Should you put your name on your writing sample?

[wetheplants]

Or any other formatting ideas for headers? Do you need your name on there?

[Victoris]

Yes, you should put your name on each page of your writing sample.  I placed mine in the top right header; opposite of the program's name.  Then centered in the footer was the page number (1 of 2).  I formatted my C.V. and SOP this way.  

[wuglife427]

Of the school's I'm applying to, only one mentioned this. They said to put your name and the department you're applying to at the beginning of the document, but to leave 1" of margin blank at the top of each page. Looking around the forum, it seems like other schools specify the empty header, too. My guess is that when they print materials, they put your application number or whatever relevant info at the top so that everything stays organized.

[Owlet]

Actually many of the schools I applied to specified to leave at least an 1-inch margin blank at the top of each page so that they could print your name on it. At the end before submission, they also let you view a full copy of all your files concatenated into one big document, and your name, application number, and document type will be printed on the top of each page. If you put in a header yourself, the words you typed will be overlapped with what they print on. But the specific requirements may be different for each school, maybe you can try to check the school, department, and online application instructions and FAQs for your schools. 

[xolo]

None of my schools said anything about formatting.  My discipline's standard is MLA, which requires my name and page number in the header.  In reviewing my applications after submission they added my name again along with the application number.  No problems, everything is legible.

[HistoryMystery]

Some want it others don't. Actually none of mine wanted a header on my writing samples, but one wanted it on my SoPs. Like others said, a lot of schools put their own headers on your work to keep things organized.