A Statement of Purpose, or an SOP, in simple words, is a reflection of your personality. It acts as a convenient method for the admissions committee, or Adcom, to filter you out from the several thousand applicants. It is owing to this that the SOP is your one chance to impress the committee before the interview round by not only your academics but your extracurriculars and personal life.
Thus, here are seven essential steps to write an effective SOP and get into the college of your dreams!
Firstly, we have to address a question that is fundamental to our chosen topic: Why are SOPs important? They are important, simply because they are the only subjective portion of your application as the academic record, other academic transcripts, and backlog certificate are essentially objective in nature.
It is the only document in your application that allows you to make you stand out from the crowd. It is a document that has the power to determine your application’s future.
Now, how can you write a stellar statement of purpose?
- Tip #01: Introduce yourself, your interests and motivations
This tip may seem unnecessary as the name is a Statement Of Purpose, however, given the vast collection of sample SOPs provided online, make sure that yours talks about you as a person and as an academician. They should not just be generalised adjectives (such as motivated, kind, etc.) Talk about your story.
- Tip #02: Summarize your undergraduate and previous graduate career
Albeit this may take up space in your word count, it is pivotal that you acknowledge your education and career up until this point, if only briefly.
- Tip #03: Discuss the relevance of your recent and current activities
As you are including past experiences and extracurricular activities in your SOP, it is critical that you do not add experiences that are irrelevant to your SOP because that may seem as though you are trying to fill up the word count with no real intention.
- Tip #04: Reading between the lines
What the admissions committee aims to see from your application is all that is between the lines. This includes your self-motivation, competence, and potential as a graduate student and not just the numbers on your scorecard.
- Tip #05: Emphasize everything from a positive perspective and write in an active, not a passive voice
When you speak about your past, particularly about tough experiences that shaped you as a person, it’s good to show them in a positive light because it shows that you’ve grown since then, and can appreciate the hurdles you had to jump over to reach where you are now.
- Tip #06: Demonstrate everything by example
If you merely state that you are a hard worker, the university has no reason to believe you. Thus, by giving an example that supports the label you’ve given yourself, you are accounting for what’s written on paper.
- Tip #07: Unless the specific program says otherwise, be concise
An ideal essay should say everything it needs to with brevity. Approximately 500 to 1000 well-selected words (1–2 single space pages in 12 point font) is better than more words with less clarity and poor organization.