Maleficent999

Question for you, was this interaction framed by the professor as an interview? I had a very similar experience but it was framed as a casual chat on the phone rather than a formal interview. I think I'm mainly confused by my interaction becasue the head of the graduate school at one of the schools I'm applying to is actually the cousin of a friend of mine. My friend put us in touch. We were emailing back and forth regarding general grad school questions but then she wanted to talk on the phone about my research and to encourage me to apply to her school. I wasn't intending to apply originally but after the conversation I decided to. I thought I blew the phone conversation once I realized it might have been an informal interview since I was applying, but then she sent me a bunch of links to information about living in the city where the school is and continued to encourage me to apply. *shrug* I'm not really sure what to think now.

I think of a CV as a place where they can see all the information they might want to know quickly. It's a summary, if you will. The information might be elsewhere but they might not want to search everywhere to figure out what publications you have or what relevant classes you've taken. They could, however, glance quickly at a CV to get this info so it could be helpful even if its a bit redundant.

What I am attempting to do in my SOP is make it the most interesting few pages about my research interests and experience as possible while leaving the mawkish stuff for my personal history statement. Please let me know if you guys disagree, but the route I took was to introduce a simple, yet unique idea about my education that I then used as sort of a stylistic ribbon woven throughout each paragraph. My undergrad institution is famous in a weird way. I discussed how all my unique experiences there (conspicuously inserting a bunch of bragging points) contributed to my desire for a graduate education. I think the idea behind the "hook" is not to change the content of your SOP, but really just make it stand apart a little, tiny bit. We all have to talk about the same stuff. My goal is for the adcomm committee to remember it apart from everyone else. "Oh yeah, wasn't that the girl who...such and such..."