danieleWrites

First, my credentials. Well. I can spell my own name, though I don't usually know exactly how old I am. I'm within a year or two, but I'm usually wrong until I've done some subtraction. I teach composition and like to write calculus equations on the board when I take classes in poetry writing. But, here's my real credentials: consider what is written herein in conjunction with what the various instructions on SOPs that you've read have said, with the requirements the program you are applying to has put forth, and with your own experience as a writer. Do you think I know what I'm talking about? Should you pay any attention to it? Is any of it useful?
 
Second, I'm not going to give you a formula for what the standard SOP is like, or a list of things the various thousands of admissions committees will be looking for. There are plenty of prescriptions on the internet, many of them written by professors who have presumably gotten sick of badly written SOPs.
 
Third, I'm not promising that SOP writing be easier after this. It'll be harder, actually. I'm not promising that you'll get in to any place you desire, or that there is any one best thing to put in the SOP to get noticed. That would be totally impossible. Each discipline has its own needs and values, as does each university, each department, and each faculty member on the admissions committee (adcomm). There is no one size and it doesn't fit most, let alone all. There are conventions (use Standard English, for one), but other than include your research interests, I won't advocate that any one thing is strictly necessary. I leave that up to the more knowledgeable.
 
The advice:
 
First thing is to deeply understand that you should write an SOP for each program. Most people take this to mean write one master SOP and then tweak as necessary to make the one SOP applicable to each university (U of A becomes U of B, Professor X becomes Professor Y). You can do that. You can be very successful doing that. You most likely, really shouldn't do it.
 
The next thing to understand is the SOP's purpose. Why do the adcomms want to see SOPs? Shouldn't transcripts, letters of recommendation, and a writing sample do it? After all, transcripts and samples show the actual scholarship and the letters verify it. The SOP isn't for showing scholarship off, or to act like a resume, or anything. So why do the adcomms want an SOP? Why are the SOPs one of those make-it-or-fail things? What is the SOP's purpose? In job hunting terms, the SOP is like a cover letter. The cover letter is to make clear connections between the resume and the job ad. For you, its primary purpose is to make the adcomm offer you admission with full funding. For the adcomm, its primary purpose is to help them see how you would fit into their program (make connections between their program and you). By fit, I mean do they have faculty (or enough faculty) in your area of research interest that can advise, mentor, supervise, and/or committee you through the program to get your degree? Do you have the kind of understanding of the discipline, your research interests, and their program that would make you successful? Do they have something to teach you? Offer you? What can you offer them? They want to brag on you as much as you want to brag about them. If they offer you admission, will you be a good scholar? A good student? Here is the most basic question the SOP should answer: What is it about you that makes you a better prospect than everyone else who's applying?
 
Understanding the SOP's purpose, in practical terms, means that you will know what to put into it and what to leave out of it. And how to phrase it.
 
So, with the purpose in mind, there comes the question: what should you put into it and leave out of it? What format should you use? (MLA? APA? Is footnoting okay?! What about citation?!) Should I stick in a personal story that everyone seems to recommend, except for the half that don't? My research interests? The story about why I got on F in that one, very important class? I'm not going to answer those questions because I can't. Every discipline and department is different. I will give you an answer you won't like: research. Find out the requirements each program you're interested in has for the SOP, think of the SOP's purpose: and now research.
 
Research is one of the basic keys to writing an SOP. It's no different than the writing sample you'll be including in your application packet. For each program you apply to, do some research. How much research you need to do depends on a lot of things, the least of which is your personality. More research does not automatically mean a better SOP. Less research doesn't automatically mean a better one, either. What makes the right amount of research? The ability to craft an SOP that is specific for the program that you're getting into. Here's some ideas (not an exhaustive, inclusive list of what to do) on what to research:
The program itself. Look at the recent graduates and, if possible, read their theses and/or dissertations, at least in part. The acknowledgements can give you an idea about the program's culture. The introduction can give you an idea about what kind of scholarship the program produces and expects. It will also, and this is very important, give you an idea as to how the program uses language. If you speak to them in their own language, that helps your case. You've likely done this, if not, seriously, you should have done this. Look at the program's website and read it all. What kind of classes are offered for both undergrad and grad. Who are the faculty, the tenured, the assistant, the visiting, the emeritus, and the graduate students. What kind of ties to the community (both academic and their local town) do they like to talk about? Do they talk about how their graduate students are working with community partners? Do they host conferences? What happened at the last one? This gives you a taste of the program's culture. The faculty. All of them that might be on the adcomm and the ones that are relevant or somewhat relevant to your interests. Crack open JSTOR etc. and search for recent faculty publications. If you're basing your interest on a faculty member on the interests they've got listed on the site and a reference to them in an article from a decade ago, or worse, only their reputation, you don't have a strong basis to establish clear reasons why they have anything to offer you. Read their recent publications, see who they name drop in terms of theory, other faculty, and so on. Make a list of what each faculty member can offer you in terms of research, not just the ones that are directly related to it. If you're into studying apples, but Dr. V works with oranges, think about how Dr. V's work might help you out. Take notes when you research. Each program has a bunch of people, and you're likely applying to multiple programs. It's easier to refer to notes than to go back and look it up all over again. What's happening in the field with your current research interests, if necessary. This is so you can situate your research interests in the discipline, and then situation your research interests in the program. You can just tell them what you're research interests are and leave the situating to them, but you can lose that chance to sell yourself as the best amongst the rest. Research you. Yup. You. Scribble out some lists or paragraphs or whatever that inventories you. Who are your influences? Who are the theorists you keep coming back to? Who are the theorists you loathe, mock, and/or ridicule? What are your research interests in general and specifically and anywhere in between? Some SOPs will need to be more general, some will need to be more specific. Length restrictions, what you found out about the program, the faculty, the state of the discipline, and so on, can alter this for you. What kind of scholar are you? Student? What's the difference? How do you manage your time? Stress? Health? Do you expect to bring your dog? Do you have health issues? Do you have any academic things that are a negative? If you do, how negative are they? It's easy to see that as an either it's entirely bad, or it's somewhere in the huge good category, but some things are negatives that need to be addressed for certain programs, while other negatives can be ignored, or you should discuss with the one relevant letter writer so they can address it. While Sam ultimately received a C in the Research Methods course, the grade doesn't reflect the actual scholarship as Sam fell ill during the mid-term and consequently failed it; my course policies do not permit re-taking the test. What are the good things about you? Not just the grades, awards, publications, and presentations, but also the character traits. What are you weaknesses? Don't do the job interview baloney, my greatest weakness is my perfectionism. Of course, the important, probably ought to be on the SOP questions: why grad school? What will you do with the degree you want? Why are into the research you're into? Why that particular school? Why are you worth admission and funding?
 
Research the assistanceships. Some SOPs will want you to write a bit about teaching or research with assistanceships in mind. So, do a bit of research on what these entail in the programs you're looking at. What do they do and how do they get it? Have you done assistanceships in the past? If so, what were they like? Do you have a teaching philosophy? If not, make one. Have you done anything that can be discussed in terms of the assistanceship? I taught kung-fu to white belt children, so I have teaching experience. I was part of the state herpetological society and went out to help them with their field counts twice a year. I learned that licking petrie dishes is always a bad idea, no matter how much they resemble pistachio ice cream.
 
Research SOPs. You're doing that, right? Go on to forums (like this one) and read the SOPs people have posted and then read the responses. Look particularly at SOPs in your discipline or related disciplines. Psychology might look at other social sciences. Physics might tell the joke about the Higgs Boson and Sunday mass. Bear in mind that the people responding to and/or criticizing the posted SOPs are likely not on an adcomm. Some have been  or will be, but it's not likely they'll be on the adcomm you're hoping will like you best. However, you can start to get a sense of what SOPs are like. What format is it in? Does yours look like everyone else's? Do you have the exact same opening sentence as half of the people hoping to get into a program in your discipline? I've always wanted to be a librarian since those wonderful, summer days I spent in my (relative of choice)'s home library. 
 
So, to take stock. First, understand the purpose. Second, research. A lot. Let the purpose of the SOP guide your research efforts.
 
Next, get the specific requirements for the SOP from each program. Make a list of similarities. If they all ask for a statement of your research interest, score! One sentence fits most! Most of them will be of different lengths and will have different ideas of what specific information they want. Most won't tell you enough, aside from length and one or two "should have" things. They mostly won't tell you if you should use APA or if you should footnote, or how to format it. Single space? Double space? They will tell you whether it should be on paper or what kind of file format to use. I have only one suggestion: consistency. Okay, two suggestions: unless otherwise specified, don't include anything other than the SOP. No bibliography or footnotes. If you quote or paraphrase someone, cite them in the text the way they do it in the average newspaper article. As Scooby says, "Ruh-roh!"
 
Now, start writing. Create something of a master SOP, or a set of master sentences for the SOPs. Some things should be in every one of them, like what your research interests are. Because length requirements are different for each program, you should work out more than one sentence or set of sentences for each thing you plan to put into more than one SOP. Have a more detailed explanation of your research interests and a more concise one. Even though this might be central and, perhaps, most important to the SOP, you don't want most of a short SOP taken up by one thing. Make these sentences do extra duties. If they can explain not only why you're into what you're into, but also why it's significant to the discipline/program, and how the program factors into it, bonus! The more functions one sentence can serve, with clear, readable logic, the more room you have in the length requirements to bring in other things. Think of this master SOP as more of a set of sentences you can hang on the individual SOP's unique structure. A flesh and skeleton metaphor can work here. You can order all SOPs at this point, you'll probably want to put research interests in the middle or toward the end, rather than in the first sentence, but the key here is that the skeleton of the individual SOP and most of its flesh will come from the needs of the program you're writing it for, not from some predetermined formula. No generically applicable, master SOP that has a few tweaks here and there.
 
Here's the thing. The SOP is one of the most important documents you'll write in your life. It's not something that should be done in a few hours, after looking at the program website and spending some time on the net searching for a how-to-write-an-SOP-guide. It takes work backed by research. The readers can tell quite easily how much research you've done on them by the way you structure and write your SOP. They can tell if you're sending out a generic SOP to several programs because it will be too general. You can't change faculty names in and out, along with a detail or two that makes it seem tailored to the program. The individual SOP should be tailored from the beginning. Some sentences won't change much, so you can pre-write them. But how they fit into each SOP, the reasoning you'll use to try to convince the adcomm that you're the best applicant, and the perspective you'll take all the way to the words you use should be done with the program in mind. It shouldn't be generic. Even if it doesn't seem noticeably generic to you, that doesn't mean that the adcomm won't notice it. They read many, many SOPs every year. People who read SOPs develop a sense about the generic, the cut and paste work.
 
How to name drop gracefully, or bring up the theory and histories and whatnot you're working with when there's only a teeny amount of space for everything? That's a bit easier than it might seem. It's not in the explanation; it's in the usage. If you can use the relevant theories and people and methodologies correctly in a sentence, you don't have to show the adcomm that you know how to use them, or how they're related, by explaining it. Trust them to have enough education to make a few connections for themselves when it comes to the discipline. Example: Novels such as Twilight exemplify how Marxist alienation can be applied to childbirth. My research interest lies in the alienation of women from the product of delivery in Modernist American fiction, such as Faulkner's Sound and the Fury. (Huh, I wonder if that would really work?) Two sentences and I've referenced theory, period, history, relevance for today, and some methodology (it's literature, not science). Use it, don't explain it.
 
If possible, have a professor you know read the SOP to your preferred school and give you some advice. They know more than most other groups of people. If not possible, your current university's writing center can help, or other people who are familiar with the field, or with writing. Your high school English teacher or your English major buddy can probably say something about your grammar, but might not be as helpful as expected. Example, in English, the convention is to speak of historical people in present tense. Shakespeare writes, "To be or not to be," because he thinks it is the question. History has kittens. Shakespeare has been dead for centuries, he can't write! Past tense! Shakespeare wrote, "To be or not to be," because thought it was the question. Someone in the field is preferable!
 
Finally, a word about my real credentials. The adcomm is going to do to your application what you've just done with this post. They are going to judge your credentials (your ethos, trustworthiness, veracity, credibility, knowledge, and so on) based on the impressions they get of you from what you've written. So, be knowledgeable about you, your field, and the program, and use that knowledge well.

Okay, so personally, I thought the cheat on the Kobayashi Maru was actually really cool.
 
And while Kirk failed to learn the lesson the test was designed to impart, I think it was still a pretty good learning experience for everyone else. There are plenty or seemingly no-win situations that have a solution, and ignoring those solutions or going through the test in the same exact way that everyone else does seems to be the weaker choice. And if I wanted someone on my team, I'd take the guy who dared to think outside of the box.
 
I mean, yeah, within the framework of the test, cheating is unethical, and he very clearly "failed" the test. And it is absolutely important to know how to deal with failure. But I'd still commend him on his solution.

Suppose there was a computerized military training simulation that was essentially designed to be a no-win scenario. Let's say, in this case, it's a rescue mission in which, due to the programming implemented, any attempts at rescuing the stranded party are met with guaranteed failure. I would say "cheating" in the form of hacking into the programming to allow the situation to be winnable is not inherently wrong. In fact, I was given to understand that approaching a problem differently than how we're taught to do it is a large part of what many of us would be doing at some point.
 
Suppose, in a another situation, you were going into a field in which espionage and information gathering was key. Suppose you were taking a test to qualify for that field, and you are explicitly that getting caught cheating is an offense punishable by expulsion from the test. However, it becomes clear that the test is also designed to be impossible to complete with the knowledge level you are expected to have at that point, and that the only way to succeed is to cheat. In fact, the unspoken purpose of the exam is to test the test-takers' skills in cheating--two fake test-takers are planted in the room, but they have all the answers, and the real test-takers' task is to extract that information without being spotted. I.e.the thing being tested is not their ability to complete the exam, but their ability to stealthily gather some target information.
 
Or maybe we can take a page from that one thing that actually happened in that one class in UCLA where cheating was actually encouraged.
 
There are probably a lot of situations in which "cheating" isn't wrong, or at least falls into a gray area. It's not that hard to imagine (I mean come on, imagination is kinda part of our schtick).
 
Back to the original situation. From what I think is going on, your professor told you to study 3 chapters for the test, and the they put questions from a 4th chapter on the test, and you realize this during the test. Is it wrong / unethical to copy off a friend who knows the answer? Probably, yeah. Is your professor a dick for not telling you to study that fourth chapter? Probably. But I mean, it sounds like you knew that the questions were from another chapter when you first saw them, so I'm guessing you covered that section already in class but didn't study it. That's on you--you're responsible for material you already covered. Though if the class hadn't gotten to that material at all, it's a little greyer there.
 
But honestly, OP, get over yourself. You talk about professor "oppression" and cheating as "justice", but in the end, what you're doing only benefits you. If you really cared about "justice", your solution would benefit everyone taking the test. Like complaining to the professor to have the questions not count toward the grade. What you're suggesting isn't just immoral, it's petty and selfish. It's clearly about you, your grade, your GPA, and what you think you're entitled to.

I think the issue with the 'offer' to do more cleaning than your share is that you tacitly (and perhaps inadvertently) suggested that they were dirty/less clean than you, and that's probably why there was odd looks.  I would also approach that with apprehension because I would be afraid that the roommate who was doing more cleaning would get resentful, no matter all her promises that she wouldn't.  The thing to do is that if you feel like you need to do more cleaning, just do it.  You don't need to ask for permission to clean your own tub or wash the dishes or anything, as long as you put things in the right spots.  Also, nobody is going to care if you decide to clean the tub twice a month if it's not your week or whatever, especially if you do it right out of the shower or whatnot.
 
I mean, are they slobs?  Is the place crawling with filth, or is it just that they don't clean once a week or on a regular schedule or whatever?  I'm one of those people who dislikes regular cleaning schedules.  I clean my things when they need cleaning, which is probably more often than I would on a schedule (e.g., I've cleaned my tub twice this week).
 
As someone who is picky about the way my kitchen is organized, I would also be a little peeved if a new roommate came in and tried to unilaterally change it - especially if she also suggested about a dozen other things that she had issues with.  (For example, I would rather have counter space and keep my spices in the cabinet because I like to spread out while cooking.  This may not be an issue if you have tons and tons of counter space, but most apartments don't.  I would also dislike keeping my pot lids in a drawer.)  If it was just two of us and she was making suggestions but willing to compromise or trying to come up with something that worked for both of us, that'd be okay, but since there are two of them AND it kind of comes across as though you are suggesting things that make the kitchen more convenient for you, I can see why they might have been a bit irritated.

I'd go with headphones, too. I've seen people who share offices put in earplugs, and didn't think that was too unusual/rude. 
 
Just tell her when she starts a long anecdote: "I'm sorry X, I've got quite a bit of work I want to finish up right now. Maybe we can go grab coffee once I'm done?"

If you operate on a schedule, try telling her when you will have your next break and suggest going for a coffee, having lunch, etc, at that time because you need to get some work done. Putting on headphones too should be fine. Lots of people like to work with music in the background or work best with noise cancelling hedphones.

I suggest a combination of headphones and establishing a routine of quiet time for work during most office hours (a few 'I'm sorry, I really need to get some work done now, but why don't we grab coffee later and you can tell me the rest of the story' with consistency usually gets the message across), with coffee breaks where you do chat and are friendly, when you have the time for it.

First: yeah, it was unethical and uncool of Kirk to cheat on the Kobayashi Maru. He failed to learn the lesson the test was designed to impart. Further, failing the test was required to "pass" the test. Fact of the matter is that no win situations do happen in battle and it's better for someone to learn to fail, and live with the trauma of that failure, in a safe environment where no one gets hurt, than to try to learn to live with failure. Not that the Kobayashi Maru would do what it was supposed to do. Seriously, Spock? It's not like there's a vaccine for PTSD!

Second: OP, you invoked oppression and justice in terms of a test. I will invoke a man who explained the ethics of dealing with injustice and oppression. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, King wrote: "One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." While this seems to hold your position, that it is appropriate to cheat on an unjust test as there is no moral responsibility to obey the rules of the unjust test, you will note that King wrote this while he was in Birmingham city jail, and he was in this jail because he broke the very unjust laws of what we in the USA refer to as the Jim Crow South. King believed that people have a legal responsibility to obey unjust laws (a legal responsibility to not cheat on an unjust exam). For King, and I agree with him, this means that he had a moral responsibility to break the unjust law and a legal responsibility to accept and submit to the legal consequences of breaking his legal responsibility to obey the unjust law.

If you truly believe that the GRE is an unjust tool of oppression, then you have a moral responsibility to "break the law" of the exam, that is cheat, AND you have a legal responsibility to face the consequences for "breaking the law" of the exam, that is cheat, by informing the place that proctored the exam that you cheated and accepting the consequences for it. If you cheat without submitting to the punishment of the law, you have done nothing to change the oppressive status of the GRE.

If you feel that you are unfairly oppressed and your human rights have been violated by the unfairness of the GRE, and you feel you have the moral responsibility to do something about the unfairness and oppression, that means that your moral responsibility does not stop with cheating the test for personal gain. That means that you must cheat the test for social gain, which means that it must be publicly clear that you have cheated and you are willing to face the consequences of cheating in order to make it known that the test is oppressive and unfair so that it can be changed.

Otherwise, you clearly show that you do not believe the GRE to be immoral, but rather, a difficult stumbling block that you couldn't overcome without cheating, so you must now throw out words like oppression and equality in order to justify your own unethical behavior.

Since you haven't fessed up to ETS that you cheated, and there's nothing in the wind (try Twitter! GRE haters are everywhere!) about rising up against the oppression of a test that does nothing but measure the ability of a person to pass the GRE, then I assume that you, OP, are trying to make yourself feel better about cheating because you know that cheating for personal gain is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

In addition to the other excellent advice given about approaching your new roomies, I would add that you should have some strong reasons (more than one) to rearrange a kitchen. It's one thing to organize canned goods into a usable order, or to put saucers to the left of the plates because that would make the plates easier to get out of the cabinet. It's another thing to move things to different cabinets because that will disrupt the habits and patterns the other two have built up over two years and you'll likely find resistance to that.

If you're doing minor reorganization, such as grouping crackers with crackers and cookies with cookies or Roomie A's snacks with Roomie A's snacks and Roomie B's snacks with Roomie B's snacks (and you've helpfully provided bins/dividers/something) in the exact same location, just do it because these things will still be where your roomies expect them to be, just organized. If your shifting things to different cabinets or shelves, you should ask if that's okay and have a reason other than that's where you're used to things being.

As for cleaning? You're either going to have to get used to their level of cleaning or be prepared to do it yourself for the rest of your time with them. They might pick up after themselves a bit more, but if they're content with how they live, they aren't going to change that. If you don't mind doing the cleaning now, but expect them to start doing your level of cleaning later and they don't, you're going to resentful and angry for doing all the work in your shared space while they just sit around or go out and have fun after contributing to the mess. Instead of taking on the cleaning yourself, call a meeting and ask what their expectations are as to cleaning and specific chores (everyone uses the same shower, who cleans it and how often, for example) and how they're to be assigned and what consequences should happen if someone should "forget" or "not have the time" to do an assigned chore and someone else has to take up the slack.

First: yeah, it was unethical and uncool of Kirk to cheat on the Kobayashi Maru. He failed to learn the lesson the test was designed to impart. Further, failing the test was required to "pass" the test. Fact of the matter is that no win situations do happen in battle and it's better for someone to learn to fail, and live with the trauma of that failure, in a safe environment where no one gets hurt, than to try to learn to live with failure. Not that the Kobayashi Maru would do what it was supposed to do. Seriously, Spock? It's not like there's a vaccine for PTSD!

Second: OP, you invoked oppression and justice in terms of a test. I will invoke a man who explained the ethics of dealing with injustice and oppression. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, King wrote: "One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." While this seems to hold your position, that it is appropriate to cheat on an unjust test as there is no moral responsibility to obey the rules of the unjust test, you will note that King wrote this while he was in Birmingham city jail, and he was in this jail because he broke the very unjust laws of what we in the USA refer to as the Jim Crow South. King believed that people have a legal responsibility to obey unjust laws (a legal responsibility to not cheat on an unjust exam). For King, and I agree with him, this means that he had a moral responsibility to break the unjust law and a legal responsibility to accept and submit to the legal consequences of breaking his legal responsibility to obey the unjust law.

If you truly believe that the GRE is an unjust tool of oppression, then you have a moral responsibility to "break the law" of the exam, that is cheat, AND you have a legal responsibility to face the consequences for "breaking the law" of the exam, that is cheat, by informing the place that proctored the exam that you cheated and accepting the consequences for it. If you cheat without submitting to the punishment of the law, you have done nothing to change the oppressive status of the GRE.

If you feel that you are unfairly oppressed and your human rights have been violated by the unfairness of the GRE, and you feel you have the moral responsibility to do something about the unfairness and oppression, that means that your moral responsibility does not stop with cheating the test for personal gain. That means that you must cheat the test for social gain, which means that it must be publicly clear that you have cheated and you are willing to face the consequences of cheating in order to make it known that the test is oppressive and unfair so that it can be changed.

Otherwise, you clearly show that you do not believe the GRE to be immoral, but rather, a difficult stumbling block that you couldn't overcome without cheating, so you must now throw out words like oppression and equality in order to justify your own unethical behavior.

Since you haven't fessed up to ETS that you cheated, and there's nothing in the wind (try Twitter! GRE haters are everywhere!) about rising up against the oppression of a test that does nothing but measure the ability of a person to pass the GRE, then I assume that you, OP, are trying to make yourself feel better about cheating because you know that cheating for personal gain is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

First: yeah, it was unethical and uncool of Kirk to cheat on the Kobayashi Maru. He failed to learn the lesson the test was designed to impart. Further, failing the test was required to "pass" the test. Fact of the matter is that no win situations do happen in battle and it's better for someone to learn to fail, and live with the trauma of that failure, in a safe environment where no one gets hurt, than to try to learn to live with failure. Not that the Kobayashi Maru would do what it was supposed to do. Seriously, Spock? It's not like there's a vaccine for PTSD!

Second: OP, you invoked oppression and justice in terms of a test. I will invoke a man who explained the ethics of dealing with injustice and oppression. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, King wrote: "One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." While this seems to hold your position, that it is appropriate to cheat on an unjust test as there is no moral responsibility to obey the rules of the unjust test, you will note that King wrote this while he was in Birmingham city jail, and he was in this jail because he broke the very unjust laws of what we in the USA refer to as the Jim Crow South. King believed that people have a legal responsibility to obey unjust laws (a legal responsibility to not cheat on an unjust exam). For King, and I agree with him, this means that he had a moral responsibility to break the unjust law and a legal responsibility to accept and submit to the legal consequences of breaking his legal responsibility to obey the unjust law.

If you truly believe that the GRE is an unjust tool of oppression, then you have a moral responsibility to "break the law" of the exam, that is cheat, AND you have a legal responsibility to face the consequences for "breaking the law" of the exam, that is cheat, by informing the place that proctored the exam that you cheated and accepting the consequences for it. If you cheat without submitting to the punishment of the law, you have done nothing to change the oppressive status of the GRE.

If you feel that you are unfairly oppressed and your human rights have been violated by the unfairness of the GRE, and you feel you have the moral responsibility to do something about the unfairness and oppression, that means that your moral responsibility does not stop with cheating the test for personal gain. That means that you must cheat the test for social gain, which means that it must be publicly clear that you have cheated and you are willing to face the consequences of cheating in order to make it known that the test is oppressive and unfair so that it can be changed.

Otherwise, you clearly show that you do not believe the GRE to be immoral, but rather, a difficult stumbling block that you couldn't overcome without cheating, so you must now throw out words like oppression and equality in order to justify your own unethical behavior.

Since you haven't fessed up to ETS that you cheated, and there's nothing in the wind (try Twitter! GRE haters are everywhere!) about rising up against the oppression of a test that does nothing but measure the ability of a person to pass the GRE, then I assume that you, OP, are trying to make yourself feel better about cheating because you know that cheating for personal gain is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

First: yeah, it was unethical and uncool of Kirk to cheat on the Kobayashi Maru. He failed to learn the lesson the test was designed to impart. Further, failing the test was required to "pass" the test. Fact of the matter is that no win situations do happen in battle and it's better for someone to learn to fail, and live with the trauma of that failure, in a safe environment where no one gets hurt, than to try to learn to live with failure. Not that the Kobayashi Maru would do what it was supposed to do. Seriously, Spock? It's not like there's a vaccine for PTSD!

Second: OP, you invoked oppression and justice in terms of a test. I will invoke a man who explained the ethics of dealing with injustice and oppression. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, King wrote: "One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." While this seems to hold your position, that it is appropriate to cheat on an unjust test as there is no moral responsibility to obey the rules of the unjust test, you will note that King wrote this while he was in Birmingham city jail, and he was in this jail because he broke the very unjust laws of what we in the USA refer to as the Jim Crow South. King believed that people have a legal responsibility to obey unjust laws (a legal responsibility to not cheat on an unjust exam). For King, and I agree with him, this means that he had a moral responsibility to break the unjust law and a legal responsibility to accept and submit to the legal consequences of breaking his legal responsibility to obey the unjust law.

If you truly believe that the GRE is an unjust tool of oppression, then you have a moral responsibility to "break the law" of the exam, that is cheat, AND you have a legal responsibility to face the consequences for "breaking the law" of the exam, that is cheat, by informing the place that proctored the exam that you cheated and accepting the consequences for it. If you cheat without submitting to the punishment of the law, you have done nothing to change the oppressive status of the GRE.

If you feel that you are unfairly oppressed and your human rights have been violated by the unfairness of the GRE, and you feel you have the moral responsibility to do something about the unfairness and oppression, that means that your moral responsibility does not stop with cheating the test for personal gain. That means that you must cheat the test for social gain, which means that it must be publicly clear that you have cheated and you are willing to face the consequences of cheating in order to make it known that the test is oppressive and unfair so that it can be changed.

Otherwise, you clearly show that you do not believe the GRE to be immoral, but rather, a difficult stumbling block that you couldn't overcome without cheating, so you must now throw out words like oppression and equality in order to justify your own unethical behavior.

Since you haven't fessed up to ETS that you cheated, and there's nothing in the wind (try Twitter! GRE haters are everywhere!) about rising up against the oppression of a test that does nothing but measure the ability of a person to pass the GRE, then I assume that you, OP, are trying to make yourself feel better about cheating because you know that cheating for personal gain is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

I've gotten a bunch of excellent help with disability services at my grad campus. I'm epileptic and have ADHD, so I'm a two'fer. While my epilepsy was not controlled, I had problems with my profs because they couldn't understand why I couldn't always come to class, and these absences tended to cluster around midterms and right after Thanksgiving. Stress = seizures. The folks at the disability center, once I asked them to intervene and signed a ton of paperwork (it seemed), were able to help me intercede with these professors.

Anyway, these days, I get precisely what I need from disability services and they do a good job. I haven't noticed a bit of difference in the way they treat me from undergrad to grad.

I'm older and my major is chock full of non-heteronormative folks. Even the hetero ones. However, I'm married to what amounts to a Republican and I'm in a field full of heavy-duty liberals. It is so not okay to hold conservative views in my field. Bringing my guy to department social events is kind of like putting Nancy Pelosi and Ted Cruz in a room together and expecting the small talk to go well. Or a Capulet and a Montegue.

So, my opinion on the whole thing? You are completely normal so act like it. Why should you come out? You have nothing to come out of. There is nothing for you to hide because you're normal.

My advice is to talk with your boyfriend first and find out how he feels about your situation. Go stag to a department social event (one that seems professionalish rather than a casual get-together) and see how your cohort acts. Some of them may not bring their SOs with them. Go stag to a few casual department social events and see how these things go. Test the waters, so to speak. Get a feel for the social scene in the program before making your boyfriend put up with your colleagues. I get to know my cohort and faculty well enough to tell him who he would likely find interesting so I can make a point of introducing them.

I don't come out as straight so why should you come out as gay? Act with your cohort the same way your straight cohort acts with you. If your labmates are chatting about their SOs, bring yours up. If Mary complains that Gary always drinks out of the carton and it's gross, share how annoying it is that your guy eats out of the peanut butter jar. If/when someone says that they didn't know you were gay, just shrug and tell them how long you've been in your relationship or how you met. This kind of sidestep helps you acknowledge the comment without focusing on the unimportant part (your spot on the Kinsey scale) while bringing thing back to the important part (your relationship).

Like others have said, act like you're perfectly normal (not just because you are perfectly normal) but because it will keep everyone else from making a big deal out of something that is not a big deal. The haters gonna hate and they're going to make a big deal out of it, but the average person will get over it and move on.

http://www.potterybarn.com/design-studio/tool/living_rooms_room_planner.html
 
I like to use this tool for planning my rooms. You can input exact measurements if you have them and see how things look. You can also use their default furniture just to get an idea.

First, my credentials. Well. I can spell my own name, though I don't usually know exactly how old I am. I'm within a year or two, but I'm usually wrong until I've done some subtraction. I teach composition and like to write calculus equations on the board when I take classes in poetry writing. But, here's my real credentials: consider what is written herein in conjunction with what the various instructions on SOPs that you've read have said, with the requirements the program you are applying to has put forth, and with your own experience as a writer. Do you think I know what I'm talking about? Should you pay any attention to it? Is any of it useful?
 
Second, I'm not going to give you a formula for what the standard SOP is like, or a list of things the various thousands of admissions committees will be looking for. There are plenty of prescriptions on the internet, many of them written by professors who have presumably gotten sick of badly written SOPs.
 
Third, I'm not promising that SOP writing be easier after this. It'll be harder, actually. I'm not promising that you'll get in to any place you desire, or that there is any one best thing to put in the SOP to get noticed. That would be totally impossible. Each discipline has its own needs and values, as does each university, each department, and each faculty member on the admissions committee (adcomm). There is no one size and it doesn't fit most, let alone all. There are conventions (use Standard English, for one), but other than include your research interests, I won't advocate that any one thing is strictly necessary. I leave that up to the more knowledgeable.
 
The advice:
 
First thing is to deeply understand that you should write an SOP for each program. Most people take this to mean write one master SOP and then tweak as necessary to make the one SOP applicable to each university (U of A becomes U of B, Professor X becomes Professor Y). You can do that. You can be very successful doing that. You most likely, really shouldn't do it.
 
The next thing to understand is the SOP's purpose. Why do the adcomms want to see SOPs? Shouldn't transcripts, letters of recommendation, and a writing sample do it? After all, transcripts and samples show the actual scholarship and the letters verify it. The SOP isn't for showing scholarship off, or to act like a resume, or anything. So why do the adcomms want an SOP? Why are the SOPs one of those make-it-or-fail things? What is the SOP's purpose? In job hunting terms, the SOP is like a cover letter. The cover letter is to make clear connections between the resume and the job ad. For you, its primary purpose is to make the adcomm offer you admission with full funding. For the adcomm, its primary purpose is to help them see how you would fit into their program (make connections between their program and you). By fit, I mean do they have faculty (or enough faculty) in your area of research interest that can advise, mentor, supervise, and/or committee you through the program to get your degree? Do you have the kind of understanding of the discipline, your research interests, and their program that would make you successful? Do they have something to teach you? Offer you? What can you offer them? They want to brag on you as much as you want to brag about them. If they offer you admission, will you be a good scholar? A good student? Here is the most basic question the SOP should answer: What is it about you that makes you a better prospect than everyone else who's applying?
 
Understanding the SOP's purpose, in practical terms, means that you will know what to put into it and what to leave out of it. And how to phrase it.
 
So, with the purpose in mind, there comes the question: what should you put into it and leave out of it? What format should you use? (MLA? APA? Is footnoting okay?! What about citation?!) Should I stick in a personal story that everyone seems to recommend, except for the half that don't? My research interests? The story about why I got on F in that one, very important class? I'm not going to answer those questions because I can't. Every discipline and department is different. I will give you an answer you won't like: research. Find out the requirements each program you're interested in has for the SOP, think of the SOP's purpose: and now research.
 
Research is one of the basic keys to writing an SOP. It's no different than the writing sample you'll be including in your application packet. For each program you apply to, do some research. How much research you need to do depends on a lot of things, the least of which is your personality. More research does not automatically mean a better SOP. Less research doesn't automatically mean a better one, either. What makes the right amount of research? The ability to craft an SOP that is specific for the program that you're getting into. Here's some ideas (not an exhaustive, inclusive list of what to do) on what to research:
The program itself. Look at the recent graduates and, if possible, read their theses and/or dissertations, at least in part. The acknowledgements can give you an idea about the program's culture. The introduction can give you an idea about what kind of scholarship the program produces and expects. It will also, and this is very important, give you an idea as to how the program uses language. If you speak to them in their own language, that helps your case. You've likely done this, if not, seriously, you should have done this. Look at the program's website and read it all. What kind of classes are offered for both undergrad and grad. Who are the faculty, the tenured, the assistant, the visiting, the emeritus, and the graduate students. What kind of ties to the community (both academic and their local town) do they like to talk about? Do they talk about how their graduate students are working with community partners? Do they host conferences? What happened at the last one? This gives you a taste of the program's culture. The faculty. All of them that might be on the adcomm and the ones that are relevant or somewhat relevant to your interests. Crack open JSTOR etc. and search for recent faculty publications. If you're basing your interest on a faculty member on the interests they've got listed on the site and a reference to them in an article from a decade ago, or worse, only their reputation, you don't have a strong basis to establish clear reasons why they have anything to offer you. Read their recent publications, see who they name drop in terms of theory, other faculty, and so on. Make a list of what each faculty member can offer you in terms of research, not just the ones that are directly related to it. If you're into studying apples, but Dr. V works with oranges, think about how Dr. V's work might help you out. Take notes when you research. Each program has a bunch of people, and you're likely applying to multiple programs. It's easier to refer to notes than to go back and look it up all over again. What's happening in the field with your current research interests, if necessary. This is so you can situate your research interests in the discipline, and then situation your research interests in the program. You can just tell them what you're research interests are and leave the situating to them, but you can lose that chance to sell yourself as the best amongst the rest. Research you. Yup. You. Scribble out some lists or paragraphs or whatever that inventories you. Who are your influences? Who are the theorists you keep coming back to? Who are the theorists you loathe, mock, and/or ridicule? What are your research interests in general and specifically and anywhere in between? Some SOPs will need to be more general, some will need to be more specific. Length restrictions, what you found out about the program, the faculty, the state of the discipline, and so on, can alter this for you. What kind of scholar are you? Student? What's the difference? How do you manage your time? Stress? Health? Do you expect to bring your dog? Do you have health issues? Do you have any academic things that are a negative? If you do, how negative are they? It's easy to see that as an either it's entirely bad, or it's somewhere in the huge good category, but some things are negatives that need to be addressed for certain programs, while other negatives can be ignored, or you should discuss with the one relevant letter writer so they can address it. While Sam ultimately received a C in the Research Methods course, the grade doesn't reflect the actual scholarship as Sam fell ill during the mid-term and consequently failed it; my course policies do not permit re-taking the test. What are the good things about you? Not just the grades, awards, publications, and presentations, but also the character traits. What are you weaknesses? Don't do the job interview baloney, my greatest weakness is my perfectionism. Of course, the important, probably ought to be on the SOP questions: why grad school? What will you do with the degree you want? Why are into the research you're into? Why that particular school? Why are you worth admission and funding?
 
Research the assistanceships. Some SOPs will want you to write a bit about teaching or research with assistanceships in mind. So, do a bit of research on what these entail in the programs you're looking at. What do they do and how do they get it? Have you done assistanceships in the past? If so, what were they like? Do you have a teaching philosophy? If not, make one. Have you done anything that can be discussed in terms of the assistanceship? I taught kung-fu to white belt children, so I have teaching experience. I was part of the state herpetological society and went out to help them with their field counts twice a year. I learned that licking petrie dishes is always a bad idea, no matter how much they resemble pistachio ice cream.
 
Research SOPs. You're doing that, right? Go on to forums (like this one) and read the SOPs people have posted and then read the responses. Look particularly at SOPs in your discipline or related disciplines. Psychology might look at other social sciences. Physics might tell the joke about the Higgs Boson and Sunday mass. Bear in mind that the people responding to and/or criticizing the posted SOPs are likely not on an adcomm. Some have been  or will be, but it's not likely they'll be on the adcomm you're hoping will like you best. However, you can start to get a sense of what SOPs are like. What format is it in? Does yours look like everyone else's? Do you have the exact same opening sentence as half of the people hoping to get into a program in your discipline? I've always wanted to be a librarian since those wonderful, summer days I spent in my (relative of choice)'s home library. 
 
So, to take stock. First, understand the purpose. Second, research. A lot. Let the purpose of the SOP guide your research efforts.
 
Next, get the specific requirements for the SOP from each program. Make a list of similarities. If they all ask for a statement of your research interest, score! One sentence fits most! Most of them will be of different lengths and will have different ideas of what specific information they want. Most won't tell you enough, aside from length and one or two "should have" things. They mostly won't tell you if you should use APA or if you should footnote, or how to format it. Single space? Double space? They will tell you whether it should be on paper or what kind of file format to use. I have only one suggestion: consistency. Okay, two suggestions: unless otherwise specified, don't include anything other than the SOP. No bibliography or footnotes. If you quote or paraphrase someone, cite them in the text the way they do it in the average newspaper article. As Scooby says, "Ruh-roh!"
 
Now, start writing. Create something of a master SOP, or a set of master sentences for the SOPs. Some things should be in every one of them, like what your research interests are. Because length requirements are different for each program, you should work out more than one sentence or set of sentences for each thing you plan to put into more than one SOP. Have a more detailed explanation of your research interests and a more concise one. Even though this might be central and, perhaps, most important to the SOP, you don't want most of a short SOP taken up by one thing. Make these sentences do extra duties. If they can explain not only why you're into what you're into, but also why it's significant to the discipline/program, and how the program factors into it, bonus! The more functions one sentence can serve, with clear, readable logic, the more room you have in the length requirements to bring in other things. Think of this master SOP as more of a set of sentences you can hang on the individual SOP's unique structure. A flesh and skeleton metaphor can work here. You can order all SOPs at this point, you'll probably want to put research interests in the middle or toward the end, rather than in the first sentence, but the key here is that the skeleton of the individual SOP and most of its flesh will come from the needs of the program you're writing it for, not from some predetermined formula. No generically applicable, master SOP that has a few tweaks here and there.
 
Here's the thing. The SOP is one of the most important documents you'll write in your life. It's not something that should be done in a few hours, after looking at the program website and spending some time on the net searching for a how-to-write-an-SOP-guide. It takes work backed by research. The readers can tell quite easily how much research you've done on them by the way you structure and write your SOP. They can tell if you're sending out a generic SOP to several programs because it will be too general. You can't change faculty names in and out, along with a detail or two that makes it seem tailored to the program. The individual SOP should be tailored from the beginning. Some sentences won't change much, so you can pre-write them. But how they fit into each SOP, the reasoning you'll use to try to convince the adcomm that you're the best applicant, and the perspective you'll take all the way to the words you use should be done with the program in mind. It shouldn't be generic. Even if it doesn't seem noticeably generic to you, that doesn't mean that the adcomm won't notice it. They read many, many SOPs every year. People who read SOPs develop a sense about the generic, the cut and paste work.
 
How to name drop gracefully, or bring up the theory and histories and whatnot you're working with when there's only a teeny amount of space for everything? That's a bit easier than it might seem. It's not in the explanation; it's in the usage. If you can use the relevant theories and people and methodologies correctly in a sentence, you don't have to show the adcomm that you know how to use them, or how they're related, by explaining it. Trust them to have enough education to make a few connections for themselves when it comes to the discipline. Example: Novels such as Twilight exemplify how Marxist alienation can be applied to childbirth. My research interest lies in the alienation of women from the product of delivery in Modernist American fiction, such as Faulkner's Sound and the Fury. (Huh, I wonder if that would really work?) Two sentences and I've referenced theory, period, history, relevance for today, and some methodology (it's literature, not science). Use it, don't explain it.
 
If possible, have a professor you know read the SOP to your preferred school and give you some advice. They know more than most other groups of people. If not possible, your current university's writing center can help, or other people who are familiar with the field, or with writing. Your high school English teacher or your English major buddy can probably say something about your grammar, but might not be as helpful as expected. Example, in English, the convention is to speak of historical people in present tense. Shakespeare writes, "To be or not to be," because he thinks it is the question. History has kittens. Shakespeare has been dead for centuries, he can't write! Past tense! Shakespeare wrote, "To be or not to be," because thought it was the question. Someone in the field is preferable!
 
Finally, a word about my real credentials. The adcomm is going to do to your application what you've just done with this post. They are going to judge your credentials (your ethos, trustworthiness, veracity, credibility, knowledge, and so on) based on the impressions they get of you from what you've written. So, be knowledgeable about you, your field, and the program, and use that knowledge well.

I am having an incredible amount of trouble feeling the slightest bit of anything other than some schadenfreude here.
 
Do you even know what accredited means? You claim you got into a PhD program that's at a school, "but it's really not an accredited university". (Accreditation is like being pregnant. It's either accredited or it's not. There's no "really" involved.) Then you tell us that you got into the George Washington University, which is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools regional accrediting agency (a group that also accredited Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, Brown, Rensselaer Polytechnic, Rutgers, Montclair, Loyola, Carnegie Mellon, and Temple).
Second, "respect" does notcome from the school by itself. What have you ever done to earn respect, other than graduate from Northwestern? Here's what the US News rankings really mean when it comes to getting a job or getting into school: no one cares. I have no idea if you think that you're somehow entitled to a top tier program followed by a top tier job because you went to Northwestern, of if you're just that naive that you think the only thing that matters is prestige. This is what I do know: the only thing you discussed was the name of the school you went to and how special you felt doing so, and how anything not top tier, particularly Northwestern, isn't worthwhile (or, apparently, accredited). You make no mention of what's so special about the schools you're interested in (aside from US News' so-called "rankings").
Third, there is absolutely nothing wrong, or to be ashamed of, for wanting into schools that have attached prestige. Prestige does have value. There is nothing wrong with being disappointed in not getting your dream school. However, there is nothing wrong with going to what US News thinks is a mid-tier school, or a bottom-tier school, or an unranked school. Harvard is not better than Podunk U in BFE, America because it's in the top tier. Harvard is better than Podunk U because enough people like you carry that perception, which means that Podunk U gets applications from people who figure that, because it's at the bottom of the scholastic barrel, they have at least one guaranteed acceptance in the bag, in case the "better" schools turn them down. The relevance of this: 1/3 of the ranking number is based on the collective ability of enrolled students to pass the GRE, which means that the tiers skew entirely based on the students' perception of value. Anyone with a modicum of statistical knowledge and understanding of logical fallacies can see the problem: Harvard is better because it's Harvard; Podunk is worse because it's Podunk. Why do think schools are getting on board with opting out of US News rankings? Seriously. Cornell is listed as third in literary theory and criticism even though they have Jonathan Culler and Duke is #1, even though it's way overloaded with critical theorists (the 1990s critical theory, not theories of criticism). Sure, Cynthia Current, but Culler! US News rankings are a seething black hole of useless. While I'm not a Gladwell fan, he does a great job explaining the black hole of useless here: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_gladwell
The fact that you care so much about what US News thinks that you find acceptance into George Washington to be "disappointing" is really depressing. GW has Marshall Alcorn, Jennifer James, Chris Sten, and Kavita Daiya! And that's just American Literature. Seriously, Alexa Huang!
Have you thought about the Peace Corps?

Here's some good news. It was easier to get into Harvard than it was to get a job at one of the two new Walmart stores that opened up in Washington DC.

But here's your answer: no one can answer your question except the admissions committees (adcomms) of the schools you're considering. Sure, maybe one of the PhD students in CS at Duke can toss a number out at you, or work the Lickert scale, or say pretty good or meh. But the odds?

If you want to stack your odds of getting into the right program, look for the right program that has people and facilities doing research into what you're doing. Don't look for the name on the school and try to tweak your application to make you look like you'll fit in with them. It would be kind of like playing up your abilities to develop web apps simply because MIT is all about web apps when you really want to research the semantic web.

You are, in essence, asking the exact wrong question. The question you should be asking is: I'm really into researching A, and University X has Dr. P and Dr. Q who are tops in that field. What are my odds of getting into University X? Should I focus my senior thesis/project on A?

I approached like any other essay. I started with a research question. Sometimes, the school provided a start, most of the tie, it didn't. I ended up with 4 specific questions that all of my SOPs answered, and in this order: 1) Why is a PhD for me? 2) What do I plan to accomplish during my time as a PhD student and after I obtain the PhD? 3) How can the department and its faculty help me obtain my goals? 4) Why is a teaching assistanceship a requirement for me? (The last question added depending on the school's stated requirements).
 
The first one was my "catch". It's the personal story that tells them about me, as a person, and why I'm not taking the PhD thing lightly. It was my "this is why you should like me better than anyone else" sentence. I wrote about 5 pages answering this question and managed to condense it into two and three sentences. I would interchange these sentences depending on the length of the SOP. The second question, I answered in about 3 pages, and condensed it into two sentences. I wrote several pages answering question 3 for each school. That took a lot of research (I read department blogs, faculty blogs, abstracts of recent dissertations and theses by current and former students, articles put out by relevant faculty and might-be-relevant faculty, even faculty dissertations (at least in part), checked which conferences they've been to, checked their social media, if available, to see what their interests were, in short: faculty stalker!).
 
I found the SOP how-to guides less than helpful. There was too much conflicting advice and none it was from the departments I was interested in. I took the common ideas (such as: give them something right of the bat to distinguish you from everyone else, and apply a nickname to, like sociology girl or library girl or whatever, because nicknames are easy to remember). The SOP is a cover letter for a resume. It's deeply personal. It's about fit.

First, my credentials. Well. I can spell my own name, though I don't usually know exactly how old I am. I'm within a year or two, but I'm usually wrong until I've done some subtraction. I teach composition and like to write calculus equations on the board when I take classes in poetry writing. But, here's my real credentials: consider what is written herein in conjunction with what the various instructions on SOPs that you've read have said, with the requirements the program you are applying to has put forth, and with your own experience as a writer. Do you think I know what I'm talking about? Should you pay any attention to it? Is any of it useful?
 
Second, I'm not going to give you a formula for what the standard SOP is like, or a list of things the various thousands of admissions committees will be looking for. There are plenty of prescriptions on the internet, many of them written by professors who have presumably gotten sick of badly written SOPs.
 
Third, I'm not promising that SOP writing be easier after this. It'll be harder, actually. I'm not promising that you'll get in to any place you desire, or that there is any one best thing to put in the SOP to get noticed. That would be totally impossible. Each discipline has its own needs and values, as does each university, each department, and each faculty member on the admissions committee (adcomm). There is no one size and it doesn't fit most, let alone all. There are conventions (use Standard English, for one), but other than include your research interests, I won't advocate that any one thing is strictly necessary. I leave that up to the more knowledgeable.
 
The advice:
 
First thing is to deeply understand that you should write an SOP for each program. Most people take this to mean write one master SOP and then tweak as necessary to make the one SOP applicable to each university (U of A becomes U of B, Professor X becomes Professor Y). You can do that. You can be very successful doing that. You most likely, really shouldn't do it.
 
The next thing to understand is the SOP's purpose. Why do the adcomms want to see SOPs? Shouldn't transcripts, letters of recommendation, and a writing sample do it? After all, transcripts and samples show the actual scholarship and the letters verify it. The SOP isn't for showing scholarship off, or to act like a resume, or anything. So why do the adcomms want an SOP? Why are the SOPs one of those make-it-or-fail things? What is the SOP's purpose? In job hunting terms, the SOP is like a cover letter. The cover letter is to make clear connections between the resume and the job ad. For you, its primary purpose is to make the adcomm offer you admission with full funding. For the adcomm, its primary purpose is to help them see how you would fit into their program (make connections between their program and you). By fit, I mean do they have faculty (or enough faculty) in your area of research interest that can advise, mentor, supervise, and/or committee you through the program to get your degree? Do you have the kind of understanding of the discipline, your research interests, and their program that would make you successful? Do they have something to teach you? Offer you? What can you offer them? They want to brag on you as much as you want to brag about them. If they offer you admission, will you be a good scholar? A good student? Here is the most basic question the SOP should answer: What is it about you that makes you a better prospect than everyone else who's applying?
 
Understanding the SOP's purpose, in practical terms, means that you will know what to put into it and what to leave out of it. And how to phrase it.
 
So, with the purpose in mind, there comes the question: what should you put into it and leave out of it? What format should you use? (MLA? APA? Is footnoting okay?! What about citation?!) Should I stick in a personal story that everyone seems to recommend, except for the half that don't? My research interests? The story about why I got on F in that one, very important class? I'm not going to answer those questions because I can't. Every discipline and department is different. I will give you an answer you won't like: research. Find out the requirements each program you're interested in has for the SOP, think of the SOP's purpose: and now research.
 
Research is one of the basic keys to writing an SOP. It's no different than the writing sample you'll be including in your application packet. For each program you apply to, do some research. How much research you need to do depends on a lot of things, the least of which is your personality. More research does not automatically mean a better SOP. Less research doesn't automatically mean a better one, either. What makes the right amount of research? The ability to craft an SOP that is specific for the program that you're getting into. Here's some ideas (not an exhaustive, inclusive list of what to do) on what to research:
The program itself. Look at the recent graduates and, if possible, read their theses and/or dissertations, at least in part. The acknowledgements can give you an idea about the program's culture. The introduction can give you an idea about what kind of scholarship the program produces and expects. It will also, and this is very important, give you an idea as to how the program uses language. If you speak to them in their own language, that helps your case. You've likely done this, if not, seriously, you should have done this. Look at the program's website and read it all. What kind of classes are offered for both undergrad and grad. Who are the faculty, the tenured, the assistant, the visiting, the emeritus, and the graduate students. What kind of ties to the community (both academic and their local town) do they like to talk about? Do they talk about how their graduate students are working with community partners? Do they host conferences? What happened at the last one? This gives you a taste of the program's culture. The faculty. All of them that might be on the adcomm and the ones that are relevant or somewhat relevant to your interests. Crack open JSTOR etc. and search for recent faculty publications. If you're basing your interest on a faculty member on the interests they've got listed on the site and a reference to them in an article from a decade ago, or worse, only their reputation, you don't have a strong basis to establish clear reasons why they have anything to offer you. Read their recent publications, see who they name drop in terms of theory, other faculty, and so on. Make a list of what each faculty member can offer you in terms of research, not just the ones that are directly related to it. If you're into studying apples, but Dr. V works with oranges, think about how Dr. V's work might help you out. Take notes when you research. Each program has a bunch of people, and you're likely applying to multiple programs. It's easier to refer to notes than to go back and look it up all over again. What's happening in the field with your current research interests, if necessary. This is so you can situate your research interests in the discipline, and then situation your research interests in the program. You can just tell them what you're research interests are and leave the situating to them, but you can lose that chance to sell yourself as the best amongst the rest. Research you. Yup. You. Scribble out some lists or paragraphs or whatever that inventories you. Who are your influences? Who are the theorists you keep coming back to? Who are the theorists you loathe, mock, and/or ridicule? What are your research interests in general and specifically and anywhere in between? Some SOPs will need to be more general, some will need to be more specific. Length restrictions, what you found out about the program, the faculty, the state of the discipline, and so on, can alter this for you. What kind of scholar are you? Student? What's the difference? How do you manage your time? Stress? Health? Do you expect to bring your dog? Do you have health issues? Do you have any academic things that are a negative? If you do, how negative are they? It's easy to see that as an either it's entirely bad, or it's somewhere in the huge good category, but some things are negatives that need to be addressed for certain programs, while other negatives can be ignored, or you should discuss with the one relevant letter writer so they can address it. While Sam ultimately received a C in the Research Methods course, the grade doesn't reflect the actual scholarship as Sam fell ill during the mid-term and consequently failed it; my course policies do not permit re-taking the test. What are the good things about you? Not just the grades, awards, publications, and presentations, but also the character traits. What are you weaknesses? Don't do the job interview baloney, my greatest weakness is my perfectionism. Of course, the important, probably ought to be on the SOP questions: why grad school? What will you do with the degree you want? Why are into the research you're into? Why that particular school? Why are you worth admission and funding?
 
Research the assistanceships. Some SOPs will want you to write a bit about teaching or research with assistanceships in mind. So, do a bit of research on what these entail in the programs you're looking at. What do they do and how do they get it? Have you done assistanceships in the past? If so, what were they like? Do you have a teaching philosophy? If not, make one. Have you done anything that can be discussed in terms of the assistanceship? I taught kung-fu to white belt children, so I have teaching experience. I was part of the state herpetological society and went out to help them with their field counts twice a year. I learned that licking petrie dishes is always a bad idea, no matter how much they resemble pistachio ice cream.
 
Research SOPs. You're doing that, right? Go on to forums (like this one) and read the SOPs people have posted and then read the responses. Look particularly at SOPs in your discipline or related disciplines. Psychology might look at other social sciences. Physics might tell the joke about the Higgs Boson and Sunday mass. Bear in mind that the people responding to and/or criticizing the posted SOPs are likely not on an adcomm. Some have been  or will be, but it's not likely they'll be on the adcomm you're hoping will like you best. However, you can start to get a sense of what SOPs are like. What format is it in? Does yours look like everyone else's? Do you have the exact same opening sentence as half of the people hoping to get into a program in your discipline? I've always wanted to be a librarian since those wonderful, summer days I spent in my (relative of choice)'s home library. 
 
So, to take stock. First, understand the purpose. Second, research. A lot. Let the purpose of the SOP guide your research efforts.
 
Next, get the specific requirements for the SOP from each program. Make a list of similarities. If they all ask for a statement of your research interest, score! One sentence fits most! Most of them will be of different lengths and will have different ideas of what specific information they want. Most won't tell you enough, aside from length and one or two "should have" things. They mostly won't tell you if you should use APA or if you should footnote, or how to format it. Single space? Double space? They will tell you whether it should be on paper or what kind of file format to use. I have only one suggestion: consistency. Okay, two suggestions: unless otherwise specified, don't include anything other than the SOP. No bibliography or footnotes. If you quote or paraphrase someone, cite them in the text the way they do it in the average newspaper article. As Scooby says, "Ruh-roh!"
 
Now, start writing. Create something of a master SOP, or a set of master sentences for the SOPs. Some things should be in every one of them, like what your research interests are. Because length requirements are different for each program, you should work out more than one sentence or set of sentences for each thing you plan to put into more than one SOP. Have a more detailed explanation of your research interests and a more concise one. Even though this might be central and, perhaps, most important to the SOP, you don't want most of a short SOP taken up by one thing. Make these sentences do extra duties. If they can explain not only why you're into what you're into, but also why it's significant to the discipline/program, and how the program factors into it, bonus! The more functions one sentence can serve, with clear, readable logic, the more room you have in the length requirements to bring in other things. Think of this master SOP as more of a set of sentences you can hang on the individual SOP's unique structure. A flesh and skeleton metaphor can work here. You can order all SOPs at this point, you'll probably want to put research interests in the middle or toward the end, rather than in the first sentence, but the key here is that the skeleton of the individual SOP and most of its flesh will come from the needs of the program you're writing it for, not from some predetermined formula. No generically applicable, master SOP that has a few tweaks here and there.
 
Here's the thing. The SOP is one of the most important documents you'll write in your life. It's not something that should be done in a few hours, after looking at the program website and spending some time on the net searching for a how-to-write-an-SOP-guide. It takes work backed by research. The readers can tell quite easily how much research you've done on them by the way you structure and write your SOP. They can tell if you're sending out a generic SOP to several programs because it will be too general. You can't change faculty names in and out, along with a detail or two that makes it seem tailored to the program. The individual SOP should be tailored from the beginning. Some sentences won't change much, so you can pre-write them. But how they fit into each SOP, the reasoning you'll use to try to convince the adcomm that you're the best applicant, and the perspective you'll take all the way to the words you use should be done with the program in mind. It shouldn't be generic. Even if it doesn't seem noticeably generic to you, that doesn't mean that the adcomm won't notice it. They read many, many SOPs every year. People who read SOPs develop a sense about the generic, the cut and paste work.
 
How to name drop gracefully, or bring up the theory and histories and whatnot you're working with when there's only a teeny amount of space for everything? That's a bit easier than it might seem. It's not in the explanation; it's in the usage. If you can use the relevant theories and people and methodologies correctly in a sentence, you don't have to show the adcomm that you know how to use them, or how they're related, by explaining it. Trust them to have enough education to make a few connections for themselves when it comes to the discipline. Example: Novels such as Twilight exemplify how Marxist alienation can be applied to childbirth. My research interest lies in the alienation of women from the product of delivery in Modernist American fiction, such as Faulkner's Sound and the Fury. (Huh, I wonder if that would really work?) Two sentences and I've referenced theory, period, history, relevance for today, and some methodology (it's literature, not science). Use it, don't explain it.
 
If possible, have a professor you know read the SOP to your preferred school and give you some advice. They know more than most other groups of people. If not possible, your current university's writing center can help, or other people who are familiar with the field, or with writing. Your high school English teacher or your English major buddy can probably say something about your grammar, but might not be as helpful as expected. Example, in English, the convention is to speak of historical people in present tense. Shakespeare writes, "To be or not to be," because he thinks it is the question. History has kittens. Shakespeare has been dead for centuries, he can't write! Past tense! Shakespeare wrote, "To be or not to be," because thought it was the question. Someone in the field is preferable!
 
Finally, a word about my real credentials. The adcomm is going to do to your application what you've just done with this post. They are going to judge your credentials (your ethos, trustworthiness, veracity, credibility, knowledge, and so on) based on the impressions they get of you from what you've written. So, be knowledgeable about you, your field, and the program, and use that knowledge well.

I'm older and my major is chock full of non-heteronormative folks. Even the hetero ones. However, I'm married to what amounts to a Republican and I'm in a field full of heavy-duty liberals. It is so not okay to hold conservative views in my field. Bringing my guy to department social events is kind of like putting Nancy Pelosi and Ted Cruz in a room together and expecting the small talk to go well. Or a Capulet and a Montegue.

So, my opinion on the whole thing? You are completely normal so act like it. Why should you come out? You have nothing to come out of. There is nothing for you to hide because you're normal.

My advice is to talk with your boyfriend first and find out how he feels about your situation. Go stag to a department social event (one that seems professionalish rather than a casual get-together) and see how your cohort acts. Some of them may not bring their SOs with them. Go stag to a few casual department social events and see how these things go. Test the waters, so to speak. Get a feel for the social scene in the program before making your boyfriend put up with your colleagues. I get to know my cohort and faculty well enough to tell him who he would likely find interesting so I can make a point of introducing them.

I don't come out as straight so why should you come out as gay? Act with your cohort the same way your straight cohort acts with you. If your labmates are chatting about their SOs, bring yours up. If Mary complains that Gary always drinks out of the carton and it's gross, share how annoying it is that your guy eats out of the peanut butter jar. If/when someone says that they didn't know you were gay, just shrug and tell them how long you've been in your relationship or how you met. This kind of sidestep helps you acknowledge the comment without focusing on the unimportant part (your spot on the Kinsey scale) while bringing thing back to the important part (your relationship).

Like others have said, act like you're perfectly normal (not just because you are perfectly normal) but because it will keep everyone else from making a big deal out of something that is not a big deal. The haters gonna hate and they're going to make a big deal out of it, but the average person will get over it and move on.

First, my credentials. Well. I can spell my own name, though I don't usually know exactly how old I am. I'm within a year or two, but I'm usually wrong until I've done some subtraction. I teach composition and like to write calculus equations on the board when I take classes in poetry writing. But, here's my real credentials: consider what is written herein in conjunction with what the various instructions on SOPs that you've read have said, with the requirements the program you are applying to has put forth, and with your own experience as a writer. Do you think I know what I'm talking about? Should you pay any attention to it? Is any of it useful?
 
Second, I'm not going to give you a formula for what the standard SOP is like, or a list of things the various thousands of admissions committees will be looking for. There are plenty of prescriptions on the internet, many of them written by professors who have presumably gotten sick of badly written SOPs.
 
Third, I'm not promising that SOP writing be easier after this. It'll be harder, actually. I'm not promising that you'll get in to any place you desire, or that there is any one best thing to put in the SOP to get noticed. That would be totally impossible. Each discipline has its own needs and values, as does each university, each department, and each faculty member on the admissions committee (adcomm). There is no one size and it doesn't fit most, let alone all. There are conventions (use Standard English, for one), but other than include your research interests, I won't advocate that any one thing is strictly necessary. I leave that up to the more knowledgeable.
 
The advice:
 
First thing is to deeply understand that you should write an SOP for each program. Most people take this to mean write one master SOP and then tweak as necessary to make the one SOP applicable to each university (U of A becomes U of B, Professor X becomes Professor Y). You can do that. You can be very successful doing that. You most likely, really shouldn't do it.
 
The next thing to understand is the SOP's purpose. Why do the adcomms want to see SOPs? Shouldn't transcripts, letters of recommendation, and a writing sample do it? After all, transcripts and samples show the actual scholarship and the letters verify it. The SOP isn't for showing scholarship off, or to act like a resume, or anything. So why do the adcomms want an SOP? Why are the SOPs one of those make-it-or-fail things? What is the SOP's purpose? In job hunting terms, the SOP is like a cover letter. The cover letter is to make clear connections between the resume and the job ad. For you, its primary purpose is to make the adcomm offer you admission with full funding. For the adcomm, its primary purpose is to help them see how you would fit into their program (make connections between their program and you). By fit, I mean do they have faculty (or enough faculty) in your area of research interest that can advise, mentor, supervise, and/or committee you through the program to get your degree? Do you have the kind of understanding of the discipline, your research interests, and their program that would make you successful? Do they have something to teach you? Offer you? What can you offer them? They want to brag on you as much as you want to brag about them. If they offer you admission, will you be a good scholar? A good student? Here is the most basic question the SOP should answer: What is it about you that makes you a better prospect than everyone else who's applying?
 
Understanding the SOP's purpose, in practical terms, means that you will know what to put into it and what to leave out of it. And how to phrase it.
 
So, with the purpose in mind, there comes the question: what should you put into it and leave out of it? What format should you use? (MLA? APA? Is footnoting okay?! What about citation?!) Should I stick in a personal story that everyone seems to recommend, except for the half that don't? My research interests? The story about why I got on F in that one, very important class? I'm not going to answer those questions because I can't. Every discipline and department is different. I will give you an answer you won't like: research. Find out the requirements each program you're interested in has for the SOP, think of the SOP's purpose: and now research.
 
Research is one of the basic keys to writing an SOP. It's no different than the writing sample you'll be including in your application packet. For each program you apply to, do some research. How much research you need to do depends on a lot of things, the least of which is your personality. More research does not automatically mean a better SOP. Less research doesn't automatically mean a better one, either. What makes the right amount of research? The ability to craft an SOP that is specific for the program that you're getting into. Here's some ideas (not an exhaustive, inclusive list of what to do) on what to research:
The program itself. Look at the recent graduates and, if possible, read their theses and/or dissertations, at least in part. The acknowledgements can give you an idea about the program's culture. The introduction can give you an idea about what kind of scholarship the program produces and expects. It will also, and this is very important, give you an idea as to how the program uses language. If you speak to them in their own language, that helps your case. You've likely done this, if not, seriously, you should have done this. Look at the program's website and read it all. What kind of classes are offered for both undergrad and grad. Who are the faculty, the tenured, the assistant, the visiting, the emeritus, and the graduate students. What kind of ties to the community (both academic and their local town) do they like to talk about? Do they talk about how their graduate students are working with community partners? Do they host conferences? What happened at the last one? This gives you a taste of the program's culture. The faculty. All of them that might be on the adcomm and the ones that are relevant or somewhat relevant to your interests. Crack open JSTOR etc. and search for recent faculty publications. If you're basing your interest on a faculty member on the interests they've got listed on the site and a reference to them in an article from a decade ago, or worse, only their reputation, you don't have a strong basis to establish clear reasons why they have anything to offer you. Read their recent publications, see who they name drop in terms of theory, other faculty, and so on. Make a list of what each faculty member can offer you in terms of research, not just the ones that are directly related to it. If you're into studying apples, but Dr. V works with oranges, think about how Dr. V's work might help you out. Take notes when you research. Each program has a bunch of people, and you're likely applying to multiple programs. It's easier to refer to notes than to go back and look it up all over again. What's happening in the field with your current research interests, if necessary. This is so you can situate your research interests in the discipline, and then situation your research interests in the program. You can just tell them what you're research interests are and leave the situating to them, but you can lose that chance to sell yourself as the best amongst the rest. Research you. Yup. You. Scribble out some lists or paragraphs or whatever that inventories you. Who are your influences? Who are the theorists you keep coming back to? Who are the theorists you loathe, mock, and/or ridicule? What are your research interests in general and specifically and anywhere in between? Some SOPs will need to be more general, some will need to be more specific. Length restrictions, what you found out about the program, the faculty, the state of the discipline, and so on, can alter this for you. What kind of scholar are you? Student? What's the difference? How do you manage your time? Stress? Health? Do you expect to bring your dog? Do you have health issues? Do you have any academic things that are a negative? If you do, how negative are they? It's easy to see that as an either it's entirely bad, or it's somewhere in the huge good category, but some things are negatives that need to be addressed for certain programs, while other negatives can be ignored, or you should discuss with the one relevant letter writer so they can address it. While Sam ultimately received a C in the Research Methods course, the grade doesn't reflect the actual scholarship as Sam fell ill during the mid-term and consequently failed it; my course policies do not permit re-taking the test. What are the good things about you? Not just the grades, awards, publications, and presentations, but also the character traits. What are you weaknesses? Don't do the job interview baloney, my greatest weakness is my perfectionism. Of course, the important, probably ought to be on the SOP questions: why grad school? What will you do with the degree you want? Why are into the research you're into? Why that particular school? Why are you worth admission and funding?
 
Research the assistanceships. Some SOPs will want you to write a bit about teaching or research with assistanceships in mind. So, do a bit of research on what these entail in the programs you're looking at. What do they do and how do they get it? Have you done assistanceships in the past? If so, what were they like? Do you have a teaching philosophy? If not, make one. Have you done anything that can be discussed in terms of the assistanceship? I taught kung-fu to white belt children, so I have teaching experience. I was part of the state herpetological society and went out to help them with their field counts twice a year. I learned that licking petrie dishes is always a bad idea, no matter how much they resemble pistachio ice cream.
 
Research SOPs. You're doing that, right? Go on to forums (like this one) and read the SOPs people have posted and then read the responses. Look particularly at SOPs in your discipline or related disciplines. Psychology might look at other social sciences. Physics might tell the joke about the Higgs Boson and Sunday mass. Bear in mind that the people responding to and/or criticizing the posted SOPs are likely not on an adcomm. Some have been  or will be, but it's not likely they'll be on the adcomm you're hoping will like you best. However, you can start to get a sense of what SOPs are like. What format is it in? Does yours look like everyone else's? Do you have the exact same opening sentence as half of the people hoping to get into a program in your discipline? I've always wanted to be a librarian since those wonderful, summer days I spent in my (relative of choice)'s home library. 
 
So, to take stock. First, understand the purpose. Second, research. A lot. Let the purpose of the SOP guide your research efforts.
 
Next, get the specific requirements for the SOP from each program. Make a list of similarities. If they all ask for a statement of your research interest, score! One sentence fits most! Most of them will be of different lengths and will have different ideas of what specific information they want. Most won't tell you enough, aside from length and one or two "should have" things. They mostly won't tell you if you should use APA or if you should footnote, or how to format it. Single space? Double space? They will tell you whether it should be on paper or what kind of file format to use. I have only one suggestion: consistency. Okay, two suggestions: unless otherwise specified, don't include anything other than the SOP. No bibliography or footnotes. If you quote or paraphrase someone, cite them in the text the way they do it in the average newspaper article. As Scooby says, "Ruh-roh!"
 
Now, start writing. Create something of a master SOP, or a set of master sentences for the SOPs. Some things should be in every one of them, like what your research interests are. Because length requirements are different for each program, you should work out more than one sentence or set of sentences for each thing you plan to put into more than one SOP. Have a more detailed explanation of your research interests and a more concise one. Even though this might be central and, perhaps, most important to the SOP, you don't want most of a short SOP taken up by one thing. Make these sentences do extra duties. If they can explain not only why you're into what you're into, but also why it's significant to the discipline/program, and how the program factors into it, bonus! The more functions one sentence can serve, with clear, readable logic, the more room you have in the length requirements to bring in other things. Think of this master SOP as more of a set of sentences you can hang on the individual SOP's unique structure. A flesh and skeleton metaphor can work here. You can order all SOPs at this point, you'll probably want to put research interests in the middle or toward the end, rather than in the first sentence, but the key here is that the skeleton of the individual SOP and most of its flesh will come from the needs of the program you're writing it for, not from some predetermined formula. No generically applicable, master SOP that has a few tweaks here and there.
 
Here's the thing. The SOP is one of the most important documents you'll write in your life. It's not something that should be done in a few hours, after looking at the program website and spending some time on the net searching for a how-to-write-an-SOP-guide. It takes work backed by research. The readers can tell quite easily how much research you've done on them by the way you structure and write your SOP. They can tell if you're sending out a generic SOP to several programs because it will be too general. You can't change faculty names in and out, along with a detail or two that makes it seem tailored to the program. The individual SOP should be tailored from the beginning. Some sentences won't change much, so you can pre-write them. But how they fit into each SOP, the reasoning you'll use to try to convince the adcomm that you're the best applicant, and the perspective you'll take all the way to the words you use should be done with the program in mind. It shouldn't be generic. Even if it doesn't seem noticeably generic to you, that doesn't mean that the adcomm won't notice it. They read many, many SOPs every year. People who read SOPs develop a sense about the generic, the cut and paste work.
 
How to name drop gracefully, or bring up the theory and histories and whatnot you're working with when there's only a teeny amount of space for everything? That's a bit easier than it might seem. It's not in the explanation; it's in the usage. If you can use the relevant theories and people and methodologies correctly in a sentence, you don't have to show the adcomm that you know how to use them, or how they're related, by explaining it. Trust them to have enough education to make a few connections for themselves when it comes to the discipline. Example: Novels such as Twilight exemplify how Marxist alienation can be applied to childbirth. My research interest lies in the alienation of women from the product of delivery in Modernist American fiction, such as Faulkner's Sound and the Fury. (Huh, I wonder if that would really work?) Two sentences and I've referenced theory, period, history, relevance for today, and some methodology (it's literature, not science). Use it, don't explain it.
 
If possible, have a professor you know read the SOP to your preferred school and give you some advice. They know more than most other groups of people. If not possible, your current university's writing center can help, or other people who are familiar with the field, or with writing. Your high school English teacher or your English major buddy can probably say something about your grammar, but might not be as helpful as expected. Example, in English, the convention is to speak of historical people in present tense. Shakespeare writes, "To be or not to be," because he thinks it is the question. History has kittens. Shakespeare has been dead for centuries, he can't write! Past tense! Shakespeare wrote, "To be or not to be," because thought it was the question. Someone in the field is preferable!
 
Finally, a word about my real credentials. The adcomm is going to do to your application what you've just done with this post. They are going to judge your credentials (your ethos, trustworthiness, veracity, credibility, knowledge, and so on) based on the impressions they get of you from what you've written. So, be knowledgeable about you, your field, and the program, and use that knowledge well.

I would add one other thing to the "practice English" advice so far. Find out what courses you'll be expected to TA in, find out the books they use, buy the books, and then read them out loud. It's one thing to use mass media for English skills, but it's another thing altogether to use terminology and phrasing from your field. If possible, see if you can find online videos that offer instruction in your field or a related field. Coursera, Khan academy, education-portal, other MOOCs. There are tons of free, online course offerings in the US. Youtube, if you can access it, has practically everything. Since you're not trying to learn the subject, but rather how to use English to speak about the subject, it doesn't matter if the people giving video/audio lessons are trustworthy teachers, or offering lessons that will advance you in your field. Chinese is a tonal language while English is an analytic language (Chinese uses tone to indicate whether ma means mother or horse; English uses the position of the word in the sentence). This kind of all boils down to pronunciation and syntax (how to say it and where it goes in a sentence). Reading stuff in your field out loud will help you work out pronunciation and phrasing before your first day of class. I can't imagine trying to figure out how to say metamafic in another language without a lot of practice. If the book is out of reach, and you're still able to access journal articles in English, you can read them out loud, as well.

In my previous university, a few international students taught composition courses. While they wrote better English than the average American, they didn't speak English well. Sometimes, their accents were too thick for students to understand. I know this because students complained a lot.

Anyway. Here's the thing. Your ability to GTA in the US has nothing to do with your native country, beyond your ability to express the concepts in English, understand questions and respond to them, in English. Sure, students will complain about your English skills. If you were American, they'd complain about your voice, your fashion sense, the place you stand/sit during class, how often you use the book in class, whether or not you use a pencil or a pen, your religions, your politics, your state residency, your facial features, your (insert anything and everything here).

You've been offered the GTA. Accept it! What's the worst that can happen? You fail at GTAing and don't get it renewed by the department. A number of universities offer TAships in the language department to international students whatever their department. My previous institution offered Asian languages, but only when an international student from Asia could be enticed to teach them. Anyway, good teaching is about knowing your stuff, having confidence in yourself, and having concern for and patience with students. Yeah, they're going to say and think things that are hurtful, but it won't be because you're from China. They do that with everyone. Even the most beloved teacher on campus gets some student hate. Mostly, you'll never hear it.

You've already talked with your parents so you know that they're keeping the card and not telling you anything. If they aren't already forthcoming, you can tell them, quite plainly, that either they send you the card and all documents (contract, statements, etc.) for the account that they might have within 10 days or you will contact Citibank and get it all from them, instead, when you report the card lost.

The laws regarding credit are different in different countries. Checking your US credit report is a good idea (if you're in the US), but it might not show what Citibank has on you. You signed a contract with the bank that you clearly did not understand and you don't have any way of understanding. You don't mention if your parents signed it, as well. You may have a joint account with them, or they may just have kept your card/account and are using it. Citibank totally offers joint accounts. Pretty much every bank does. Many banks won't offer first-time accounts to teenagers without a parent. I suspect that it's a revolving credit (credit card) account because the bank gave you money. Checking/savings accounts don't do that. It is illegal for banks in the US to offer credit cards to people under the age of 21, which is likely why they took you to China to do it.

Contact Citibank immediately. Explain to the customer service representative that your parents had you open the account in China (I'm assuming, since it was in Chinese) when you were 19, but you've never received the debit/credit card nor used the account, and that didn't know anything about banking and are just now learning. Explain that you want to deal with it here because you do not read Chinese and you don't even know what kind of an account it is. You want to verify that the account is inactive or closed. If it is not, then you want to report the card stolen and have all account numbers changed to prevent further fraud or theft. You should also make sure that there are no authorized users on the account except for you. If there are, you should ask that either they be removed from the account, or that you be removed from it. If there has been no activity on the account, close it. If there has been activity, you likely won't be able to close it. Make sure to give the customer service person your corrected address and to have any online access IDs and passwords changed. If the account has had activity, request that they send you statements for the life of the account, in English, since you don't read Chinese. This way, you can see what has been going on with the account. If your parents won't give you access to your account and all of the information involved with it, the bank will. If you can, go to a Citibank branch in person. Because of the nature of your problem, an in-person discussion will likely work out much better for you than otherwise.

I would strongly suggest that you contact a lawyer that specializes in international identity theft and fraud. If your parents have used the card with your name on it in any way, then yes, your parents have committed fraud and, depending on the laws involved, possibly identity theft. If you're attending a university that has a law school attached, they often have free or cheap legal counseling their law students do. This won't really help you personally, but you can get a referral to a professor who can help you or to a practicing lawyer that can help you. Since you were an adult who signed for the account and you know that your parents have access to the account and to the card, there's likely not much identity theft laws can do for you. However, you should find out if they have used your name to open other accounts. In some cases, all it takes is the debit card/credit card to do it.

Since your credit is important to living (you can't rent an apartment without one these days, it seems, and various insurances figure your credit score into your rates, and so on), it's very important that you keep on top it. In any event, I would also strongly suggest that you find a way to educate yourself on financial matters, including budgeting, financial planning, retirement, insurance, banking, credit, and so on. Most cities have adult education classes, some universities have extensions that do the same thing (often free), then there are more books than you shake a rubber chicken at, available at the library. Before you go randomly selecting books (because there are about as many books on taking care of your finances as there are books on how to lose weight), sit down and figure out your goals. Do you want to own a home? Where? What kind of job do you foresee? Travel? When do you want to retire? Where? Think about what kind of money person you are. Do you save? Spend? Do you have loans? A lot? Do you run out of money before your next paycheck comes in? If an emergency came up, say you had to fly to another city in order to be with a sick family member, do you have the money to pay for a ticket? Knowing more about yourself as a money person can help you find a financial education program that fits you best.

Lastly, I would also suggest that you speak with the campus counselor to help you work through how to deal with your parents now that you've left the nest and have become an adult on your own terms.

You've already talked with your parents so you know that they're keeping the card and not telling you anything. If they aren't already forthcoming, you can tell them, quite plainly, that either they send you the card and all documents (contract, statements, etc.) for the account that they might have within 10 days or you will contact Citibank and get it all from them, instead, when you report the card lost.

The laws regarding credit are different in different countries. Checking your US credit report is a good idea (if you're in the US), but it might not show what Citibank has on you. You signed a contract with the bank that you clearly did not understand and you don't have any way of understanding. You don't mention if your parents signed it, as well. You may have a joint account with them, or they may just have kept your card/account and are using it. Citibank totally offers joint accounts. Pretty much every bank does. Many banks won't offer first-time accounts to teenagers without a parent. I suspect that it's a revolving credit (credit card) account because the bank gave you money. Checking/savings accounts don't do that. It is illegal for banks in the US to offer credit cards to people under the age of 21, which is likely why they took you to China to do it.

Contact Citibank immediately. Explain to the customer service representative that your parents had you open the account in China (I'm assuming, since it was in Chinese) when you were 19, but you've never received the debit/credit card nor used the account, and that didn't know anything about banking and are just now learning. Explain that you want to deal with it here because you do not read Chinese and you don't even know what kind of an account it is. You want to verify that the account is inactive or closed. If it is not, then you want to report the card stolen and have all account numbers changed to prevent further fraud or theft. You should also make sure that there are no authorized users on the account except for you. If there are, you should ask that either they be removed from the account, or that you be removed from it. If there has been no activity on the account, close it. If there has been activity, you likely won't be able to close it. Make sure to give the customer service person your corrected address and to have any online access IDs and passwords changed. If the account has had activity, request that they send you statements for the life of the account, in English, since you don't read Chinese. This way, you can see what has been going on with the account. If your parents won't give you access to your account and all of the information involved with it, the bank will. If you can, go to a Citibank branch in person. Because of the nature of your problem, an in-person discussion will likely work out much better for you than otherwise.

I would strongly suggest that you contact a lawyer that specializes in international identity theft and fraud. If your parents have used the card with your name on it in any way, then yes, your parents have committed fraud and, depending on the laws involved, possibly identity theft. If you're attending a university that has a law school attached, they often have free or cheap legal counseling their law students do. This won't really help you personally, but you can get a referral to a professor who can help you or to a practicing lawyer that can help you. Since you were an adult who signed for the account and you know that your parents have access to the account and to the card, there's likely not much identity theft laws can do for you. However, you should find out if they have used your name to open other accounts. In some cases, all it takes is the debit card/credit card to do it.

Since your credit is important to living (you can't rent an apartment without one these days, it seems, and various insurances figure your credit score into your rates, and so on), it's very important that you keep on top it. In any event, I would also strongly suggest that you find a way to educate yourself on financial matters, including budgeting, financial planning, retirement, insurance, banking, credit, and so on. Most cities have adult education classes, some universities have extensions that do the same thing (often free), then there are more books than you shake a rubber chicken at, available at the library. Before you go randomly selecting books (because there are about as many books on taking care of your finances as there are books on how to lose weight), sit down and figure out your goals. Do you want to own a home? Where? What kind of job do you foresee? Travel? When do you want to retire? Where? Think about what kind of money person you are. Do you save? Spend? Do you have loans? A lot? Do you run out of money before your next paycheck comes in? If an emergency came up, say you had to fly to another city in order to be with a sick family member, do you have the money to pay for a ticket? Knowing more about yourself as a money person can help you find a financial education program that fits you best.

Lastly, I would also suggest that you speak with the campus counselor to help you work through how to deal with your parents now that you've left the nest and have become an adult on your own terms.