Statement of Purpose - How Personal?

[GopherGrad]

Reading about the purpose of the SoP on various school websites, I get the impression that schools are soliciting a research proposal; what they really want to see is a breakdown, in as much detail as 500 words allows, of what you would like to study and what past thinkers provide your momentum.

But the SoPs of many posters here from last cycle (many of them very successful) devote a lot of valuable word count to "I spent most of my elementary school tenure studying X with Professor Y, which resulted in a paper published in the Journal of Awesome, a MacArthur Baby Genius Grant and the first of my Nobel Prizes."

The latter sounds more like a personal statement or cover letter for a job to me. How much treatment should my background get in this document?

[Medievalmaniac]

Reading about the purpose of the SoP on various school websites, I get the impression that schools are soliciting a research proposal; what they really want to see is a breakdown, in as much detail as 500 words allows, of what you would like to study and what past thinkers provide your momentum.

But the SoPs of many posters here from last cycle (many of them very successful) devote a lot of valuable word count to "I spent most of my elementary school tenure studying X with Professor Y, which resulted in a paper published in the Journal of Awesome, a MacArthur Baby Genius Grant and the first of my Nobel Prizes."

The latter sounds more like a personal statement or cover letter for a job to me. How much treatment should my background get in this document?

This apparently depends on the school in question. Some schools want more of a personal statement, like a college essay on steroids. Some schools don't want to hear a word about you, just a rundown of your ideas and research interests. Many schools allow for both a statement of purpose and a personal statement. Every school states that your statement of purpose should reflect how you view yourself as a scholar. Most (all?) programs expect you to address any gaps or issues with your preparation for graduate school. It seems that programs in the realm of Math and science, those that focus mainly on research/lab work, require the more scientific, research proposal approach, and that programs in the humanities and social sciences are more inclined to want a personal statement that includes your research interests...but that's not an absolute statement, and top programs in any subject seem to want you to eschew the personal in favor of the academic.

Because it's so wide-ranging in terms of what is apparently expected, I recommend that you read, very carefully, everything the websites for the programs you are looking into have to say about the statement of purpose, and then if you are still not certain, contact the department for clarification.