Essay Draft

[bubawizwam]

Hello everyone! I'm not sure how many of you are perusing the forum yet, but I was hoping for some feedback on a very rough draft of my statement of purpose. I know it still needs work and probably another section about what I'll bring to the school, but I want to make sure that it is at least partly coherent so far. I applied to a few schools last year and didn't get in, and I have significantly truncated my old essay and reworked it into this. I'm going to personalize the last paragraph for each school, too.

Getting Schooled

It was a typical fall afternoon, about 2:45pm. I remember the time, not because of any particular affinity for remembering fine details, but because school had just let out. I was several months into my first year of teaching elementary special education in a west Baltimore public school, and I was once again walking toward the corner where I would wait for the local bus to pick me up. As I turned from the school, James called out to me.

“Ms. Swoveland, where you headed? You takin’ the bus?” James was not my peer, but one of my fourth grade students.

“Hello James,” I responded cheerfully, “I am taking the bus. I take it to and from school every day.”

“Why you do that?” You too poor to afford a car? The school don’t pay you enough?” he asked me playfully, hoping to push my buttons. I spouted off a well-rehearsed story about my concern for the environment. After my environmentally-friendly spiel, James threw a candy wrapper on the sidewalk, cocked his head to one side, gave me a mischievous grin and responded, “Ms. Swoveland, I’m gonna stick someone up and steal their car.”

“You’re going to stick someone up and steal their car?” I asked.

“Yeah, then I’m gonna give you the car,” he said smugly.

“You’re going to stick someone up, steal their car, and give it to me,” I repeated.

“Yeah, then I’m gonna call the po-lice and have you framed,” he said matter-of-factly, arms crossed over his chest, a big smile on his face. I cannot quite recall my response to his devious plot, but I remember thinking about it my entire bus ride home. I still think about it to this day, nearly two years after it happened.

As I recall that event, I cannot help but think about James’ future. I can vividly picture him attending juvenile court several years from now, perhaps resulting in probation, or even a detention facility. Despite my ability, and the ability of teachers as a whole, to identify high-risk children, the public schools are surprisingly unprepared to prevent, or even reduce a child’s deviant or criminal tendencies. Why, I wonder, are we so poorly equipped to help children like James, with many visible risk factors for crime, from following down a criminal path?

It is this phenomenon, the linkage between public elementary schools and juvenile delinquency, which I hope to study as a graduate student at Ohio State University. While clearly an overwhelming subject, I am interested in three distinct elements: school-based deviance prevention programs; classroom management systems and school behavioral plans; and government policy concerning behavior in schools. I believe that an examination of these three categories will provide a comprehensive view on the prevention of deviance and crime among elementary age students.

It is easy to view the social phenomenon of the school-to-prison pipeline using only one perspective or one methodology, but I believe that it is important to embrace a fusion of macro and micro perspectives, and employ a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, to fully grasp the depth and entanglement of deviancy within our schools, our government, and our culture. Specifically, data can be gleaned through meta-analysis of studies reviewing delinquency prevention programs, content analysis of interviews I would conduct with teachers and administrators concerning school and classroom behavior management systems, and statistical analysis of government-gathered survey data. While a large task to undertake, I believe that the department of sociology at Ohio State University is uniquely equipped to help me in this endeavor.

While every graduate school touts top-notch facilities, distinguished faculty, and unique research opportunities, Ohio State University proves itself as a top-contender in the field of sociology. OSU’s department of sociology places a strong focus on developing future professors, researchers, and lifelong learners of sociology. Offering graduate teaching assistants formal instructional in the effective teaching of sociology and providing additional support through Sociology Teaching Resource Center shows the department’s dedication to creating future scholars. Additionally, the department of sociology is closely aligned with my particular interests in deviance and criminology, offering a concentration in crime and community while other schools gloss over this sociological sub-set. Access to the Criminal Justice Research Center allows for high-quality research in the field as a graduate student, and professors such as Douglas Downey, Dana Haynie, and Christopher Browning ensure professional mentors with interests intersecting my own.

[socspice]

I would read this as too much about social work, and not enough about sociology. It might help to cut or reword the portions that sound like you want to "change the world," and make it more about wanting to "understand the world." My $.02.

[DustSNK]

I am in the same boat, got denied my first time around and am upgrading to apply again this fall. One thing I have spent A LOT of time researching is the S.O.P. I am not trying to sh*t on your work, because personally I love anecdotes But I think any admissions board will take one look at your format and not read the rest. You are supposed to spend much time selling your self, explaining how you fit with the program and end it off by explaining why you want to work with the faculty there. Personally, I would strongly strongly tell you to not add the first half of your essay into your S.O.P. BTW get the book "getting what you paid for", it is sort of dated but an AMAZING help. Trust me well worth the 10$ on amazon.com!

[socspice]

I agree with DustSNK. It'd be better to tell the admissions committee about your experiences in a compelling, sociological way than to set it up in this format.

[barilicious]

If I remember correctly, this SOP (to me) reads VERY similar to your SOP last year (even though it is edited significantly), which unfortunately didn't work out too well for you. I really think you need to start clean again and rethink how you want to sell yourself to the universities that you are going to be applying to. As others have echoed, your anecdote is extremely too long, and it is taking up valuable word space where you can be discussing your passion for sociology, your research interests, and your fit. However, I am not totally against starting with an anecdote, as I did in my SOP, but make it succinct. Personally, I think you should pretty much scrap this SOP, and start over, really digging for good material to sell yourself to these universities. Good luck!!

[lambspam]

You're a good writer -- it's clear, it's clean, and it flows well. You also present concrete ways to tackle your research interest, which is where a lot of people fall short in SOPs.

As the above posts indicate, though, this format may not be your best option for a couple of reasons. First, the anecdote is all about James. While that may have been an important moment of observation, this scene doesn't say anything about you and your goals, ambitions, or active personal experiences. Second, it's a very long intro. I strongly believe in limiting introductory anecdotes and "stage-setting" to a maximum of five sentences. Most soc applications give you between 500 and 700 words in your SOP to sell yourself, so every sentence has to say something important about you and why you're qualified for grad school. What I did get out of the first section about you that I wanted to hear more about was your experience as an elementary special ed teacher in Baltimore (a challenging profession, no doubt). Why did you become a teacher? How did it directly relate to your interest in unraveling the mysteries of the social structure? Why did you leave? That last question is a particularly good place to start if you want to spend your PhD understanding social problems in education, since being a teacher provides a different perspective for understanding those same problems.

In addition, you may want to consider spending a little time talking about your academic endeavors. You'll have your CV, of course, and you don't want to repeat too much information that's already on there, but it could be good to speak to any research experiences you have. More concrete statements about your accomplishments will boost their confidence that you are ready for this.

The last comment is that you're proposing what may be an unconquerably large dissertation. That's a huge topic (three topics, really), and I'm not sure if it'll set off bells in the adcom's heads that you have unrealistic expectations of graduate study. I may be off-base here, though -- can anyone else in the forum speak to this?

[suerte]

Ann Lamott's "Bird by Bird", an excellent book on the soul-sanding process of writing, tells me to applaud this as a good first draft. Like they say about fatherhood but also applies to applying to grad school, 90% of the work is just showing up. Way to go for already having a draft of your SOP in circulation.

But why are you assuming James is going to be on probation or in a detention facility in a few years? an analysis of how you arrived at that assumption, (and of the dangers of scholarship that propagates such assumptions [with state-sanctioned credentials] to perpetuate symbolic domination) would be an interesting place to begin a second draft.

They say science is bending over backwards to prove yourself wrong. Try to identify the assumptions implicit in each line of this essay, and attack those. Without having too large of an existential moment, turn the mirror on the theories of deviance you have learned - what are their flaws? how can you not simply employ said theories, but reframe our understanding of the issue that the theories are only attempting to enunciate?

The last paragraph sounds like an advertisement for the college you want to go to. Donʻt be a sycophant; trust me, it has failed me 3 application cycles in a row (i did get in somewhere and got my MA, but it was from an intellectual siberia of a program relative to my interests in political sociology).

And the last sentence should be the first for the next draft. They need to know who you want to work with, and why, very early on in the essay. One might even dedicate 80-85% of the essay on how the research of specific faculty members jives nicely with your proposed intellectual goals.

Keep up the diligent work. You inspire me to get my next draft out pronto (ie, revise last yearʻs essay, without completely discarding everything in frustration for not getting in anywhere last year...itʻs the perseverance card that I am banking on for this year).

Edited August 2, 2011 by suerte