It pays to be submissive

It pays to be submissive... of fellowship and scholarship applications, that is.


Most students apply for some form of scholarship, bursary, or fellowship at some point in their lives. Often, they apply because: a) someone told them they would be a good candidate, or b) they read the qualities for which the award is given and thought they'd be a good match.

Those are excellent reasons to apply for stuff, but simply using a) and b) as your criteria for what to apply for results in a lot of missed opportunities.

When I was an undergrad, I was pretty shameless in applying for every scrap of money for which I wasn't explicitly ineligible (as a white male, some of the "for visible minorities", etc. awards were just not gonna go to me). In fact, the University Women's club of Vancouver gives out an annual scholarship (several thousand dollars), for which the criteria don't explicitly state that the recipient must be female. I applied,  and subsequently won the award!

Here is my point, and some A+ advice for academic success: often the cost of applying for stuff (in terms of time and effort) is very low compared to the benefit that you get if you win (ie: 30 minutes of work to apply for a $5,000 scholarship is a pretty good hourly rate!). On those grounds alone, you should apply for anything you have even a remote chance of winning.

But there's another, potentially more important, effect that I like to call the "cash snowball". You see, most awards you apply for ask you to list the other awards you've won. And most committees look at that list and use it to decide how "good" you are. So, if you've won lots of stuff, you will tend to be more successful in winning future stuff.

I suspect that this trend still holds, even if the committee has never heard of the awards on your list. So, they don't know how prestigious (or not) the award was: they just know that someone else thought you were a winner.

So, applying for lots of (even un-prestigious) awards early on in your academic career can be a solid way to set yourself up for future success. It's not a guaranteed strategy for success, but it sure can help.

I suspect the same is true for non-academics: since the cost of finding a better job is low compared to the value of having a better job, it is probably a good idea to always keep your eyes open for new opporunities and to be shameless in pursuing them.

I will refrain from giving relationship advice.