addressing tranfers/repeated courses in SOP

[StatsNerd]

I'm having an extremely hard time writing my SOP. Long story short-- my academic record is rather spotty so of course I have the dilemma or how to address that (a few medical LOAs/course withdraws and 2 poor grades) in either my SOP or in a separate area. I transferred schools my junior year and ended up having to retake a lot of courses in my major because my new school only allowed so many credits to be transferred in.

My interest in research really only developed once I transferred schools. I started out wanting to go into school psych, now I'm going into social/cognitive psych and applying to experimental psych MA programs. I really loved the research methods and stats courses I took at my second school, and from there decided to get involved as an undergrad research assistant and eventually became a TA for two stats classes. The thing is, I had already taken these courses (research methods/stats) at my first school but they just never did much for me at that point. Actually, I really disliked them. I think a lot of it had to do with how my first school placed very little importance on research and the consensus among students seemed to be that stats classes were evil and not really needed for careers in counseling, teaching, etc. Even the profs seemed to condone this idea-- that research was just something you had to show at least *some* interest in if you wanted to go to grad school, but after that, it was pretty useless (again b/c most people were not after careers in academia). Anyway, my second school had a different view on research (or at least the profs I got to know), and I found my classes there much more stimulating. The way stats courses were taught at my second school made a huge difference in how well I understood and appreciated the material as the emphasis was not just on memorizing a bunch of formulas but on understanding what we were actually calculating.

I really just had a much better experience at my second school and it was these experiences that helped me realize my research interests and my desire to pursue graduate school. It would make sense for me to mention all of this (albeit more eloquently) in my SOP, but I am worried about how it might come across. I don't want to be seen as "putting down" my first school. In terms of reputation and prestige my first school is actually ranked above my second school, but I truly feel I had an overall better academic experience at my second school. This should be fine, right? Of course this "better experience" was also due to me just being more mature and self-aware by the time I transferred, so maybe I should focus on that?

Edited December 12, 2010 by StatsNerd

[eklavya]

I think it is a good idea to throw in a sentence or two in your SoP regarding the repeated courses.. the transfers might not do much harm if left unexplained. I too had to repeat few classes because of various reasons (teacher being a bad grader, me getting sick, etc) but I did not explain these in my SoP - now I think I should have. But I am on my MS and have been doing tremendously well in classes, research, internships, publishing papers, etc. So I thought I'll just leave it to my fate. But I strongly suggest you to address any dark spots on your transcript... you never know what goes through the adcomm's mind.