A Well Written Writing Sample

[The_Epicure]

In my opinion, and I could be wrong on this, the writing sample is by far and away the most important part of the application. Not only is it the application committee's chance to see your potential for academic research, but you get 20 or so whole pages to prove why you should be accepted. The method I took when writing my statement of purpose was maybe 2 sentences on future research, backed up by 20 pages of writing sample proving I could do it. The entire last paragraph of my writing sample explained where I wanted to take the research in the future.

The way I think about my application is that the statement of purpose will get the admission committee to take a closer look at my writing sample, and my recommendations will verify how much work went into the research behind the writing sample. When I imagine the admissions process in my head, I see the GPA, GRE, and statement of purpose as the initial round stuff that will get you a closer look, I see the writing sample as the evidence that you belong there, and I see the recommendations as the proof that legitimate and independent research went into the writing sample.

Once again, this is just my opinion. How do you think the process works? The goal of this is really just to get a discussion going. I see so much focus on GREs and GPAs when I don't think that should be the focus at all. In my opinion, a perfect GRE and GPA is neither necessary nor sufficient for acceptance into any school, whereas proof of potential for research is both necessary and sufficient for acceptance.

Let me know what you think.

[kolja00]

In all actuality it isn't that important at all. A ton of schools, including Harvard, don't even want a writing sample. The truth is the seminar papers you do in Undergrad and masters classes are nothing like the research you will be doing in grad school.

I'd say the SoP and Rec letters are the most important aspects.

Edited November 7, 2011 by kolja00

[The_Epicure]

A ton of schools, including Harvard, don't even want a writing sample.

How so? Every school I applied to required it.

[faculty]

I do think that writing samples are important, but not always in the way that the OP assumes. It is good to see when students have done original research and some honors theses and undergraduate methods papers that get submitted are of similar quality to MA theses. This can come up in the committee's discussion. More frequently, though, and as hope for those whose writing samples might be less research-oriented, I hear people on our committee comment on the writing ability reflected in the samples rather than the data analysis or research skills. Writing samples can help alleviate concern over a disconnect between analytic and verbal scores or a low score in one of the areas. Basically, they give the faculty a sense of what they'll have to work with. Most faculty assume that they can teach students how to formulate a research question, collect the data, analyze it, and present it in the appropriate style, but teaching a students how to write is a much more elusive task for graduate programs.

Edited November 8, 2011 by faculty

[avee]

I didn't use my writing sample as a very big statement of purpose. I actually just used some of my master's thesis.