SOP specific to each school?

[LaDiDa]

How specific should you be about the actual program in your SOP? Should you mention faculty you want to work with and research groups you may want to participate in?

[orst11]

While some people will write a completely different SOP for each program they apply to, others will just tailor one SOP for different programs. For the latter, it's good to at least include a paragraph to possibly two on why you want to attend the given program/who you would like to work with if admitted. Also, it's easy to simply write a professor's name down, anyone basically can see a professor's profile on a university website, what you want to do is possible mention a piece that may fit your interests or mention what a program's research group would gain if you were admitted over equal candidates.

For a SOP, limited at 300-500 words you can obviously cut a bunch of the personal stuff out and concentrate on your research interests as well as mentioning what professors you would like to work with.

Also as far as research interests, you don't want to go into too much detail but want to mention how your research fits overall into the program. This is because interests may change, it happens to everyone, and you risk limiting your chances.