Mentioning Professors in Statement of Purpose

[nyccat]

I am wondering which professors I should mention in a particular statement of purpose. I already mentioned three professors, whose work is directly related to what I want to study.

However, there is also another professor at the school, whose work I love in a different subfield area. I'd certainly want to take classes with him and his work connects to what I studied in college, but not to the focus of what I would want my PhD research to be. Should I mention him, too, or does that dilute things?

Thank you so much! I have to submit this in a few days....

[The Wordsworthian]

I don't think that dilutes things.  If anything, you're demonstrating how good of a fit you are for the prospective school.  My faculty mentor at my undergraduate institute was DGS at that school for six years, and he helped me a lot with my SoP, which I originally drafted for my current school.  We ended up listing five faculty members that I would like to either pursue research with or take a course with, so I think you're fine to mention another professor on yours. 

[WildeThing]

You will find arguments on both sides and it’s impossible to really know what is best. Standard practice is to name 2-3 faculty who you could work with, as 1 might be too few. In adding more you need to be careful because: a. SoPs have word limits and the more you try to fit in, the less you can properly discuss everything (or have to remoce other things to make room), b. If you talk about different interests it might come off as if you’re not really invested in your project or that you’re just trying to name-drop your way in, c. Faculty know their own work better than you do, anyone you mention you need to make sure you describe accurately or it could have an adverse effect, d. The more faculty you mention the more likely you are to mention someone who doesn’t connect with your project and so might reject it, or mention someone the reader doesn’t get along with.

There are counterarguments to all of these and in some cases the opposite might be true. I have mentioned many faculty in one app and maybe just two in another, and there’s no way to know which way is better. That said, all my faculty have been related to my project (some due to methodology, others textual expertise, some both). I have found some faculty that would be great for some other things I’m interested in. E.g. I’m an African-Americanist but also really like 1940-1960 European theatre, so in some schools I saw scholars working on Beckett or Brecht and that was awesome but I didn’t include them because it has nothing to do with my main project. No maybe showing breadth is good but I have been encouraged to make myself easily classifiable, to make what scholar I want to be clear to the committee. So I didn’t mention those scholars, especially because I hardly had room to mention everything I wanted anyway (and common sense says that if you can make your SoP shorter rather than longer you should).

[jrockford27]

I mentioned two faculty in each SoP. In fact, part of my criteria for whether I would apply to a school was whether I could find two faculty that I could write one honest and coherent sentence about wanting to work with. I think that is a pretty good "fit" litmus test. The connections don't have to be direct, after all, if you were working on the same things they were your work would be redundant. But do they work around a similar set of concerns but at different loci, the same time period but different objects, or do their methods share something in common with your own?  

Far from diluting your SoP, these things show that you've actually bothered to look at the program and gotten to know it a little bit, rather than simply making decisions based on factors like perceived prestige, or geography. That means something to programs.

The grand irony is of course that I don't work with either of the people I listed in the SoP for my current program. Not because they aren't delightful people, of course, but because you never know where life's contingencies will take you.