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Arkansas: Scholarship Essay (choose one of three)

Maximum 600 words

Choose ONE of the following prompts and write a well-developed essay (maximum length of 600 words): 1. Identify an invention or idea that was developed more than 100 years ago that still has a major effect on the way we live today. How has this technology or idea affected your life? 2. Identify an artist or innovator in the world today who inspires you. Tell us why. 3. What would you describe as your "superpower" (skill, talent, or personal experience)? How would you plan to deploy that power at the University of Arkansas?
What it’s really asking

Arkansas wants one essay for scholarship consideration, and you choose one of three options. Note that this essay is part of the scholarship process, not general admission, which requires no essay. Whichever option you pick, the committee is really asking the same buried question: who are you, and why should we invest scholarship money in you? Prompt three is the most direct (your skill or experience, plus how you will use it at the U of A); prompts one and two use a topic (an old invention, a living artist) as a lens for the same self-portrait. If you cite published or web-based information, you must cite your sources.

Why they ask it

This is the only substantial piece of writing Arkansas asks for, and it is optional, which means it doubles as a signal of how much you want the scholarship. A vivid, specific essay separates you from the large share of applicants who submit something flat or nothing at all. The committee is allocating limited dollars and wants to back students who are both interesting and likely to contribute on campus.

Three ways in
Start from an object, not an abstraction

Begin with a concrete object or moment in your own life (a tool, a job, a recurring family scene) and work outward to the bigger idea, rather than starting from the abstract topic and trying to find yourself in it.

Mine the unglamorous

If you choose prompt three, brainstorm the small thing people actually rely on you for. The best superpowers are quiet and real: you translate for your parents, you are the calm one in a crisis, you can teach anyone anything.

Use the topic as a mirror

For prompts one or two, pick an invention or artist that connects to something you already do or want to do, so the pivot to your own life feels earned instead of forced.

✕  Weak opening

“Throughout history, the human race has been shaped by countless inventions that have changed the world forever.”

✓  Strong opening

“My grandmother cannot read the bus schedule, so for six years I have been her printing press: I copy the route times onto an index card in letters big enough for her eyes.”

✦ Annotated example · The translator's superpower. Written by EssayLens to teach, not a real applicant’s essay. Tap a highlighted line →
My superpower is translating. Not Spanish to English, though I do that for my grandmother at the pharmacy. I mean translating the panic on a stranger's face into a sentence they can actually use.1I discovered it at the free tax clinic where I volunteer every February. The IRS form 1040 is a foreign language even to people who were born here. A roofer named Mr. Delgado once sat across from me shaking, certain he owed money he did not have. He did not owe anything. He was owed eleven hundred dollars. The whole problem was that nobody had ever explained the word 'refund' in a way that did not sound like a trick.2So I built a habit. Before I touch a form, I ask the person to tell me, in their own words, what they are afraid of. Then I repeat their fear back in plainer words until they nod. Only then do we open the laptop. I learned that most people are not confused by numbers. They are confused by the gap between how an institution talks and how a human being lives.3I want to deploy that power at the University of Arkansas through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program run out of the Walton College, which partners with the local United Way to file returns for low-income families in Washington County. I have already read that VITA volunteers there filed thousands of returns last season. I do not want to just add to that number. I want to start a Spanish-language intake table, because Springdale and Rogers have large Marshallese and Latino communities, and a form is useless if the first question on it is already a wall.4I am realistic about what I bring. I am not the strongest student in any math class I have taken. My superpower is not raw intelligence. It is patience and the stubborn belief that no one should feel stupid in a government office.5I plan to pair that with a real major. I want to study accounting so the translation goes both directions: I can take a family's messy shoebox of receipts and turn it into a clean return, and I can take a tax code written for lawyers and turn it back into a sentence a roofer can trust. Eventually I want to open a small practice in a town like the one I grew up in, where the nearest honest tax help is forty minutes away.6A refund is only money. What I actually handed Mr. Delgado was the feeling of not being lost. That is the thing I want to keep handing people, one plain sentence at a time, for the rest of my life. Arkansas is where I want to learn to do it well.7
  1. 1Opens by redefining a familiar word so the reader leans in, then immediately grounds the abstract claim in a concrete, ordinary scene (the pharmacy). This is the 'specificity over polish' the prompt rewards.
  2. 2A named character and a precise dollar figure turn a vague 'I help people' into a scene the reader can see. The detail that 'refund' itself was the obstacle shows the applicant understands the real skill is translation, not math.
  3. 3Names a repeatable method rather than a one-time good deed, which signals the talent is reliable and transferable. The closing sentence states the insight that organizes the whole essay.
  4. 4This is the hinge the Arkansas prompt demands: a concrete, named campus resource (VITA at Walton College, the United Way partnership, real towns) plus a specific plan to extend it. It shows the applicant did real homework and has grounded ambition, not name-dropping.
  5. 5Honest self-assessment about a weakness makes the strength more credible. Admitting he is not the top math student keeps the ambition grounded, which is exactly the posture Arkansas says it rewards.
  6. 6Ties the 'superpower' to a specific academic path and a modest, locally rooted long-term goal. The forty-minute detail and the small-town practice keep the ambition believable rather than grandiose.
  7. 7Returns to the opening character to close the loop, then restates the value in plain language and names the school. The ending earns its emotion because it grew out of concrete scenes rather than asserting feeling up front.
Stuck? Start here
  • What is the small, specific thing people in your life actually count on you for, and where did you learn it?
  • If you stripped away every accomplishment on your resume, what scene from an ordinary day best shows who you are?
  • What do you want to study or build at Arkansas, and what experience in your past quietly points toward it?
Before you submit
  • Did you spend at least half your words on yourself and your future rather than on the topic, invention, or artist?
  • If you chose prompt three, did you clearly answer how you will use this power at the University of Arkansas, naming something specific?
  • Read it aloud: does it sound like you talking, or like a formal essay performance? Cut anything you would never actually say.

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