Writing research interests in your SOP (PhD)

[Javiar]

Right .. Was drafting my SOP since last 10 days editing forever every word written down and now I am thinking what if my single research interest is no longer available because the funds have gone to bail out Wall St firms instead. Now the univ website clearly tells not to contact faculty .. so have abstained that is until I began to get nervous. Then i did contact a prof with similar interest as mine and she said .. "I dont have time to reply to every student that writes to me" .. which is understandable.

Which puts me in a fix .. should I write more than one interests, since i read some where it may be a good idea to include more than one. But since it is a PhD SOP, i thought we needed to have a sharper focus or is it?

Thoughts ..

J

[ts10vsg]

Ideally the research interest should not be small enough that the committee finds difficult to fix you in. It should be broad enough that it gives you enough space allowing you to explore the field

[Javiar]

But isn't one supposed to write in the SOP how they were led to a certain area of interest? But i guess it may be ok to have a strong area of interest and a another not so strong one. Just have to make sure they sound equally strong on paper.