statement of purpose format

[a fragrant plant]

I'm going to submit mine in a few hours and am working on the format. Should I use double spacing, 1.5 spacing or single spacing? Do I need a title? If so, what should it be?

Edited November 30, 2009 by peanuttheanthro

[ScreamingHairyArmadillo]

My paragraphs were single spaced, with spaced lines separating the paragraphs. It's easy on the eyes and keeps things to under 2 pages. I also put my name as a header in the upper right corner.

I only titled my MSU statement because they wanted it separated as Personal and Academic.

[KieBelle]

All of the schools I'm applying to specified that the essay should be double-spaced, and I'm pretty sure that's the norm. Also, 12pt Times New Roman font is standard. I decreased the font to 11.5 on one essay and I'm hoping that they're okay with that (it's barely noticeable, and I had to get those extra couple sentences onto the second page). Most of the schools also gave instructions on what to include at the top of the essay--usually "Statement of Purpose" or "Personal Statement", along with your name and university ID, if known.

[Amanda]

My schools are all very vague about what they're expecting in terms of formatting so I'm sticking with the standard double spaced on the writing sample, 12 pt, Times font and then a little more lax on the SoP (only because I think most schools judge the length by words instead of pages). I think the big thing is to make sure that your name and the program you are applying to is in the header on every page...you know, just so nothing gets lost.