Last year I was selected as one of the 6 Adobe India Women in Tech Scholars. As the application process for this year has already started, I have been receiving multiple queries regarding the same. Below, I try to summarize the the application process and share what I feel can help make a strong application. These are just points I kept in mind for my application, what truly makes any application stand out is its uniqueness. I would highly encourage all applicants to write your own stories, be true to yourselves and to be creative with your applications!

What is Adobe India WiT Scholarship and why should one apply?

As mentioned on their website, through this initiative, Adobe is striving towards creating gender equality in science, technology and engineering domains by encouraging women to showcase their excellence in computing and technology and become future leaders and role models in the field. Along with the opportunity to interview with Adobe for their summer internship and a chance to attend GHCI, the winners also get monetary benefits.

Essay Questions:

In 2020, there were 4 essay questions, with a word limit of around 2000 characters each. These questions are aimed at understanding why you chose to pursue Computer Science, your goals, your role model, problems you faced in the past, and how you overcame them, and why you think you deserve the scholarship.

The point to note here is that you have limited words to answer each question, so make sure each word you write adds value to your answer. My tip would be to use this section as an opportunity to share what makes you different. Feel free to mention personal experiences, learnings, achievements, goals and your journey as a woman in tech. Most importantly, be honest.

Resume

Try to keep your resume short (preferably a single page but no longer than 2 pages) and to the point.

List down the details of your projects in bullet points; keep the language simple and highlight keywords. Additionally, try to streamline your resume to suit the scholarship requirements. The aim of this scholarship is to acknowledge women who have commendable computational skills, are active in the community, possess leadership qualities, etc. Hence make sure that your resume covers all these points. I’ll suggest that you also add your voluntary work, position of responsibilities you have held, the tech communities you are involved in along with your computer science skills, internships, course and personal projects and open source contributions as well as links to technical websites like GitHub, Codeforces and the like.

Letter of Recommendation

The LoR is mandatory for the application process. As the website mentions, the recommendation letter should address the following points:

A professor who has worked with you closely will be able to give a much stronger recommendation and will also be able to assess you on the above mentioned points.

Video

This section of the application is optional. You can make use of this to share any extra detail about yourself, your goals etc. which you couldn’t mention in the other sections. The video is expected to be not more than 1–2 minutes long.

I also did a video, where I share my experience of applying for the scholarship. Hope this helps.

All the best to everyone who is applying! Remember to enjoy the process, as there is so much one can learn through the application process itself.