"Fit" and current students

[melusine]

Because I am, as it appears, a masochist who feels the need to worry about stuff she cannot predict or affect in any way... And a sadist who likes to spread anxiety around.. (*evil laugh*) .. I thought I'd share my latest fear:

scanning the website of my ultimate top choice school, I've noticed they just updated the current students page of my program. the nice list of friendly anonymous names is now a list of snappy mini-bios and taunting headshots of successful would-be peers.

And... Surprise, surprise. Of the 15 or so ppl there, there are three who not only have the same language-combination that I do, as well as similar interests... One has the EXACT SAME FOCUS.

seriously, same time period, same topic, same authors, same theorists. she even uses similar expressions/sentence structure to describe her project..

I feel like I've been scooped!!

I know no one expects us to be original, especially at this stage in the game when the assistant librarian's pet turtle probably has more experience than me.. But still! I feel like whoever reads my SOP for that program will now think I just went on their current students' page and plagiarized somebody else's project!

[LateAntique]

Because I am, as it appears, a masochist who feels the need to worry about stuff she cannot predict or affect in any way... And a sadist who likes to spread anxiety around.. (*evil laugh*) .. I thought I'd share my latest fear:

scanning the website of my ultimate top choice school, I've noticed they just updated the current students page of my program. the nice list of friendly anonymous names is now a list of snappy mini-bios and taunting headshots of successful would-be peers.

And... Surprise, surprise. Of the 15 or so ppl there, there are three who not only have the same language-combination that I do, as well as similar interests... One has the EXACT SAME FOCUS.

seriously, same time period, same topic, same authors, same theorists. she even uses similar expressions/sentence structure to describe her project..

I feel like I've been scooped!!

I know no one expects us to be original, especially at this stage in the game when the assistant librarian's pet turtle probably has more experience than me.. But still! I feel like whoever reads my SOP for that program will now think I just went on their current students' page and plagiarized somebody else's project!

Maybe she intercepted your SoP and thought, "Hey, that doesn't sound half bad."

[melusine]

Maybe she intercepted your SoP and thought, "Hey, that doesn't sound half bad."

Ha! that´s what i´d like to think, only I haven´t submitted there yet. ... hmm. so should I try to change my focus now, or just leave things how they are and pretend i never saw this?

[captiv8ed]

Do grad students even see the applications?

That is tough. Since it is online and you haven't submitted yet, it might look like you lifted. But then again it might not and since there is more than one person with those interests, that shows a strength, and it could be seen as a positive.

How is that for completely unhelpful!

[jacib]

Do grad students even see the applications?

That is tough. Since it is online and you haven't submitted yet, it might look like you lifted. But then again it might not and since there is more than one person with those interests, that shows a strength, and it could be seen as a positive.

How is that for completely unhelpful!

I'd probably change your project a little bit... perhaps so that it's not quite so the same? Keep the time period, keep the language combination... I don't know how much detail you have to give because I'm not familiar with your field but I think it would be bad mojo to be too similar to this student. Think of it from the point of view of a potential adviser. I mean, most of the time your interests change in the course graduate studies anyways, right? The period won't change, nor will the language combination, I assume, but this is the school you want to nurture your ideas and I feel like being the same as this other woman will disadvantage you. Then again, I don't know much about comp lit, and I don't know how common overlapping works and what-not is, and I don't know how flexible works and such are.

On the other hand, like you obviously noticed, it does at the very least mean you're a good fit for the program in generall. The only schools I feel really good about are schools where someone on the faculty is directly studying my region, or a current grad student is. Since schools are so fickle about what is or isn't a good fit, and my project covers a topic relatively rare and specific, knowing that current graduate students shared my broad interests really reassured me about some schools (in Religion and Sociology, "fit" is treated really differently and it was really hard to judge what could be a good fit, especially some of the more interdisciplinary Religion programs, and for Sociology programs where the only people working on religion only worked on religion in American).

[LateAntique]

While I don't suggest you have word-for-word what the girl has on her mini-bio, I think you'll probably be safe. Considering how aloof most professors are concerning the content on the department's website, I doubt they even know what's on those things. Someone will know the current student's interests, so you will need to change yours up a little bit so you don't look like a carbon copy. But, I think this bodes well for you - they've already got one person in there doing your kind of work, so the trail has been blazed.

[socialpsych]

Do grad students even see the applications?

As a current grad student: no! Unless grad students are on the adcom, which is true occasionally.

OP, I don't think this is a problem for you -- as other posters have said, it just shows you truly are a good fit at that program. Even if you come in with identical research interests, you may not end up doing identical research, because interests change.

The only thing that would be a problem is if the adcom actually thought you'd lifted your SOP from their website. But I don't think you need to worry about that very much if you can explain your interests in a way that makes it clear that they're yours. You can imagine what a fake would actually look like: the person might not seem to understand the topics completely, for example, or might talk about them in a strange way. I think such an SOP would be easy to spot. Since yours is authentic, I wouldn't worry about it.