I've added an anecdote. Did I make it work?

[joops]

Hello everyone,

I understand that there is much disagreement about whether or not one should add an anecdote to an SOP. As of right now, I've added one to mine because I find it to be directly relevant and a good means of showing why I wish to earn a PhD.

I need you lovely people to advise me on whether or not it works. Thank you all so much. I think it's great that total strangers are willing to help out total strangers, and I plan to pay it forward!

Here is the paragraph.

My interests and career goals changed slightly during my second year at my transfer institution. I was president of the (My UG) Freethinkers Society, a club that I founded after having trouble meeting other students who were skeptical of a supernatural entity. The first few meetings went well, but I soon realized that the students in my club, while well versed in their metaphysical beliefs, lacked knowledge of the role that religion played in their society. In response to this, I decided that I would have a meeting where I would present sociological questions regarding religion. I perused the General Social Survey and pulled up some figures that would incite discussion. At this meeting, my club members and I discussed the disparity in secularism across gender and race. As I listened to them excitedly bouncing their ideas off of each other and me, I began to understand how much I enjoyed introducing other people to sociology and leading them in discussing the subject matter.

In fact, I enjoyed leading this discussion so much that over the next few weeks, I focused most of our club meetings on the role of religion in society. After the fourth meeting on this topic, in which I presented my then in-progress research into religiosity and well-being, I realized my unmistakable passion for teaching, and that I no longer wanted to do nonprofit work. At this point, I decided that I would obtain my doctorate in sociology because I wanted, and still want, to become a professor. By providing an inspiring learning environment for students, I will still be able to fulfill the goal that incited me to become a sociologist in the first place.

[celph]

Works for me. I liked it. Interesting.

[fuzzylogician]

You spend too much space on this anecdote. I'm not saying not to use it at all, but you're basically spending two whole paragraphs on it, which I am guessing is about a third or so of your SOP. That's completely off balance. What's more, the details of what the topic of the discussion was exactly, what resources you used to find it, the precise session in which you made up your mind to go to grad school -- those things are almost entirely irrelevant. Certainly they won't convince an adcom to admit you to their program.

These two paragraphs read like your conclusion; if that is the case, then I think that they are out of place. Really, the only thing that is relevant in them is your precise interests, which you should move to the beginning of the SOP and expand on significantly. Your goal of becoming a professor can remain in the closing paragraph, but it can be tightened and made sound less naive. I hope this doesn't sound too harsh but you should condense this to no more than 1-2 sentences and lose all the fluff. Concentrate on the specific issues that concern you and how you will study them in grad school. Your autobiographic story of how you developed that interest is much less important than what you want to do with it, now that you've discovered it.

[joops]

You spend too much space on this anecdote. I'm not saying not to use it at all, but you're basically spending two whole paragraphs on it, which I am guessing is about a third or so of your SOP. That's completely off balance. What's more, the details of what the topic of the discussion was exactly, what resources you used to find it, the precise session in which you made up your mind to go to grad school -- those things are almost entirely irrelevant. Certainly they won't convince an adcom to admit you to their program.

These two paragraphs read like your conclusion; if that is the case, then I think that they are out of place. Really, the only thing that is relevant in them is your precise interests, which you should move to the beginning of the SOP and expand on significantly. Your goal of becoming a professor can remain in the closing paragraph, but it can be tightened and made sound less naive. I hope this doesn't sound too harsh but you should condense this to no more than 1-2 sentences and lose all the fluff. Concentrate on the specific issues that concern you and how you will study them in grad school. Your autobiographic story of how you developed that interest is much less important than what you want to do with it, now that you've discovered it.

Hi there. Thank you for your advice. I did not plan on using it as a conclusion, and I will chop it down to one or two sentences for future applications.

Do you think it's okay if I already used it for an SOP that specifically asked what led me to choose this career path? Will the adcomm just giggle and toss my application? I'm a little worried now.

[fuzzylogician]

Hi there. Thank you for your advice. I did not plan on using it as a conclusion, and I will chop it down to one or two sentences for future applications.

Do you think it's okay if I already used it for an SOP that specifically asked what led me to choose this career path? Will the adcomm just giggle and toss my application? I'm a little worried now.

I've never been on an adcom and I couldn't tell you what adcom members are likely to do, unfortunately. I doubt that your anecdote would make anyone disregard your application, especially if the prompt specifically asked for that information; I just think that what you wrote doesn't provide enough relevant information to make adcoms excited about accepting you. That would be in the rest of your SOP. So, the impact:length ratio of these paragraphs is pretty low. Again, I don't think they are hurting you, either, except for maybe placing too much emphasis on your past instead of on your future.

I've had discussions with professors about abstract-writing and abstract-reviewing, which I imagine is a similar situation to SOP-reading, and what I've been told is to imagine that the reviewer is tired, hungry, doing his reading at the last minute and will not spend more than precious minutes skimming each submission. You want to help them by being clear and concise, and you want to lead with the important details. In an SOP that means - what you want to study in general (subfield) and what interests you in particular (specific questions/areas), and then how your background prepared you to study those questions and why you want to go to school X (fit: who you want to work with, what resources appeal to you, etc); plus other information, as is requested and as is relevant. Additions that don't contribute to your "argument" (why you should be admitted) are simply not helping your cause.

[franks98]

In fact, I enjoyed leading this discussion so much that over the next few weeks, I focused most of our club meetings on the role of religion in society. After the fourth meeting on this topic, in which I presented my then in-progress research into religiosity and well-being, I realized my unmistakable passion for teaching, and that I no longer wanted to do nonprofit work. At this point, I decided that I would obtain my doctorate in sociology because I wanted, and still want, to become a professor. By providing an inspiring learning environment for students, I will still be able to fulfill the goal that incited me to become a sociologist in the first place.

The thing that stuck out to me was you saying that you want to become a professor. To me, this is saying that you're more interested in teaching than in research. And I think that's awesome, personally; but, knowing how research focused universities are (publish or perish), I wonder if this may hinder your application? Just my two cents... best o' luck!