Fulbright Sample Essays

By popular demand: I have a few successful Fulbright essays to share with Fulbright full grant applicants who want to see how other UCSDers got funding. Contact me if you want to see them.
My observations so far: Get to your point quickly. As graduate students, you're trained to survey the research before you state your original conclusion, but instead of taking the scenic route, think like a journalist and put your conclusion up front. THEN show us how you came to it, using the literature.

In your CV, be as simultaneously creative and honest as possible. Avoid cliches ("through my hard work and determination, I reached my goal and got all As/ended world hunger/dominated the global market in widgets"). Talk about your intellectual development in terms of concretes. If your interest in Foucault's "Discipline and Punish" is the result of your work interviewing prisoners, let's hear about what those interviews were like. Think about those experiences that are out of the common way. We've all worked hard at something or other, but we haven't all interviewed prisoners. That makes the experience particular to you, and interests the selection committee.

I've sent out a (literally) worldwide call to our past Fulbrighters, and more essays trickle in each day. I'm going to wait a week and then fulfill any requests for samples with a single Adobe doc of all of the samples I have. And in case you didn't get the email from your grad coordinators, I'm also available for help with your essays. I have work experience as a statements of purpose editor, and while I might not be familiar with your subject matter, I can spot cliches from a mile away.