Give me a reality check:

[ZeeMore21]

My argument was that the writing sample was important, and not the personal statement. That's where the committee gets their information about your writing, not from a goofy statement of purpose. I actually don't disagree with anything you said prior to the above statement.

Oh my god. You'll need to become less paranoid to survive graduate school. Oh, wait--you're probably in an English Department, right? You'll need to become much MORE paranoid.

My use of caps is simply to add expression to the writing, not to insult you. Chill.

Hmm...don't really get the whole connection between paranoia and being in an English department that you are trying to make, because there isn't any. I will leave that comment alone.

But again, I don't really see how a personal statement could be all that goofy...it is here that you are basically explaining your intellectual growth/development while also explaining why a specific program would be helpful to you. I'm sure admissions committees must take this document seriously. And again, I'm sure every school weights different components of the application package differently.

[losemygrip]

LOL! When you've been in academe as long as I have, you'll understand the reputation of English departments. Horrific politics and gamesmanship, generally acknowledged as worse than in any other discipline.

It's the very idea of a "personal statement" that's goofy. I have definitely heard people on graduate committees roll their eyes talking about them. From my experience they are the least important part of an application. A bad personal statement will not harm your application if the rest is good, but a good one will not make up for anything else that's lacking. Admissions committees go to those to try to figure out how a candidate would fit in if it isn't visible elsewhere in the application. That's why you just need to address briefly the kind of research you'd like to focus on and with whom you're interested in studying, and perhaps your overall career plans. It's not a writing sample, because it isn't scholarship. If you have a great GPA, high GREs, strong letters, the statement won't matter.

[ZeeMore21]

LOL! When you've been in academe as long as I have, you'll understand the reputation of English departments. Horrific politics and gamesmanship, generally acknowledged as worse than in any other discipline.

It's the very idea of a "personal statement" that's goofy. I have definitely heard people on graduate committees roll their eyes talking about them. From my experience they are the least important part of an application. A bad personal statement will not harm your application if the rest is good, but a good one will not make up for anything else that's lacking. Admissions committees go to those to try to figure out how a candidate would fit in if it isn't visible elsewhere in the application. That's why you just need to address briefly the kind of research you'd like to focus on and with whom you're interested in studying, and perhaps your overall career plans. It's not a writing sample, because it isn't scholarship. If you have a great GPA, high GREs, strong letters, the statement won't matter.

I've been in 3 different English departments so far and haven't had encountered problems with the the politics, perhaps these programs are the exceptions I guess. But anyway, I still don't agree that the personal statement doesn't count...sorry for being repetitive but how else is the committee suppose to figure out what the applicant's research interests are and if they fit with the department? Wouldn't the committee want to know that a potential candidate for admissions has the ability to define his/her field of research and explain how his/her research will contribute to the field?

[Sparky]

Why the English hatred?

~

ZeeMore is right. The writing sample and the SOP serve two different purposes. No, the SOP is not supposed to be an indicator of whether you can do graduate level writing. It's where you make the argument that that specific program is the right place for you to do your graduate-level writing. It's much harder to judge 'objectively' whether an SOP is good than whether a writing sample is good, b/c "good" changes from year to year and based on department politics, current grad student population, etc. A writing sample shows that you are qualified for a program. The SOP is where you show you are right.

As for current grad students and professors making fun of SOPs: well, dude, duh. Have you gone back and read yours? Maybe you are a sparklingly genius writer and yours reads like velvet and dumplings, but mine is the most naively earnest, steaming piling of awkwardness I have ever produced. I will make fun of the thing from here to high heaven. But I guarantee that at the interview weekend, I had numerous faculty--including the art history prof on the adcom, BTW--tell me that my SOP really made my application stick out from many of the others.

For a master's program, it may well be that the writing sample is more important. For a PhD, especially at a competitive program, they're both absolutely necessary.

[losemygrip]

how else is the committee suppose to figure out what the applicant's research interests are and if they fit with the department?

From the letters of recommendation and the transcript.

Wouldn't the committee want to know that a potential candidate for admissions has the ability to define his/her field of research and explain how his/her research will contribute to the field?

Yes, and that's part of the statement of purpose.

But my main argument has been that it is probably the least important component of the application in most cases, and that too much weight has been placed on it in many of these discussions.

[losemygrip]

Maybe you are a sparklingly genius writer and yours reads like velvet and dumplings, but mine is the most naively earnest, steaming piling of awkwardness I have ever produced. I will make fun of the thing from here to high heaven. But I guarantee that at the interview weekend, I had numerous faculty--including the art history prof on the adcom, BTW--tell me that my SOP really made my application stick out from many of the others.

Mine was heinous, oh lo these many years ago. But had it been excellent, I truly feel it would have made no difference in my admissions acceptances and denials. They're accepting a class. So they look at whether the research interests match up with anyone (and this can be in a general or specific way), but also who has a full load of grad students, what areas they're looking to build upon, whether the student adds to the diversity of the group in various ways, in addition to evaluating the academic competencies. They look at the composition of the class--it can't all be modernists, for example. And so on.

While your SOP got some attention, did they say it got you admitted? I doubt it. You wrote an excellent statement, but they probably would have admitted you anyway.

[ZeeMore21]

Why the English hatred?

~

ZeeMore is right. The writing sample and the SOP serve two different purposes. No, the SOP is not supposed to be an indicator of whether you can do graduate level writing. It's where you make the argument that that specific program is the right place for you to do your graduate-level writing. It's much harder to judge 'objectively' whether an SOP is good than whether a writing sample is good, b/c "good" changes from year to year and based on department politics, current grad student population, etc. A writing sample shows that you are qualified for a program. The SOP is where you show you are right.

As for current grad students and professors making fun of SOPs: well, dude, duh. Have you gone back and read yours? Maybe you are a sparklingly genius writer and yours reads like velvet and dumplings, but mine is the most naively earnest, steaming piling of awkwardness I have ever produced. I will make fun of the thing from here to high heaven. But I guarantee that at the interview weekend, I had numerous faculty--including the art history prof on the adcom, BTW--tell me that my SOP really made my application stick out from many of the others.

For a master's program, it may well be that the writing sample is more important. For a PhD, especially at a competitive program, they're both absolutely necessary.

Thanks for the defense Sparky, and no, I don't understand the English hatred...don't even know how that came up. But I do stick to my opinion, and will continue to advise others to take the personal statement, along with other qualitative aspects of the application, seriously. The main point of my initial post here was to encourage the OP not to depend on a GPA and GRE to get into a graduate program. I will leave it at that.

Edited August 4, 2011 by ZeeMore21