There has been a lot of interest in knowing what composes a good SOP. A lot has been said about that in our previous posts here and here. But if you are someone short of time, and needs a crash course in writing a good SOP - here are some quick notes. (credits to Prof. Vince Gotera | University of Northern Iowa)

A “hook” that demonstrates your passion for the field
Segué to your background in the field
Description of your academic background in the field
Specific classes you have taken, given by name
Specific professors you have had, especially if well-known in that field
Extracurricular activities in the field
Publications or other professional accomplishments in the field (perhaps conference presentations or public readings)
Explanations about problems in …

Continuing from where we left in our last post on writing great statements of purpose. Try to make your paper-and-ink self come alive. Don’t just say, “I used to work on an assembly line in a television factory, and one day I decided that I had to get out of there, so I went to college to save my own life.” How about this: “One Thursday, I had soldered the 112th green wire on the same place on the 112th TV remote, and I realized the solder fumes were rotting my brain. I decided college would be my salvation.” Both 35 words. Which narrative do you think will keep the admissions committee reading?
Tell stories (briefly). Use vivid language. Be specific. …

This is part 1 of a 2 part series of advise on writing a great statement of purpose. It has been wrriten by Prof. Vince Gotera of University of Northern Iowa, and we got access to it from this blog. The Statement of Purpose required by grad schools is probably the hardest thing you will ever write. (Incidentally, the statement of purpose may also be called an Application Essay, Objectives for Graduate Study, Personal Background, Cover Letter, or some comparable title.)
I would guess virtually all grad-school applicants, when they write their first draft of the statement of purpose, will get it wrong. Much of what you have learned about writing and also about how to present yourself will lead you …

Cornell has a good program in Operations Reseach. A lot of cutting edge research initiatives are being under taken there. If you are applying to this program, or similar operations research / management programs - this SOP might be of interest to you.
“It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.” ~ Alfred North Whitehead
Man’s insatiable thirst for knowledge forces him to explain every perceptible phenomenon. Man developed Science because it always begins by assuming that the world is inherently understandable and that we can learn how it works by observing it and by examining the processes that affect it. We are now entering an era in which new ideas and disciplines are helping …

Many times, it so happens that one would want to apply for more than 1 graduate program, at the same of different universities. At such a time, you need to have the skill to be able to market your skills in different ways to different people. The same achievement may go to prove your worth as a computer science professional, and you may have to use that to prove how you gain valuable domain knowledge (such as finance) through the same project. Basically, being able to present the same idea in more than one way to different people in your statement of purpose is what is required. Here is the perfect example of that happening. Below is the SOP - …

MIS has been a popular course for which many people apply to the US from India. We were lucky to have someone who had applied to an MIS course give out their SOP to us. Here is what it looks like. The SOP has been structured in a way which brings out why the candidate would be such a good choice for the program in MIS at CMU.
“Every person is born with an innate flair, the moment your realize it you become a great person”. It was at high school, that my fascination for electronic gadgets coupled with a desire to be a skilled programmer, prompted me to choose Computer Engineering as the major for my Bachelor’s Degree.
During …

Here is a sample statement of purpose you might find useful to peruse through. It contains some very helpful pointers as to how to structure sentences in a flow - with one thing leading to another. Starting with a pertinent quote is also good.
“It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us.” Isaac Disraeli
The tradition of excellence has always been part of my family. My grandfather pursued his Bachelors in Civil Engineering from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. My father, following in his footsteps, did his Masters in Chemical Engineering from the University of Mumbai. Both of them being the thing educated professionals have strongly emphasized the importance of education. …

Here is a sample statement of purpose, which is short and succinct. Its to the point and does not have sentences taken out of fantasy novels. Its a SOP which reflects why the candidate is a good fit for graduate education.
During my undergraduate education, I have had the benefit of taking a variety of courses
in the computer science curriculum. Though these courses have given me a solid foundation in
several advanced topics of computer science, I often wished there was more time during the
semester to go into more depth within a subject. What drew me to the graduate program at
was the balance between breadth and depth. Students have the opportunity to have a
degree of expertise within …

There are so many issues people face while writing their SOP - that is - their statement of purpose. SOP could make or break your application. Many times, as has been said countless times before, a weak point in your application could be made up for in your statement of purpose by giving appropriate explanations. But i know of many people who get stuck at the very first paragraph of the SOP. How to start one’s SOP? Often times it has been seen that people just blindly copy something off of SOPs they find on line. Just for the sake of sounding really out of the ordinary, people end up sounding just like anyone else - or just like how …

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 …