Decide which scholarships of the many on offer are best suited to your academic interests, career goals, geographical preferences, and financial circumstances. Forget about the others.

If your chosen scholarships have application deadlines within two weeks of each other, pare down your choices to no more than three. You may not be able to prepare, with the required care, more than three application packets simultaneously.

Check your eligibility. Be absolutely certain that you meet all the requirements. Each scholarship website provides a section on this issue, but if there is any question about your eligibility -- with respect to, say, minority status — ask OHS. Nothing is more disheartening than spending hours on an application only to discover that you fail the eligibility test.

Complete the Registration Form. Unfortunately, OHS cannot assume responsibility for helping you apply unless it received your Registration Forms, Parts 1 and 2, before the beginning of fall classes.

Highlight all application deadlines on all your calendars. Enter alerts in your calendar on the days one week and two weeks prior to the final deadline.

Notice whether the final deadline is for postmark on or receipt of the application package, and adjust your calendars accordingly.

Check to see whether your scholarship requires GRE scores of its applicants, and if so whether on the "Subject" as well as on the "General" test. You may register and take the General test on line, for a fee; Subject tests are given only in paper format on specified dates. See www.gre.org.

Develop a checklist of requirements for each scholarship and a timeline for satisfying them: i.e., by what date you will have completed the first draft of your essay; by what date you will have photographs in hand; by what date you will have contacted faculty in your universities of choice; by what date you will have formulated a program of study, and so on. Honor your timeline!

Identify and contact your referees — i.e., persons who will write reference letters for you. In addition to these instructions, OHS has developed a set of guidelines for you and for your referees, available from the Director. Be sure that your referees are current on you and your plans. Supply them with a copy of your resume. Let them know where you can be reached for answers to their questions. Direct them to websites with information on the scholarships for which you are applying. If these scholarships provide forms for referees, be sure that your referees have copies or know how to access them on the web. Know, and inform your referees, in writing, whether the completed reference letters are to be sent to you, to the scholarship foundation, or to OHS. Be sure that they understand whether the letter must be sent with a signature across the envelope seal. Invite your referees to contact OHS for guidelines on writing for a specific scholarship. Above all, let them know the deadlines for submission and/or receipt of the reference forms by the scholarship foundations (these deadlines may or may not be identical with those for your own application packet). When requesting a recommendation, supply your referee with a stamped, self-addressed envelope if the letter is to be mailed. If it is not, supply a plain white, business-sized envelope of good quality paper. Remember to fill in those parts of the reference form that ask for your input; do not expect your referee to fill in this information about the candidate.

Prepare a resume. This necessary task can be harder than it appears. The purpose of the curriculum vitae or resume is to provide an appealing, easily readable snapshot of your life to date. It must be neat, clear, inviting, and just long enough to cover the essentials in an economical, streamlined, and efficient manner. If you're disorderly, cryptic, ambiguous, repetitious, or long-winded, you're lost. Crisp, brisk, sharp, and lucid is the effect you're after.

Set margins for one inch at the top, left and right; 1.5 inches at the bottom. Use a conservative, straightforward, readable font (preferably, Times New Roman), either 10 or 12 point (preferably 12). Do not embellish with high-tech artwork or typography, or over-use bold or italics. Section headings may be in bold. Never combine bold, italics, and underlinings.

Title this document a "Curriculum Vitae" (italicized as a foreign language phrase) or a "Resume for [Your Name]." No other title is acceptable.

Your school postal address should appear in the upper left hand corner of page 1, your permanent home address opposite in the upper right corner; include telephone numbers with area codes in both entries. Add your e-mail address following your school address.

Arrange your curriculum vitae by categories, in descending order of importance to your audience. The order may vary between scholarship screening committees and prospective employers, or even among scholarship committees, depending upon what particular forms of experience and expertise are valued by your readers. Here is a possible cv order for a scholarship competition:

• Education
• Academic Honors
• Research and Publications (if any)
• Professional Experience (including internships)
• Extra-curricular Activities
• Community and Volunteer Service
• Language Skills
• Special Technical Skills
• Athletic Achievements
• Personal Interests

Indicate any leadership roles, as appropriate, under these categories: evaluators are more interested in evidence of leadership than in memberships.

In early drafts of the cv, err on the side of inclusiveness; OHS will assist you in cutting back. The cv is not the place to feature your modesty, but screening committees recognize padding when they see it: straightforward description without self-promotion or false humility is the ideal here. The objective of the cv is to showcase you as a distinctive personality, not necessarily "bigger" — more accomplished — than everybody else but interestingly, compellingly different from them. Keep the cv to no more than two pages, if possible.

Avoid abbreviations unfamiliar to the general reader. Annotate parenthetically entries requiring explanations (names of awards, organizations, etc.). Provide dates (of graduation, employment, internships, etc.).

Some applications require photographs of scholarship candidates. These should be wallet-sized head and shoulders shots of professional quality, not candids from Destin Beach. Ball gowns and tuxedos are not necessary; a dress-up look is. The guidelines below for appropriate interview attire are applicable here.

Change your answering machine tape if it does anything other than politely and briefly ask callers to leave a message. Delete musical accompaniments, wisecracks, slogans, promotions, political statements, and sexy come-ons! Scholarship officials may telephone you: let them meet you in your most civilized mode.

Carefully read through all information provided by the scholarship foundations on how to apply, on "rules" governing applications, on prescribed procedures for preparing forms, and related material. Follow such instructions to the letter to avoid disqualification on technical grounds.

If you cannot apply on line and are permitted by the scholarship foundation to apply with a hard copy, you will need a typewriter (or a typist) to complete the application form. OHS can direct you to a typewriter. In some cases script may be allowed but it is always less desirable than clean, well-formatted type.On some forms (Rhodes, for example), provided space for typing referees' contact information is minimal and cramped. Use the Form Tool on the full version of Adobe Acrobat to create fields for any PDF document and then type directly onto the form. Acrobat full version is necessary for saving the completed form. You may use the full version of Acrobat to extract a page from a PDF document (e.g., for e-mailing a referee the form request for an evaluation).

Answer every question, or complete every blank, that is relevant to you on the application form. Limit yourself to the space provided unless you are specifically invited to expand elsewhere. Do not feel obliged to fill up any provided space: blank space is preferable to padding. Avoid the congested effect--packing too much into a limited space: readability trumps exhaustiveness. Don't offer more or other than what's requested. If instructions read, "If applicable," and the question isn't, do not write in "N/A": just leave the space blank.

Read all the fine print. Some of the instructions will appear in tiny print but they are no less important for such typography.

Use academic titles in listing academic referees: "Professor" not "Dr." For faculty with senior administrative appointments, use "Dean" (even if actually an "associate dean"), "Provost," "Chancellor," etc. Do not write, "Professor John Smith, Ph.D." (the doctorate is assumed). If uncertain, check with OHS or see the Vanderbilt telephone directory.

If asked for FAX and e-mail contact numbers for your referees, be sure to supply them, along with addresses and telephone numbers. Departmental FAX numbers for faculty are acceptable and are listed in the Vanderbilt telephone directory.

Order any lists (employment, publications, travel, activities, etc.) from the most to the least recent.

Sign and date the form after carefully reading any prose about "agreement" or "declaration" or "commitment" or "understanding" above the signature line. Be sure you understand what your signature "agrees" to.

Visit The Office of Honor Scholarships for a look at sample applications.

Revise the essay, again and again. Revise it over many days, preferably over several weeks, so that intervals between viewings can offer distance and fresh perspectives. Revise it to eliminate all attempts to sound "learned": they invariably make you sound pretentious. Delete all generalizations, abstractions, irrelevancies, and peacockery. Try to economize on every sentence: ask how it can be shortened and strengthened, with verbs, not modifiers. Vary sentence structures (from the standard subject, verb, object order). Cut whatever fails the "essential test": is the essay better without this? Read the essay aloud: if you stumble, consider changing whatever tripped you up. If you're really pleased with a given sentence, it almost certainly needs revising for clarity and directness. Use your spellchecker. Then use it again. Polish the whole until it sparkles.

Ask a crabby roommate or a dyspeptic advisor or a hypercritical sibling or a disgruntled parent to read the essay with the following questions in mind:

1. Is the author someone I'd like to chat with?
2. Does she understand where she's been and know where she's going?
3. Do her plans make sense? Do they make sense for her?
4. If I had the cash, would I fund a scholarship to support the plans?

If any answer is negative, ask for a rationale, elaboration, and assistance.

Sign and date the application, in ink, as indicated. If duplicate copies are required, sign each.

Sign the back of all copies of your photograph, if required (as by Rhodes), but preferably not with a ball-point pen, since the impression will show through.

With twenty-four hours notice, OHS will make copies of your application for you. It will not do so on the day the application must be mailed.

Assemble the components of your application package in the order given in the instructions. You may paper-clip the completed application to distinguish one copy of it from another but unless otherwise instructed, do not use staples, clips, plastic covers, or other binders. Do not ornament any part of the application with original artwork.

If you wish OHS to review the final version of your application before it is mailed, please bring it in no fewer than two days before it must leave your hands, and be prepared to remain in the office for the review.

OHS will FedEx the application for you no later than one day before it must be postmarked or two days before it is due at the foundation offices.

Write thank-you notes to your referees, letting them know that your application has been submitted.

Forget about the application for a week. Then begin preparation for the interview, if one is required.