Be informed when to pick up the phone or schedule a meeting

Yes, emails are a quick way of communicating with scholarship sponsors and financial aid advisors or counselors. But in any case, you should never underestimate the value of a phone call or a meeting. You should know when it is important to pick up the phone and make a call.

Make your email clear and precise

It is very obvious that admission counselors, financial aid officers and scholarship sponsors receive hordes of emails. Therefore, remember to keep your email short and to the point. Divide it into short paragraphs and place the most important information in the first and second paragraphs. Do not write an email which is more than half a page. Make the emails as much readable as possible.

A 'cute' email addres is a complete no-no for important emails

Email addresses like 'findouter07@aol.com' are unprofessional. Informal emial addresses like these mar the gravity of the formal emails you are writing. Use professional looking email address like jamestomerson@aol.com. If you don't have one like this, create and new account and use it in formal and officials emails.

Follow a professional format

Do not use colored fonts, unusual fonts and formatted backgrounds in an official email. You may think that the unusual font style and formatted background will make your email stand out from others. But that is not OK with formal emails. Keep the font and formatting simple which is acceptable in formal writing.

Do not leave the subject line blank

The subject line plays a crucial role when writing formal emails. So, do not leave it blank or type a few words casually. In fact, you should choose a subject line which reflects the actual message that you want to convey to the reader. It is the very first impression of your email and should be very clear and precise.

Avoid abbreviations and emoticons

When you are writing an official or a formal email, do not use informal abbreviations like LOL, FYI and emoticons like :). These abbreviations may just be good when you are writing to a friend. But, they should be a complete no-no, when it comes to writing emails to scholarship sponsors, admission counselors etc.

Do not type in capital letters

By writing your email in all caps, you are never going to make a good impression on scholaship sponsors or the reader to who you are writing officially. In fact, writing in capital letters implies that you are shouting which may just lose the interest of readers. Apart from that, emails types in all caps also are harder to read. So, even if you want to attract the reader's attention towards a specific point, do not use caps. Instead, just make those fonts bold while writing them in small letters.