Rate your Students SOP

[whereiscarmen]

Here's a link to an article of what some teachers were and were not looking for in the personal statements.

Rate Your Students: What do we want students to say in their grad school statements

What do you think? What did you do that was good? Bad?

Does anyone know if these beliefs are generally true or if people can still get into graduate school with the "ever since I was little" statements?

The one part I don't agree with is explaining why you want to study a subject. I don't see what's wrong with saying why you are interested in a subject if you know how to articulate it.

[jambromr]

What do you think? What did you do that was good? Bad?

Does anyone know if these beliefs are generally true or if people can still get into graduate school with the "ever since I was little" statements?

I applied to 7 grad schools and in one of them I went with the 'ever since I was little' statement - well, that school has been the first and so far only school that has rejected me ....I got interview invites from other schools of similar 'level', so maybe there is truth in that these SOPs get thrown out right away.

Edited January 15, 2010 by jambromr

[George]

I'm screwed! I definitely have very vague fit paragraphs but it's not because I didn't learn about the department. It's because I would love to do any number of things that faculty do. I would be happy with any one of them. I don't have as strong a plan for how grad school is going to go as some people seem to. What I do know is that I belong there, and that's because I like research itself, not so much any subfield. I love long hours, secluded life, books, difficult problems that may not have a solution. But it looks like none of that matters...

[luar de ouro]

I found this article utterly charming, and very informative.

You always need an edge to get ahead and get noticed, it's the same if you're a puppy at the pound wanting to be taken home, a diamond ring behind the jewelry counter, or someone trying to be picked by a Ph.D program.

[George]

I don't know that it did favorfire, but thanks for trying. I have actually calmed down a bit since I posted. This professor is in the humanities, so it might not apply to me. I actually distinctly remember speaking to at least a half dozen mathematicians and an economist who had no clue what they wanted to do in grad school but got in anyway. Ugh. This is the least fun game ever!

Edited January 15, 2010 by George

[Serric]

I think something helpful that I did was to find some little detail about the program and incorporate it into my statement of purpose. It showed that I'd not only researched the program and knew what I was getting into, but often it was about funding--an example would be additional grants offered through the university for your program (such as I believe the CiRM grant at UC Berkeley), factoids about the university that are relevant to your interests (such as Minnesota declaring that it would become one of the top research universities in the country, and its rankings rising quickly after that), etc.

[jacib]

I don't know that it did favorfire, but thanks for trying. I have actually calmed down a bit since I posted. This professor is in the humanities, so it might not apply to me. I actually distinctly remember speaking to at least a half dozen mathematicians and an economist who had no clue what they wanted to do in grad school but got in anyway. Ugh. This is the least fun game ever!

I always talked about what I wanted to research, but I didn't necessarily say "I want to work with this and this person in the department." I think in something like math, where you actually need qualifications and training already, these things matter less. Literally, I don't have to have taken any sociological theory or any stats prior to entry to my program. I literally could have majored in basket weaving as an undergrad. That's why it's much more important for us Social Science/Humanities kids to say what we're going to do.

Point 2: I definitely tried to be a "____ kid" in my statement, as in "the coconut kid". Not as cool as coconuts, but still.

[Ivy]

I'm screwed! I definitely have very vague fit paragraphs but it's not because I didn't learn about the department. It's because I would love to do any number of things that faculty do. I would be happy with any one of them. I don't have as strong a plan for how grad school is going to go as some people seem to. What I do know is that I belong there, and that's because I like research itself, not so much any subfield. I love long hours, secluded life, books, difficult problems that may not have a solution. But it looks like none of that matters...

I found this interesting...I was just called for an interview on Wednesday and they emailed me a document outlining what sorts of questions would be asked and what kinds of information they were looking for in the interview--and it specifically mentioned that they wanted specific examples and that they *didn't* want people who were just there to "do anything" or be research lapdogs. They don't care if you love the grad school life or not--they care what you're going to achieve and accomplish while you're in it, not whether or not you enjoy it. Sure, they want people who are interested in research and solving problems, but *what* problems do you want to solve? Aren't there one or two key issues above the rest that tug at your heartstrings that you want to spend those long hours working on? That's what I would talk about in a SOP; that's the specifics they're looking for, not names of professors but actual, concrete areas of research that you're passionate about.

Just my $0.02.

[rogue]

That blog post actually made me feel a lot better about my SOPs, and it was fun to read, too. Thanks!

[coyabean]

I don't know that it did favorfire, but thanks for trying. I have actually calmed down a bit since I posted. This professor is in the humanities, so it might not apply to me. I actually distinctly remember speaking to at least a half dozen mathematicians and an economist who had no clue what they wanted to do in grad school but got in anyway. Ugh. This is the least fun game ever!

My mentor is in econ and he's always amazed at the differences in how the disciplines approach this. In econ, he says, there's no expectation you know enough to make a coherent argument about what you want to do. They just want to see that you know how to think about their kinds of problems. For humanities and social sciences the expectation is that you are more specific because the areas are so broad and those programs take much longer for people to complete. They want reassurances that you will follow-through and finish and specificity makes them feel better about that.

And not directed at you:

I think the issue with the "since I was a kid" thing is that with a 1000 or so word limit if you have to go that far back to find something interesting or related to the field of inquiry that its a bad sign. Also, its an easy way to narrow the field. At this point every book, blog, community and resource on grad school admonishes you not to use it, so I think adcomms think if they don't know that then...

And Ivy:

found this interesting...I was just called for an interview on Wednesday and they emailed me a document outlining what sorts of questions would be asked and what kinds of information they were looking for in the interview--and it specifically mentioned that they wanted specific examples and that they *didn't* want people who were just there to "do anything" or be research lapdogs. They don't care if you love the grad school life or not--they care what you're going to achieve and accomplish while you're in it, not whether or not you enjoy it. Sure, they want people who are interested in research and solving problems, but *what* problems do you want to solve? Aren't there one or two key issues above the rest that tug at your heartstrings that you want to spend those long hours working on? That's what I would talk about in a SOP; that's the specifics they're looking for, not names of professors but actual, concrete areas of research that you're passionate about.

Just my $0.02.

Basically. Also look at that language. It's all about "I, I, I" and "me, me, me". I love to research. I love this life. I will be forever happy doing this.

The goal, I think, is to at least pretend you want to do something for someone else. No one is as ever interested in you as you are. It's just not interesting. It may be hogwash but I think in academia the premise is that you want to live this life to impact others, even if its just to impact a small group of people. Getting away from the "I" is something to think about.

Edited January 15, 2010 by coyabean

[naptown]

Nice article. Thanks for posting!

[socialpsych]

Thanks for posting that link, OP; interesting stuff. My SOP didn't have any particular kind of "edge" or cute anecdote or anything, and neither did other SOPs of successful applicants who let me see theirs. So I would contend that having something quirky is not important to everyone who reads apps.

(Disclaimer: the paragraph below may not apply whatsoever to fields other than psychology, though I suspect it might.)

On the other hand, I totally buy the advice about making it specific and talking about concrete research interests and fit with the department. Basically, the SOP should make it sound like you are ready to get there and start working on some projects (interesting ones) right away. This is true even if your interests are in fact fairly broad. You need to demonstrate that you know that being interested in "interpersonal perception" or "decision-making," or topics at similar levels of abstraction, leaves you pretty far from being ready to start running studies. No one is going to hold you to the specific topics you propose in your SOP (as long as they get you matched up with the right advisor); they still expect you to propose topics so that they can tell you know what a good topic is.

Also, if "ever since I was little..." or "I have always loved..." is a bad way to start, I don't understand why so many of us get told that that's what we're supposed to do! That was the impression I had, too, but I ended up not putting it in my statement simply because I couldn't make it a plausible story. My interests have changed a lot since I was "little." Who cares? I'm interested in this stuff now (and I can "prove" it by discussing the stuff in an interesting way). Anyway, I totally want to write a letter to the SOP book I read that gave the bad advice to include those kinds of anecdotes...

[rising_star]

It would be great if you could be witty and sparkling, but just spellchecking, a standard font, and a lack of sentence fragments will go a long way. And for Dog's sake, if the length of the statement is specified, don't make it any longer. You don't have that much to say that we want to read.

That paragraph had my favorite lines but I really like this one, because it addresses something that comes up here all the time regarding SOP length.

What we want to see is not "How Great Thou Art" but an answer to the following question: Can you write? We want to see a breadth and depth of knowledge articulated through an excellent argument. That's right. It is all about rhetoric. Can you persuade me to say "yes" to your application? Can you persuade me that I should say "yes" to you over the hundred or so other people attempting to get into my program? Are you just kissing my ass, telling me what you think I want to hear? We can see through a lot of that balderdash. If it smells like bullshit, we assume it is bullshit.

I bet this is what it all comes down to for a lot of people.

Note: The quotes are from the post linked to by the OP.

[Lauren the Librarian]

Also look at that language. It's all about "I, I, I" and "me, me, me". I love to research. I love this life. I will be forever happy doing this.

The goal, I think, is to at least pretend you want to do something for someone else. No one is as ever interested in you as you are. It's just not interesting. It may be hogwash but I think in academia the premise is that you want to live this life to impact others, even if its just to impact a small group of people. Getting away from the "I" is something to think about.

I had a weird mixture of these problems. Almost 2/3 of my sentences had "I" as the subject, and more than one person found it distracting. On the other hand, I spent nearly 400 words talking about "contributing to the academic dialogue" and some such nonsense, but it didn't make the final cut. In the end, I tried to show, not tell and I think it came out all right.

I did mention high school. But instead of saying what I've always wanted to do, I talked about how completely opposite my understanding of the subject matter was. I buffed it up with some fancy, region-specific terms to show my theoretical knowledge of the area. The final product got postive nods, but we'll have to wait and see what the adcom thinks. My SoP is the strongest part of my application, so if I don't get in, I'll know it wasn't what they wanted to hear.

[coyabean]

I had a weird mixture of these problems. Almost 2/3 of my sentences had "I" as the subject, and more than one person found it distracting. On the other hand, I spent nearly 400 words talking about "contributing to the academic dialogue" and some such nonsense, but it didn't make the final cut. In the end, I tried to show, not tell and I think it came out all right.

I did mention high school. But instead of saying what I've always wanted to do, I talked about how completely opposite my understanding of the subject matter was. I buffed it up with some fancy, region-specific terms to show my theoretical knowledge of the area. The final product got postive nods, but we'll have to wait and see what the adcom thinks. My SoP is the strongest part of my application, so if I don't get in, I'll know it wasn't what they wanted to hear.

Yes, I did not mean that the pronoun is the devilish detail but the focus on how graduate school will impact the applicant and not how the applicant will impact the grad school and its mission. It's not therapy. If someone is paying you there is usually an understanding that you should impact them, not vice-versa.

But, again, let's see how far I get with my own little SOP first.

[Lauren the Librarian]

how graduate school will impact the applicant and not how the applicant will impact the grad school and its mission.

Ha! That is another concern of mine. My SoP screamed of "This is my research question and I'm gonna use your faculty and resources to get the answers I need. Then I'm gonna take my degree and get a PhD from a different school. Then I'll work on the moon."

I'm really hoping I wasn't too honest...

[jacib]

Thanks for posting that link, OP; interesting stuff. My SOP didn't have any particular kind of "edge" or cute anecdote or anything, and neither did other SOPs of successful applicants who let me see theirs. So I would contend that having something quirky is not important to everyone who reads apps.

I think there is a big difference between the singular life changing experience that gives you an interest in a subject, and a generic understanding of one. Plus, most SOP books appear to be geared towards the Med School/Law School/B School crowd. They gave very little insight into how to write something about research interests. It was mostly, I was born a poor immigrant so I want to be a lawyer/doctor so I can help other poor immigrants, or At my exclusive summer yachting camp in Long Island Sound, some kid fell in the lake, a doctor totally saved him and from that day on, I wanted to either be a doctor after my father told me that I could never own a yacht on a fireman's salary. I found them totally useless. It's harder to move from a specific anecdote to a research statement and that's why I think people often give a more general "Since I was a child" thing. Its easier to talk about your development and your narrowing of interests from a general thing than a specific one.

I was lucky enough to be able to get two actually successful SoP's from a professor who asked two of his current graduate students for permission. It was nice to see what percentage research interest, how much name dropping, was expected. I don't think either of those successful statements had a fit paragraph (though they were sent to me by the students, rather than by the professor, so they may have just sent me a fit paragraphless generic template). I think one included an extensive anecdote that connected vaguely to the candidate's actual research interests (the transition was something clunky like, if I'm already an entrepreneur, why do I want to study nurses?) and the other had a two sentence micro-anecdote "As I sat in the car writing up my research fieldnotes..." that tied directly to the topic, but was just an elegant way of descriping her research experience. In neither case was the anecdote the most interesting part, and on rereading it several times, seemed more and more unnecessary. As I reread these magical successful apps over and over again, scouring them in search of some missed detail or secret code that would assure my addmission, I found the transition between anecdote and research to be quite awkward. Still, I included an anecdote... in fact, the biggest difference between my religion apps and my sociology ones is my anecdote. I feel like it's main benefit is that it can help mentally separate people, especially for more popular topics.

[Bryan]

I think there is a big difference between the singular life changing experience that gives you an interest in a subject, and a generic understanding of one. Plus, most SOP books appear to be geared towards the Med School/Law School/B School crowd. They gave very little insight into how to write something about research interests. It was mostly, I was born a poor immigrant so I want to be a lawyer/doctor so I can help other poor immigrants, or At my exclusive summer yachting camp in Long Island Sound, some kid fell in the lake, a doctor totally saved him and from that day on, I wanted to either be a doctor after my father told me that I could never own a yacht on a fireman's salary. I found them totally useless. It's harder to move from a specific anecdote to a research statement and that's why I think people often give a more general "Since I was a child" thing. Its easier to talk about your development and your narrowing of interests from a general thing than a specific one.

To future applicants - or to those who want to look back with regret - I think the only book worth buying for graduate SOP statements is Donald Ashner's Graduate Admissions Essays: Writing your way into the grad school of your choice. It was impossible to find in bookstores, but you can easily find it on amazon.

[rogue]

To future applicants - or to those who want to look back with regret - I think the only book worth buying for graduate SOP statements is Donald Ashner's Graduate Admissions Essays: Writing your way into the grad school of your choice. It was impossible to find in bookstores, but you can easily find it on amazon.

Agreed--this book was a huge help.

[George]

Agreed--this book was a huge help.

My reason not to use any such literature was because I was afraid to be caught using a very transparent template full of bromides and no soul. Even if the book teaches you valuable lessons, I feel like if everyone were to take those lessons to heart, the book's advice will turn into bromides.

[katalytik]

its good to use books if only to get some context about "what" to address in those essays, not necessarily "how" specifically to write them. agree that templates are probably a bad move in general..... some originality is important

[red_crayons]

I'm glad I didn't read this forum much while I was working on my statements. It would have made me too paranoid to apply at all.

I only applied to four programs (still debating a fifth). Each would require me to take a slightly different approach to answering my research questions, from totally professional approach (journalism, where I would be looking to publish articles/a manuscript upon graduation) to academic (PhD in the field that I would be writing about in a journalism program). I had to write very different statements. In general, I explain things to people by telling a story (hence the journalism angle...), so there was some sort of anecdote in every one. But I wrote them all separately, from scratch, approaching my topics of interest from different points of view.

Some had more "I". Some had more dithering about how I'm going to change the world. Some had more or less discussion of how my work experiences intersected with and informed my research questions. But reading this thread before I wrote them would have made me scared to let them develop naturally, because I would have been trying to follow all those "rules" listed above. I learned a lot about myself in the process, about my desires, goals, reasons for graduate study, and even about how to write a good essay.

Then again, I always write what I want, not what the professor wants. Intelligent professors like it, average ones don't. I'd rather write something that challenges me and expresses who I am than something that's going to please someone who arbitrarily has more power than me. Plus, doing the applications while working to support myself puts the whole thing in perspective. But I was raised by back to the earth hippie farmers, so I guess my little anti-establishment 'tude isn't that surprising.

[rogue]

My reason not to use any such literature was because I was afraid to be caught using a very transparent template full of bromides and no soul. Even if the book teaches you valuable lessons, I feel like if everyone were to take those lessons to heart, the book's advice will turn into bromides.

I don't feel like my essays are anything like the ones in the book. I certainly didn't use any of the examples as a template. It's just helpful to get an idea of what different types of successful essays look like--and trust me, they were all different. There wasn't a common template, at least not in Asher's book. Other ones, I can't really speak to.

I've spend over a decade as a professional writer, writing everything from advertisements to magazine articles to software manuals. Every time I wrote something in a new genre, I studied other examples for ideas of what worked and what didn't. I approached my SOPs in the same way.

Edited January 15, 2010 by rogue

[red_crayons]

I've spend over a decade as a professional writer, writing everything from advertisements to magazine articles to software manuals. Every time I wrote something in a new genre, I studied other examples for ideas of what worked and what didn't. I approached my SOPs in the same way.

To temper somewhat the edginess of my earlier post (which was not the tone I was going for at all!), I wanted to mention that I like this thought.

I have also been doing more writing at work lately and can't imagine where I'd be without the chance to look at my colleagues' work - finished articles and progress reports, drafts at every stage in every genre, even old emails to different kinds of stakeholders. And really, I did poke around online to get an idea of sample statements. I just didn't consider anything to be a hard and fast RULE.

[Lauren the Librarian]

doing the applications while working to support myself puts the whole thing in perspective.

I really identified with this and a lot of the stuff you said in your post. +1

But I am glad I had gradcafe.