals.

Be sure to describe your role in the leadership project, and how it may have changed since your prior award. What new challenges do you need to overcome to take your work to a higher level? Will you be taking on additional responsibilities? If you are starting a whole new project and/or working with a new mentor, you may want to address the reason for the change, how the new experience will provide new opportunity for learning, and how your new mentor will contribute to that learning.

The application review process may take up to 8 weeks. If your application moves forward after the reading phase, you will be contacted to schedule an interview with members of the Mary Gates team as well as a committee member. Interview prep materials will be shared with students who are invited to an interview. After your interview is completed, we will contact you to let you know whether you have been awarded a Mary Gates Leadership Scholarship. 

In an interview, committee members will ask you to expand upon your essay. Some interview questions that committee members have asked in the past include:

• How do you plan to grow/what do you need to learn as a leader?
• Is this project something that this community wants or needs?
• How are you planning to work with others on your project? With your mentor?
• What do you hope to learn or gain from this project?