Statement of Purpose - What is it?

When you were a young student, you might have learned that grades are the most accurate way to define the success of your academic journey. Although there’s little doubt that good grades will help elevate you into higher learning, university admissions committees look beyond your GPA when deciding whether you’d be a great addition to their campus culture.

Your Statement of Purpose (SOP), a.k.a. Personal Statement (not to be confused with Statement of Intent or Research Statement), is a critical component of every admissions application that gives your admissions committees the opportunity to get to know you, the person behind the grades.

What is a Statement of Purpose?

An SOP is a full-length essay, varying in length depending on your prospective program, highlighting your academic background, extracurricular achievements, work experience, and personal and professional goals. It is also where you can state why you want to study in the desired program at their institution. Importantly, your SOP must showcase you, your experience, your skills, and your vision for your impact and your future.

A successful SOP needs to be composed in an engaging, compelling, authentic way that helps you stand out from the thousands of other students applying to those same programs. Your SOP can also make the difference between receiving the dreaded rejection letter or your highly-coveted letter of acceptance.

What’s included in a Statement of Purpose?

Writing an SOP sounds easy, and applicants often leave their written materials until the last few weeks prior to their deadlines (a big no-no here at Apply Yourself!). In practice, however, it can be quite overwhelming, especially when different schools have different structural and content requirements. Let’s look at the more common elements of the SOP to help you get started so that you’re not stuck staring at a blank screen.

Your personal story

Introduce who you are, to which program you’re applying, and what sparks your interest in that field. You can tell a brief story about what has inspired you to pursue your goals. Whichever path you took to get here, your story should be unique to your personal journey and relevant to your desired program.

Academic achievements

Provide details about research you conducted or participated in, important papers you have published or thesis you completed, or scholarly activities beyond your curricular requirements. Be sure to write in your discipline’s technical style, as your admissions committees will be familiar with your field’s lexicon. But – make sure that you’re not improperly using language that will cause your admissions committees to wonder why you’ve used certain terminology or language in your applications. We see this when applicants try too hard to use lingo from a particular field and it can muddle your message.

Relevant work experience

If you graduated and worked before returning to start a graduate program, you can also include relevant work experience, especially if it involved testing, researching, or interning in an area related to your desired program. Demonstrate (don’t list!) what you learned during your work experience and how it will help you succeed in your graduate studies.

Study interests

Discuss in detail what you want to study and why you want to attend that particular program. Make the program the star of this section by describing what you love about its culture, facilities, and reputation. Admissions committees will appreciate your knowledge about their program and dedication to its future success.

Depending on the type of application, you can also define your specific area of interest by posing a question or presenting a problem you’d like to address and describing what issues have arisen from contemporary research. Provide some detail and show your passion for solving this particular challenge.

Bolster your statements by citing research by professors at the university whose research parallels yours and express an interest in working with them.

A snapshot of your future

Where appropriate, you may describe your plan of action upon graduation, whether you intend to follow your career path or pursue further studies. The admissions committee will want to understand how completing your degree will help shape your future and your future impact.

Close your SOP by thanking the admissions committee for taking the time to review your application. Showcase your enthusiasm and excitement about the next steps in your academic journey!

Tips for writing a strong Statement of Purpose

Most schools provide guidelines for the word count, formatting, spacing, and structure of your SOP. These guidelines will vary by school, so be sure to review and follow each one closely. Even if programs don’t provide formatting requirements, there are formatting requirements that you need to implement.
Make every word count. Admissions committees quickly identify irrelevant or filler information, so make sure that you are intentional with every word of every sentence.
Use an active voice rather than a passive voice that demonstrates self-motivation, competence, and potential as a graduate student.
Provide transitions for flow and continuity between paragraphs so everything reads cohesively, meaningfully, and purposefully.
Avoid the temptation to use SOP templates or plagiarize someone else’s work. Keep your story uniquely yours and in your own voice.
Show examples of your attributes. For example, if you claim to have leadership abilities, demonstrate using a story about how you used them to overcome a problem.
Employ a positive tone, even when describing situations that may have affected your grades, such as financial stressors and constraints, illness, or excessive working hours. Demonstrate how you persevered to overcome these obstacles.
Read the completed essay out loud and make edits where you feel it’s necessary. Don’t just assume “they’ll get it” – I’ve heard this too many times. Leave nothing to the imagination of your admissions committees.
Ensure that there are absolutely no spelling, grammatical, or punctuation errors. Ask someone with proven proofreading skills to review your work or use grammar-checking software to catch things you might have missed. But beware – even grammar-checking software makes mistakes and doesn’t have the ability to understand context and intent. Lesson: don’t just trust a grammar-checking software or app because it’s popular or “other people use it”.
Your written materials are pieces of advocacy – always ask yourself “how would the admissions committee describe my application? How would an admissions committee member advocate for me to be admitted to other members of the committee?” Based on my decade (plus!) as an Admissions Committee Member at all levels, I can tell you that we absolutely advocate for candidates we believe should be admitted based on their applications and rely heavily on your written materials if other members of the committee have any doubts – or are advocating for other candidates when there are limited spaces.

Writing your Statement of Purpose takes time, patience, and dedication, but it’s well worth the effort to make it the best it can be. Once completed, your materials will highlight all of your attributes, showcasing you – and you’ll be proud of your hard work!

Improve your chances of acceptance into graduate schools and professional programs with Apply Yourself^TM

Book a strategy call with Dr. Adrienne Shnier, an Admissions Committee Member, to learn about how our signature course, Mastering Academic Applications: From Scratch to Submission, can help you finish your applications with clarity, support, structure, and strategy. Get in touch with us today!