Expressing fit beyond dropping professors' names

[quixote]

I'm just finishing up the first draft of my SOP and I've come to a bit of a road block concerning "fit." It's easy enough to identify individual faculty members whose interests match up with mine, but I'm not sure how to get beyond that. What can I say about a department in general that won't be a waste of space?

[cokohlik]

The biggest thing that helped me with expressing fit is speaking with POIs. They often gave me "insider" information about the department, school, and special opportunities that they provide to their students. Because of a conversation I had with a "safety" school POI, this school is now in my Top 3. If you can get information about what matters to you (for me, this in part was research resources), talk about that and how excited you are utilize what's offered to School X's students. I'm more of a question-asker myself, but I thought I'd give your thread a try because it was something I struggled with in the beginning. I hope this helps!