sop - indent/list your name or DOB/title/ss#

[renwod90]

Hello -

I've seen a number of statements and all of them use a different format. Some indent and some don't. Others add their name and birthday or even their social security number. Some don't add any spaces and some are double spaced. What did you do? Did you add the title "Statement of Purpose" to yours? Did you title each paragraph? The lack of uniformity would bother me if I were a professor, and I don't want to stand out for the wrong reasons by indenting when others did not. Thanks!

[moody]

I think you are worrying about this a bit too much. If nothing is specified in the guidelines from the university, just choose a way of formatting your SOP that makes it easy to read (have at least a bit of white space - it shouldn't be a wall of text.)

[fuzzylogician]

If there are no guidelines, use whatever is the formatting convention in your field (e.g. based on requirements for papers that you've written for your classes or based on the formatting of articles in the leading journals in your field). Many times applications will generate headings and numbering for the entire application once you build it in the app system; if none are generated, I think it's a good idea to have identifying information on all of the documents that you submit (name, app ID if you have one, title of document) and page numbers (page X of Y) so everything can be easily traced back to you without the possibility of confusion. Also include a list of documents submitted when you send hard-copies of materials.