Please review my SOP and give me some suggestions. Thank you very much.

[polsci]

Dear Friends,

 

Here is my SOP and I am applying to the school where my wife is now attending. So this is the only school I am applying now, but this is not a political science program (I know my username here is confusing now).

 

Any assistance on this matter will be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much.

 

Best,

 

 

 

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In my second year of law school, I made two decisions: one is to advance to graduation with as much rapidity as my exertions would enable me to do, another to explore a career in research. Although many people believed it might be too late to change the career track when I had half done my law degree, I told myself it is never too late to go after my real passion.

 

As a [Country name] political activist, my past experience does not only shape my worldview, but also greatly impinges on my career choice. I once believed a pilgrimage to an American law school may give me the reforming power to fix the unjust system back home to which I was a victim. Frustratingly, however, the practice-oriented legal education only gave me a pair of lenses when I actually needed a telescope. None of “ships” I had embarked, scholarship, editorship and internship, had successfully delivered me to a desirable destination, until I jumped onto the research assistant”ship” for Professor [Name of my Conlaw Professor].

 

The research was to revisit the willful ignorance doctrine, which often wrongfully allows defendants’ willful ignorance to substitute for required knowledge of some fact in a given crime. The research, though criminal law in nature, was very inter-disciplinary and tri-dimensional. More than breaking limits of previous literature, the research also ushered in a splendid new world foreign to me. By vastly expanding my horizon, it ultimately led to the conversation aforesaid and prompted me to pursue a Ph.D. degree in a related field.

 

The readiest way for a stranger to recommend himself to a Ph.D. program is to immerse him into research to the fullest extent. Therefore, I had my second half of law school career almost entirely consisted of research projects and seminars. Thanks to extensive and intensive investigations on topics touching [Country name]’s social transformation and [Ethnical Group] American community, it became more difficult to resist my interests in either of these areas in which my immigrant origin is no bar but a booster to my advancement.

 

Not quite an ivory-tower researcher but a prolific writer, I pour my opinions into a torrent of political journalism which appeals to [Country name] people’s judgment on heatedly debated issues and unveils to them a genuine [Another country] outside the governmental propaganda. Through these articles, I develop my own method to engage in the radical social change taking place in [Country name] with people from both camps of the political spectrum. In furtherance of achieving a just [Country name], I believe a doctoral education in fields relating to [program] will greatly of help for me to act a part on this ample theater.

 

However, finding a right program sometimes is a matter of luck. When my wife was vacillating between doctoral offers from several world-renowned business schools earlier this year, I helped her narrow down choices by crossing out universities which do not house well-reputed Ph.D. programs in either political science, history or law. And then we came across this [Program name] program which seems tailored perfectly to my academic goals. Partly because of my preference, my wife eventually chose the [school name] to pursue her highest degree.

 

Upon her admission, I immediately exchanged emails with Professor [Graduate program director] whom later introduced me this program. Highly recommended by her and Professor [Another director], I have been attending [seminars] lectures to get my feet wet about this program. Each time I tried to join the discussion with visiting scholars or [school name] professors who break new grounds in areas I am unfamiliar with. Most importantly, their zeal in research silently vouches for this school’s academic excellence and thus gives me great confidence in its intellectual atmosphere.

 

[Country name], though gaining rapidly on the [Another country's name], remains a country riven by politics, churned by revolutions, and convulsed by [an ideology] in the last two centuries. I wish I may learn the remedy to cure it from the [school name] which may give me greater merit of cooperating with like-minded colleagues in a system which is not our choice. 

Edited October 29, 2014 by polsci