Extra-curricular success at Immerse Education: Read the stories of 100% scholarship winners!

Immerse Education essay competition winners were awarded 100% scholarships to summer schools in Cambridge, Oxford, London and Sydney. The next round of free competition is open until 4th January 2023.

Back in 2021, 14-year-old Kornelia’s school in Poland invited her to take part in a competition hosted by Immerse Education. The rules were simple - write a 500 word essay, answering a subject-specific question set by the educational summer school company Immerse Education.

“I was so taken aback, I could not believe what I was seeing! On my way back from school I decided to open my emails, not expecting much in all honesty. Immerse’s name popped up and I stopped.”

Kornelia, quoted above, was one of ten students per year awarded a 100% fully-funded scholarship, and joined the Immerse Education programme in 2022.

When students are invited to take part in an essay competition, it can often feel as though they are putting a lot of effort in for something that may never happen. For scholarship winners like Kornelia, Pedro, Riya and Noor, this thought had also crossed their minds. It’s a lot of work, on top of school assignments, to make time to go through the process of writing a university-style essay.

Noor also won a 100% scholarship, attending the Law Academic Insights programme in 2022.

The essay that Noor wrote was in response to the question ‘What is an example of modern slavery?’. A sensitive and nuanced topic such as this one made Noor stop to think - making sure to create a carefully considered answer.

“I found out about the essay competition through my school in Pakistan. When I read about the prizes that participants could win I was surprised. The essay prompts for all the subjects were genuinely fascinating and thought provoking, which made me want to write an essay even if I didn’t win.”

Essay writing is a skill which, like any other skill, needs to be practiced and developed over time. Critical thinking and constructing persuasive arguments which are also backed up with water-tight research is a skill that many students struggle to master, making this free-to-enter competition a fantastic way to develop essay writing skills outside of school.

We spoke to a member of the Immerse Education essay competition team about how they choose the winning essays.

“We receive thousands of competition entries every year from students all over the world. Marked anonymously by our panel of expert tutors, each essay is given careful consideration, and a score based on impact and clarity amongst a variety of other aspects that make an excellent essay. We’re thrilled to be able to give this opportunity to everyone, and it’s great to meet the scholarship winners when they attend the programme of their choice in the summer”

The essay competition is running again in 2022 and 2023, and is open to all students, from anywhere in the world. The competition offers the opportunity for students to practice their essay-writing skills, with essay questions on over 25 topics. Although the 100% scholarship prize is only awarded to 10 winners, Immerse Education also awards runners-up with partial scholarships of up to 50% off their summer school.

You can read both Noor’s and Kornelia’s story and a selection of other 100% scholarship winners here.

Learn more about the Immerse Education Essay Competition here. The current competition closes on the 4th of January 2023.