Advice on SIPA essays for Fall 2012

[sacdude]

I would really appreciate if somebody can advice here-

Out of the 3 questions SIPA has asked for personal statements, the first one is basically a SoP, with a 500 word limit. That does not surprise me.

But the other 2 are weird, and would like some tips on these, if you have an idea-

Second Question

Please choose one of the two following topics to address – 300 word limit.

1. 
   1. A competition is being conducted that will provide one million dollars as seed funding to start a new organization. The competition requires a 300 word essay/statement. Compose a 300 word essay/statement to submit in order to be considered for this seed funding.
   

1. 
   2. You have just read a news story that has deeply moved you. Compose a 300 word response in the form of a letter to the editor. The news story you are responding to can be real or fictional and does not need to be limited to the present time – it can be framed in the past, present, or future.
   

Third Question/Response (200 Word Maximum)

Please share any additional information about yourself that you believe would be of interest to the Admissions Committee. Please focus on information that is not already reflected in the other parts of your application or might not be clear in the information submitted.

What do they expect in the 2nd and 3rd question?? What can one write about for these?

FYI- Within the second, I am leaning towards picking the 2nd bullet- response to a letter to the editor. I am probably going to stick to a public policy issue there.

[greendiplomat]

I would really appreciate if somebody can advice here-

Out of the 3 questions SIPA has asked for personal statements, the first one is basically a SoP, with a 500 word limit. That does not surprise me.

But the other 2 are weird, and would like some tips on these, if you have an idea-

Second Question

Please choose one of the two following topics to address – 300 word limit.

1. 
   1. A competition is being conducted that will provide one million dollars as seed funding to start a new organization. The competition requires a 300 word essay/statement. Compose a 300 word essay/statement to submit in order to be considered for this seed funding.
   

1. 
   2. You have just read a news story that has deeply moved you. Compose a 300 word response in the form of a letter to the editor. The news story you are responding to can be real or fictional and does not need to be limited to the present time – it can be framed in the past, present, or future.
   

Third Question/Response (200 Word Maximum)

Please share any additional information about yourself that you believe would be of interest to the Admissions Committee. Please focus on information that is not already reflected in the other parts of your application or might not be clear in the information submitted.

What do they expect in the 2nd and 3rd question?? What can one write about for these?

FYI- Within the second, I am leaning towards picking the 2nd bullet- response to a letter to the editor. I am probably going to stick to a public policy issue there.

You're right to note that the 2nd question is to let the Admissions Committee get a glimpse of where your interests lie and how you'd be as an international/public affairs professional, the former option being for people more interested in being manager/entrepreneurial types and the latter for policy analyst types.

As for the 3rd question, I'm interpreting this as a space for people that want to explain or otherwise make up for any weaknesses in the application, and that they're making this a part of the application to let everyone have the same number of total words (1000) to express themselves as a candidate. If you don't have anything that really comes to mind with regards to what you want to write here, you might as well just use it as an opportunity to spend 200 words elaborating on something that you couldn't do elsewhere in the application due to word limits.

[HDPFDan]

greendiplomat is pretty spot-on. I'll tell you what I did as an example.

For the second part, I responded to a (real) news story about the explosion of cheap cell phones in India that have enabled people to use them to advance out of poverty, via services such as cheap texting. I discussed my own experience in domestic economic advancement, and how some of the workforce development organizations I've partnered with have used mass-text service to reach low-income populations in order to provide job training and employment opportuinities. I talked about the huge potential of webless social media and cell phones to reach the poor in the developing world, related it to my own work, and finished by saying how tech firms and startups should partner with development agencies and multilaterals because of this. The idea to was demonstrate my knowledge and passion for an interesting international issue/trend, and relate it to my experience, so as to make my entire application that much more cohesive.

For the 3rd part, I owned up to my poor undergraduate GPA for my freshman and sophomore years. Took full responsibility but then also noted how much better I did in the last 2 years of school, which was partly a result of living through Hurricane Katrina (I went to college in New Orleans) and the role that played in my maturation and career. So I addressed a weakness directly, and again used it to hit on the theme of my application and make it one whole cohesive statement for my life/career track.

Hope that helps. I definitely agonized over all 3 parts of the SOP for a long, long time, so you're not alone! Good luck.

[Helpplease123]

I've done the same thing as suggested already - for the 2nd question I chose part A as I want to start a non-profit so that question was a perfect platform to explain why and what. For question 3, I don't have a clear single weakness to address (not to say my application was great but more, several concerning factors rahter than one stand out!) so I talked about my research experience because I hadn't been able to fit it in as part of question 1.

[msn]

Now I feel a little nervous, because I chose the option B for the second essay and I focused on a real news story about a shooting in Amish country a couple years ago. I chose this subject because I've made it clear that I plan to pursue research on the issue of religions and politics, but the event itself did not involve policy.

I focused on the extraordinary response of the Amish in that they attended the funeral of the man who shot and killed several of their young children. They openly embraced the shooter's family and many outsiders thought that their forgiveness was a sign of weakness and inappropriate.

I want to puruse a career in human rights, especially concerning religious minorities and I was sincerely moved by this story. Now I wondered if I totally missed the mark for my essay?

[Helpplease123]

I don't think you did at all... the question asked for a news story that moved you and thats exactly what you wrote about and you tied it in with an area that is of interest to you/which you plan to pursue a career. The story doesn't have to be about policy specifically - as green diplomat said, it is a way for the ad comms to see what policy area interests you, which it sounds like you've done.

[IRToni]

I responded to a fictional news story about the Eurozone breaking apart. I want to focus on International Political Economy and explained how I would want to broaden my focus (I did East Asian Politics and Economies in my undergrad) to encompass the EU. I did a little bit of policy analysis in it, had my own scenario for what was the final blow etc.

I also think that yours should be fine. It shows what you're interested in, it seems to tie in nicely with the rest of your application. Since you want to do human rights, religion and stuff, I think it's good to show that you're independently interested in that. The rest of your application will probably take care of your politics interest ;-).