JanuaryHymn

Frankly I'd cut this whole paragraph out. If the purpose of the SOP is to teach the adcom who you are as a researcher and who you would like to become, this paragraph does not advance that goal one bit. I'd bet most media students spent a lot of time watching TV and surfing the internet when they were growing up, it's like the cliche about English majors loving to read books. Everyone has some exposure to the media, yet not everyone wants to go to graduate school to study the media. Why are you fascinated with this field? what kinds of questions interest you most, and why? -- In my opinion, those would be much better "hooks", if you think you need one. Personally I'm in favor of the "no fluff, no hooks" approach. I started my SOP with several research questions I thought I'd like to explore in grad school. But in any event, I support the advice you've been given here that you should work out the rest of your essay first and write the intro and conclusion only after the body of the essay has been written and polished. Those are the hardest parts so you shouldn't get stuck on them.

Look at the CVs of a few of the faculty in the programs to which you're thinking of applying. This will give you a better idea of what sections are typically expected in your field.

My suggestion would be: try applying now; if you don't get in, spend the year catching up and then try again next year.

I'm not 100% sure about how I feel about opening with a quote. I opened with a quote on my applications last year and in retrospect I think it was kinda cheesy. What do you think would be a good opening?

I have actually foudn the tests in the PR more difficult than the powerprep tests. Or at least I score lower on them.

But natofone, do you think it is wrong for them to tell applicants to call up people who they know have no clue what is going on. Further, do you think it is wrong for them to, as in someoneouthere's case, apparently review applications and make decisions before all the files are present and accounted for.

And here you are, making excuses. What the program did was perfectly fine. Like the 1942 Japanese American internment was "fine", because it was legal. Like the relocation of the Cherokee. Like Jim Crow. You should take a moral stance against this dereliction.

The presupposition that affirmative action (and by extension, the acknowledgment of race) is somehow childish -- the antithesis of something as "important and prestigious" as grad school -- is incredibly offensive to me. Many things we take for granted when we talk about race today -- the understanding that racial discrimination is wrong, or the idea that race is a social, not biological construct, for instance -- arose in huge part from the work that was done in higher education BY people of color. People who, if not for affirmative action, would not have been able to participate in higher learning.

We shouldn't assume that we've reached a static understanding of race perfectly equitable to all people, PRECISELY because of graduate/higher ed research. One example I can pull from the top of my head is Roland Fryer, the economist at Harvard, whose work and life I won't summarize here but are well worth reading for the perspectives they provide on this topic.

Beyond this, we should question the notion that one's ethnicity and racial identity don't impact the research one is capable of doing. In sociology we learn about "access," and what that means in terms of membership in a racial minority/majority. But in every field, there are real obstacles that arise because of race -- black kids who don't apply themselves in science and math classes for fear of being accused of "acting white," Asian American kids who are pressured into those same fields not only by their parents but by their peers and societal expectations, for example. Even if race theoretically "shouldn't matter," even if race is arbitrary, even if it isn't "real" -- it creates very real feelings, very real problems, and very real consequences.

There are nebulous aspects of affirmative action, and I won't pretend that I'm arguing wholesale for either side (well, obviously I'm leaning one way). Just, please -- consider the ramifications of EVERYTHING you are saying.