'detailing' schools in SOP

[kabutar]

I'm curious...

I'm hoping I have a fairly strong SOP (my professors/people who read it really liked it). I'm applying for MPAs in environmental policy, so most likely no thesis. Suffice to say I talked a lot in my SOP about how I feel we need vision and progressive thinking etc for environmental issues and hence why I wanted to work in the field and study these topics.

e.g. I might say such and such international environmental concern will be a big issue and needs fixing - which automatically answers the question of why I want to study say, international policies or IR.

So when I got to 'why do I want to go to X school?' I tied it in directly also, because I only applied to a few schools which are known for being fairly visionary, forward-thinking, etc.

now I'm doing Tufts' application and their questions are a lot more specific, and I'm wondering - is what I have enough, both for Tufts or for other less specific applications? I don't necessarily have profs or clubs that I want to work with, but what about listing interesting courses taught by profs? There are SO many courses, and I'm not doing a thesis, so I feel like it may either just be a generic statement anyway or look like name-dropping.

On the other hand there may be think tanks such as the Princeton Environmental Institute - yes I know the WWS deadline has passed, but is that the sort of thing I'd want to mention in such an app, or again is that name-dropping?

Edited January 15, 2010 by kabutar

[kabutar]

Hmm, I tried to edit but it wouldn't let me.

Let me rephrase this entire thing lol. The generic paragraph is not overly generic - it's a paragraph, it's hot air I suppose, but it's also more in-depth than other generic paragraphs might be. I feel like my SOP is really strong otherwise, but I'm counting on it to carry a lot of the weight in the app... has the generic para sunk my SOP/app?