From Amazon to Amazon.com: White ’12 publishes e-book guide on applying for postgraduate opportunities

From the depths of the Amazon jungle comes an Amazon.com “Hot New Release” by Haley White ’12, titled “Receive tens-of-thousands of dollars to travel, volunteer, or go to grad school.” White, who is currently working as an English teaching assistant at the Universidade Federal do Oeste do Para in the Brazilian Amazon as part of a one-year Fulbright Scholarship, recently published an e-book geared toward students applying for postgraduate scholarships and fellowships. The book is also available in paperback.

“I don’t like to call this a book so much as I like to call it a peer-to-peer guide,” White said. “In many ways, I’m looking at these processes with the same eyes as my readers, but I think I’m in the position to write this book because I have a lot of experience in scholarship and fellowship competitions, and I’ve had a fair amount of success.”

In addition to the Fulbright Scholarship, White has also won the Truman Scholarship, a U.S. State Department Critical Language Scholarship and the Spirit of Princeton Award.

White said that she was inspired to write the book last month when she realized that there was no low-cost book on the market that introduced students to the scholarship and fellowship application process. She wrote and published the book while working in the Amazon and edited it with a fellow Fulbright Scholar working with her and a close friend, Briana Wilkins ’12.

“It provides a really strong checklist of things you should do if you’re interested in applying for fellowships. There’s a lot of just good general advice on how to write clearly and write persuasively, how to present yourself,” Wilkins said.

A key idea in the book is how an applicant can present a compelling story about himself or herself through the application, according to White.

“Think about what sort of story, what overall description you want to project about yourself throughout the application,” White said. “Think about what stories you can tell in your essay that can help you highlight the key points in that description of yourself.”

White notes that her book is not only for college students, but also for anyone looking for an opportunity to do something different.

“I think it could be a great resource for high-achieving young adults because actually, not all of the opportunities I describe require you to have a college education,” White said. “I think it’s a great resource for people who are interested in doing something a little different, something new, and don’t have access to a scholarship or fellowship advising program.”

White said that in addition to independent research for opportunities, she worked closely with the University’s fellowship advising program, especially her advisor and Director of Fellowship Advising Deirdre Moloney.

“I think her approach to making your voice distinctive is really important,” Moloney said regarding White’s book. “She showed the thought process a student might go through.”

A concentrator in the Wilson School, White was a member of Charter Club and a chair of the Pace Council for Civic Values and the Priorities Committee as an undergraduate. White is a former opinion columnist for The Daily Princetonian.

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Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article mistakenly stated that Briana Wilkins ’12 was a Fulbright Scholar based in Brazil. She is not a Fulbright Scholar and she lives in the U.S. The 'Prince' regrets the error.