Personal Statement?

[funchaku]

Hi,

I plan to apply to PhD programs for Fall 2013 (so perhaps this may be slightly premature?) and I was hoping for some tips about writing my personal statement. I work on language acquisition (specifically syntactic acquisition) now and hope to continue along these lines. However, I do plan on applying to a couple of places that don't really have acquisition people working there. Keeping this in mind, how specific should I be about my research interests/plans? Do I mention POI(s) in the statement? Any and all suggestions will be appreciated!

[fuzzylogician]

You should mention POIs in all your statements. It may be easier when you apply to schools with a strong language acquisition program, but you still need to take the time to explain exactly how each school will support your goals. (=have clearly developed research interests, choose 2-4 professors who you want to work with, explain why and how they can support your research). Schools that don't have language acquisition researchers will ask the obvious question of why you're applying there in the first place. It's a good question, and you should be able to answer it. If your statement is vague and (1) doesn't mention clear research interests and POIs, or (2) focuses on interests that the school can't support, then you will have a hard time getting accepted. What's more, you probably don't really want to get accepted and attend a school that can't support your goals. Remember that you'll need to take classes, have a primary advisor, and eventually form a committee at your chosen school. It'll be very difficult if there are no experts there who you can work with. So what you have to reflect on is why you're applying to each school, and that's what your statement should explain.

[radiowires]

For what it's worth, when I applied to schools last round I only mentioned POIs in one of my statements (and only because the application asked for it directly). That school rejected me.

fuzzylogician is certainly right, that appealing to specific POIs can show that you know where your interests lie and that you have done your research on the program. Personally, though, I was a bit uncomfortable with expressing a desire to work with people I'd never met, so I laid out my interests and then made specific arguments as to why the program in general would be a good fit. I was worried that this approach would completely backfire, but it didn't, and I don't think my acceptance/rejection profile would've been much different had I mentioned specific people from each program.

(Obviously this is just my experience; every application is different and ymmv and all that.)

[funchaku]

Thanks, guys! To respond to a point brought by fuzzylogician, namely, why I would apply to schools without a Lang Acq person in the dept-- the places I am considering (e.g., USC, Harvard) have people in the Psychology Dept who work on language development. Here's my next question. Is it appropriate to mention my hopes of collaborating with someone in Psychology (in addition to a POI in Linguistics, ofc) in the statement?

[fuzzylogician]

I don't know about USC but at Harvard there are collaborations with Psychology, and there is also Ken Wexler at MIT who you could mention as a source in the community. But you should also make sure to explain how you will fit in linguistics, else they will just figure you should be applying directly to Psychology to work with whoever it is there that interests you instead of to linguistics.

[funchaku]

I think it will help immensely if I could look through sample Linguistics SOPs to get an idea of the language, the ratio of past activities vs future research plans, etc. Anyone know of a place I could find such resources?

[amlobo]

I think with any SOP, your particular circumstances and credentials will determine how much time you spend talking about each topic. For instance, I am switching disciplines, so I am spending more time talking about my background in the "new" discipline to establish the foundation that might not be apparent from looking at my application materials. If your experience in the field is obvious from your other materials, or you have particularly interesting future research plans, it might be worth spending more time on that aspect. I don't think there is a hard and fast rule, and everyone is going to tell you something different... because people are successful applicants with all kinds of SOPs. There is no one "right" way.

A friend of mine who is finishing his dissertation told me not to "crowdsource" my SOP; it should be the way *I* would write it, not the combination of all of the conflicting advice I'm receiving. I think the best thing you could do is have one of your LOR writers look over your SOP. Two of my LOR writers have offered to do this, and I am definitely going to take them up on the offer.

[moody]

Mentioning POI can be tricky. It's helpful to the department, because it allows them to see who you might imagine yourself working with - especially if it's not immediately obvious. Overall, you generally should mention POI but *be sure to do your research first.* Look at the webpages and research interests of all of the primary faculty members (assistant, associate and full professors); you may be surprised to discover that someone you wouldn't expect has areas of interest that overlap with yours.

Two things to avoid:

- It can work against you if you mention people who either no longer active advisors in the department (on the verge of retirement, taking up some type of administrative position, etc.). Applications that *only* mention people who are no longer active tend to be pretty much automatically rejected because the department won't feel able to advise you.

- It can also work against you if you offend people by failing to mention them even though they would be an obvious advisor or committee member given the research interests expressed in you SOP. Skipping obvious people makes you seem poorly prepared. (Plus, you never know who is on the admissions committee.) This is why doing your research is important. Don't mention everyone, but it's completely OK to mention 4 or 5.

Explain your research interests in your SOP, and then indicate why University X would be the best place to continue this research - Prof. A has done work on xxx, which is related in the following way. Prof. B has done work on yyy, etc.

[funchaku]

thank you! this is all very helpful information!