How to write an application form: sections and order

To write an application form, put the sections in this order: eligibility, identity and contact, the substance being assessed, attachments, referees, and a declaration with a signature. Write every question from the assessor’s side first, asking what it decides, then word it from the applicant’s side, saying why it is asked and how long the answer should be. Anything that decides nothing comes out.

That order is not a style preference. It is the order in which an applicant’s effort rises, so people who cannot apply stop early and people who can reach the hard questions with their details already done. The Regional Futures Scholarship application from the Bellarine Education Foundation follows it exactly, across four steps and nineteen questions.

Eligibility first

Start with the criteria that end an application. GOV.UK’s guidance on form structure says to start with questions that let users know if they are not eligible, so you do not waste people’s time. It also recommends a question protocol before any of this: a list of every item of information, why you need it, what you will do with it and how you will check it.

The scholarship example opens with three single choice questions: in Year 12 at a Bellarine school, an Australian citizen or permanent resident, and enrolling full time next year. Each one is a criterion that decides the outcome, not a preference. An applicant who answers no finds out in under a minute, before writing 750 words.

Write eligibility as closed questions with plain answers. “Are you an Australian citizen or permanent resident?” with Yes and No beats a free text box asking about residency. Where an honest answer is uncertain, offer it: the scholarship’s enrolment question includes Probably. GOV.UK’s question pages pattern makes the same point, telling services to allow “I do not know” or “I’m not sure” where they are valid responses. For how to write these gatekeeping questions without teaching the right answer, see what a screening question is.

Identity and contact

Once someone is eligible, ask who they are, and only what the assessment or the reply uses. Name, email and a phone number are almost always needed. Date of birth belongs here only when age is a criterion. Address belongs here only when something will be posted or location is assessed.

GOV.UK’s question pages pattern also says to ask for a piece of information only once within a journey. Application forms break this rule constantly, asking for an email on page one and a “preferred contact email” on page four. The community grant application from Otway Shire Council keeps organisation details together at the start, including the ABN and the auspice organisation where one applies, so nothing has to be repeated later.

The substance

This is the part the panel scores, so it gets the most space and the clearest instructions. Every written question should say how long the answer should be. The scholarship example asks three questions of 250 words each: what you want to study and why, a time you kept going when something was hard, and what the scholarship would change. Each long text field carries a 1,600 character maximum, which is roughly where 250 words lands.

The grant example puts the word budget in the label itself, such as “Project summary (100 words)” and “Who benefits and how (200 words)”, and its welcome screen says the assessment criteria are printed above the questions they score. Telling applicants what is scored where is the single cheapest way to lift the quality of what comes back.

Sensitive context that is not scored belongs after the scored questions and should be optional. The scholarship example’s financial circumstances question offers two concrete bands, neither, and prefer not to say, and follows it with an optional box for anything else the committee should know.

Attachments

Ask for documents only when the assessment depends on them, and say exactly what counts. The summer internship application from Northreef Marine Science tells applicants on its welcome screen to have the CV and transcript as PDFs before they start, and each upload field says what it wants: one PDF under 10 MB, two pages is plenty.

A file upload field offers images, PDF or both, from 1 to 10 files per field, with a maximum size per file that starts at 10 MB, so the rules you write in the label should match the settings. A scholarship report that arrives as a clear phone photo is as usable as a PDF, which is why the scholarship example allows either.

Referees are better named than uploaded. The internship example and the Harbour Foodbank volunteer application both use a table of referees with name, how they know the applicant, phone and email, so the organisation contacts them directly.

Declarations

The declaration is where the applicant takes responsibility for what they wrote, so each statement should be something they can genuinely confirm, ticked on its own. The scholarship example uses one statement: the information is true, and the foundation may contact the school and referee. Then two signatures, the applicant’s and a parent or guardian’s.

If you need several confirmations, give each one its own required checkbox. A required checkbox field is satisfied as soon as any one box is ticked, so three statements in one field only guarantee one of them was read.

Before the declaration, give people a way back. GOV.UK’s check answers pattern exists because a second look before submitting reduces errors, and it says to make clear the transaction is not complete until the person confirms. On a paginated classic form, the Back button on every step is how an applicant revisits earlier answers before the final page.

The sections, in one table

The table at the end of this article lays out seven sections in order, with the fields each usually holds, whether they should be required, and how the scholarship example fills them. Use it as a skeleton: keep the order, swap the fields for your own criteria, and delete any row your assessment does not use. For employment applications in particular, the post on job application form questions covers which questions are lawful and useful to ask.

Common mistakes

Eligibility at the end. An applicant who discovers on page four that they needed to live in the region has wasted the whole form.

Word limits that only exist in the guidelines. If the limit is not in the label, the first applicant to exceed it is being penalised for a rule they never saw.

Uploading what should be asked. A form that asks for a CV and then repeats every CV field twice doubles the work and invites inconsistencies. Pick one source for each fact.

A single tick for five declarations. Separate the statements, or accept that you only have proof of one.

No expected time. A twenty minute form started on a phone at a bus stop is abandoned at the first long answer. Say the time on the welcome screen.

Build it

The file upload form page shows the upload field in use: maximum files, maximum size and the images and PDF toggles. The rest of an application form comes from the same builder: single choice for eligibility, full name, date, address, long text with minimum and maximum length for the written answers, table for referees, checkboxes for declarations and Inline Signing for the applicant. When a second person must sign later, such as a guardian or a supervisor, the e-signature field emails them after submission, one signer per field. Signing fields and photo upload need a classic form.

A classic field’s description is not shown to applicants except on file upload and photo fields, so assessment criteria go in a paragraph component above the questions they score. Uploaded files are appended to the response PDF as extra pages, which gives an assessor one document per applicant. Switching to the Paginated layout, with its progress bar and Back and Next buttons, is covered in turn a long classic form into steps.