What if your SOP mentions a project that was later dropped?

[M4ss5pec]

So here's something that's been bugging the heck outta me for awhile...

 

In my SOP, I mentioned that my senior thesis project was developing a GC/MS for drug quantitation; all the background research had been done, and at the time of writing my SOP, I was about a week or two from running samples. About a month after I submitted most of my applications, my PI put that project on hold indefinitely, and instead, my project became developing a quantitative GC/MS teaching method, which has since been published. Two of my applications were submitted after I already knew about the change; I submitted my original SOP, which was something my PI said would be okay to do...

 

I feel like I'm on the border of looking like I deliberately made a deceptive SOP and concerned that I may get my admission offers rescinded; then again, I also wonder if I'm just being paranoid.   Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[asaprocky]

I think you'll be fine. I feel as if most adcom's are just interested in the fact that you're doing research in the analytical field. Plus, you just published it so really, what you're doing now is better than what you even put in your SOP so I think you'll be quite fine. I feel as if professors would understand what's happened to you and won't hold it against you since you've actually published the new material. Relax!! You're gonna be ok. 

[M4ss5pec]

Well, when you word it that way, I guess it does sound like the new project's better. The main source of my concern was that a teaching method isn't as high caliber as drug detection, but that is a good point about it all being analytical anyway.

 

Thanks for the new perspective! One less thing to worry about.

Edited December 31, 2013 by M4ss5pec

[YaBoyAR]

I think describing your research in your SOP is merely a way to show you have research experience and some form of training. For example, mentioning that you have done columns and NMR and reaction work-ups would be useful for Orgo programs. Mentioning that you've used python/C++/programming language would be useful for computational programs. Etc etc. I really doubt they care much about your actual project so long as you demonstrated intelligence, comprehension, and training. Even if they did, I'm sure all scientists can relate to projects being put on the back-burner.

[TakeruK]

It's okay. There are tons of papers that get put up on pre-print servers (e.g. arxiv.org) with tags like "to be submitted to <Journal>" but then never get published at all. Maybe they were put on hold, or the results didn't work out, or they decided to combine with other results and submit as a different paper instead. You might have to explain it in an interview, if they ask, but I wouldn't worry about it -- in academia, we usually know that projects in progress can always hit unexpected snags at any time, even at the paper writing stage (and sometimes retractions are made even after publication!)

[St Andrews Lynx]

I think as long as what your LORs say you did matches up to what you say you did in your SOP then there won't be a problem (ie, you worked in Professor X's lab as an analytical chemist, worked with a GCMS to do ___, Project 1 involved __). To me this doesn't sound like deception - just normal research.

The exact details of what you researched matters less than (i) your level of independence, intellectual input & general competency (ii) your ability to get publishable results from a project (which you did). After all, the odds are that you won't be researching the exact same thing you did as an undergrad when you are in grad school anyway - so in that sense the research project itself isn't all that important.

[M4ss5pec]

Thanks to everyone who replied! I felt kinda silly asking, but I'm really glad to hear that it's not an issue. I had heard that if your application differed at all from your actual experience that it could put admission offers in jeopardy, but I didn't know to what extent the differences had to be.