While there are many, many guidelines out there which you will be asked to follow while writing your SOP - its not very hard to come up with some basic guiding principles on which to base your SOP. In this post, we have tried to drill down to a few basic principles you should keep in mind at all times, while writing your SOP. Since these are pretty basic and kind of like notes-to-self - they are described crisply so that you can take the maximum out of them and commit them to memory:

1. Basic idea is to convince the admission committee - that you are the student for the job.
2. Succinctly describe how you are a fit for the program and how the program is a fit for you - they dont need a shower of praise from you
3. Be sincere - dont try to sound like you are the next biggest boon to mankind - be more specific about your achievements and places where you excelled
4. Do Not commit careless mistakes - for example, vocabulary or grammatical errors
5. Depending upon the university - it might make more sense to concentrate on breadth of achievements rather than depth - where as in some top schools - describing 1 great project you did in slightly more detailed manner than others might make more sense - more about this in a post coming soon.
6. Do Not use cliched sentences like - “I started using computers at age 6 and fell in love at first sight” or something like that
7. Shorter sentences are more to-the-point and useful in putting your point forth rather than long winding sentences.

Here are some more words of advise from departments in the US:

“A straight autobiography should be avoided, although interesting and pertinent autobiographical facts should be included. But the statement should be more future-oriented than past-oriented. I don’t really want the story of a student’s life but rather plans for and a vision of the future.”

— Graduate English Department at UCLA

“Avoid cuteness; we’ve had people who have done career statements in the form of a mini-play, for example. You want to sound like a professional.”

— The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
Princeton University