The Adobe WIT Scholarship — So close, yet so far!
By: Malavika S Menon
Tags: Rejection, Women In Tech, Scholarships, Adobe Wit, Opportunity

A walkthrough of my application process for the Adobe WIT Scholarship, going through two rounds of interviews & well, getting rejected!

First things first! What is the Adobe WIT Scholarship?

Source: Scholarshipexams.in

The Adobe WIT Scholarship is an opportunity presented to undergraduate girls currently pursuing their third year in a Computer Science or related stream. The aim of the scholarship is to encourage more girls and women to explore the field of technology and reduce the existing gender gap in the tech industry.

The scholarship offers several benefits including mentoring by a senior technology leader at Adobe, an opportunity to be considered for an internship at Adobe, a conference ticket to GHCI and funding for the candidate’s remaining tuition fees.

You can read more about the eligibility criteria and benefits of the Adobe WIT Scholarship here.

The Application Process

The Placement Cell of our college had sent us a mail informing us that the scholarship applications were open. Honestly, I didn't think I had a shot at even being selected to the next round since it’s extremely competitive. Around 5–7 scholars are selected from across the country finally. However, I knew I owed it to myself to give my best shot and so I decided to apply for it.

Now onto the application process, there are 5 parts to the application.

Basic Information

This part includes filling up basic details about your course, university, CGPA, contact information and research areas of interest. (If there’s any tip I could share for this section, I would recommend reading up about the advancements in the research areas you’ve mentioned to gather more than just the surface-level knowledge.) The research areas I had mentioned were Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Natural Language Processing & Virtual Assistants.

2. Essays

There were 5 essay-based questions, all of which you were expected to write in under 200 words. These essays intend to understand your personality, why you’re interested in the field of technology, your goals, the difficulties you’ve faced as a woman in technology, your role model and of course why you think you deserve this scholarship.

While writing these answers, don’t hesitate to mention your achievements or failures, but make sure, to be honest. Craft a story that can describe who you are, your interests and passion, without sounding superficial. This is what worked for me and hence sharing it with you too!

3. Resume

My resume had a combination of my important academic grades, work experience (internships), projects, achievements, positions of responsibility & certifications. My resume was actually 2 pages long, which isn't recommended usually. But, I had applied with an ‘I am not going to clear it anyway, so why stick to the rules?’ attitude. Well, I guess it helped somehow.

Again, make sure to be honest, in your resume about your achievements & projects, because both my interviews were based on the things I had listed in my resume.

4. Academic Transcripts

I had included my semester grade cards (the first three semesters whose results were published) & my 12th and 10th certificates.

5. Letter of Recommendation

Approach a professor from college who knows you personally and request for a letter of recommendation. Try and request in advance, because chances are, your professor could be giving recommendations for a lot of people from your institution as well. (I had found later that my staff advisor had to give the recommendation letter to more than 10 people!) So, ensure that, you give the professor sufficient buffer time to submit the letter by the deadline.

6. There’s also an additional multimedia (video) submission link. But it’s completely up to you to decide whether to submit one or not. I had decided against it.

The Unexpected Mail

I was ecstatic when I received this mail. I was quite excited and nervous about the interview.

To prepare for the interview, I messaged the previous years’ Adobe WIT Scholars to understand what kind of questions to expect. They mentioned that their interviews were mostly based on the projects mentioned in the resume.

The First Interview

For my first interview, the interviewer was a Principal Scientist at Adobe with over 10 years of experience working at Adobe. He started off with an introduction about himself and what he works on at Adobe. Later, I introduced myself and the technologies I work on. Here are some of the questions that followed.

Why do you enjoy working on that technology? What about it excites you? Which of the projects you’ve mentioned are you most proud of and why? Mention some instances when you’ve had to lead a team to solve a particular technological problem. Which of the following projects were done as a team? How was the experience? How will this scholarship impact you? If you were to market a particular project you’ve worked on to a venture capitalist, which one would it be and how would you market it? How does this project work exactly? What particular aspect of this project would you change if you could? (I screen shared my project and explained for the 6th, 7th and 8th question) While doing projects, you often learn something that you didn’t know before. Could you speak about some experiences you’ve had like that? You have mentioned NLP as your research area of interest. Have you done some work in the field? (This question was the reason why I recommend reading up about the research area you mentioned in the application. I mentioned that though I hadn’t worked on it deeply, I look forward to working on it in my future projects.)

Overall, I felt the interview went well and I thought my chances were pretty good too, to clear this round. I had asked for feedback to my interviewer after the interview and he gave me some positive comments that I really cherish even now.

The Next Interview Call

I received this mail within a week or two after the first interview and needless to say, I was on cloud nine. After speaking with a couple of past scholars on LinkedIn, I came to know that the second interview will also be quite similar to the first one.

The Second Interview

Spoiler Alert: I didn’t clear this interview!

So, the interview started off with a bit of a problem with my internet and that made me feel uneasy from the beginning. Looking back, I feel like I messed up right from the beginning where the interviewer asked me to introduce myself.

A lot of the questions were similar to the first interview, but I was faced with a couple of difficult questions regarding some of the finer technical aspects of something I had worked on, and I struggled to answer. In hindsight, due to a sense of nervousness and general uneasiness, I can see how I hadn’t answered even the questions I knew satisfactorily.

I didn’t feel quite good after the interview and I knew the chances of me getting through were slim. Especially since around 5 people are selected from all over India for it, I knew I had to have stood out extraordinarily in the interview for me to get through, which I know I didn’t that day.

Takeaway

Though I didn’t ultimately receive the scholarship, I feel extremely grateful to have made it this far in the scholarship. I am quite proud of myself to have cleared two rounds of filtering of thousands of applications from institutions across India, to have cleared the first interview with an experienced scientist at Adobe and to have received the chance to interview with a Senior Engineering Manager at Adobe. From writing the application and essays with a feeling that, “I am not even going to make it through the filtering process”, to ultimately getting quite close to becoming a recipient, I have come quite far. Looking back, I also know where I went wrong and how to work on it in future. I learnt plenty along the way and I am happy that I gave an honest and good shot at the scholarship.