Writing a Statement of Purpose

1. Preface


Good wishes for everyone. This article is
all about writing a good Statement of Purpose or SOP. I am assuming
that everyone who is reading this article knows about an SOP and its
importance. I tried to summarize some key points on writing a good SOP
and also some difficulties that BUET students usually face. Some
thoughts expressed in here are solely mine. This article is an extended
version of an email that I posted on Oct 01, 2006 on the
csebuet@yahoogroups mailing list.

2. SOP – What’s it all about?


An
SOP is a personal statement that says who you are, what are your
intents, and why do you like this career path (You are a dying fan of
research or your father wants you to be a doctor…kidding, don’t do
this). At this time when you are thinking of writing an SOP, you should
be at the end of your undergrad. That means your cgpa hunt is almost
over. You will have to fight with whatever cgpa you have earned so far.
Also you might have already finished your GRE and other tests. Hence
you have nothing else to do with your scores. The only thing you are
left with is the SOP, the ultimate weapon to get a better admission for
your graduate study. You cannot control your LOR (Letter of
Recommendation) which also has a great impact on your admission result
taken by the university admission committee (I do not want to mention
the bad practice that we follow for LOR in BUET in this article).
Some people ask me questions like this, “My cgpa
is 3.x, GRE score is abc, my classmates with higher cgpa than mine are
also applying for this same university, should I go for it?” I usually
do not say no to this people unless they have a very low score compared
to their high cgpa holder friends. Why? Once I talked to my
departmental chairperson about the admission decision procedure for a
little bit. She said when they get a lot of good applications with
similar good results (which they always have); they pick up the
successful ones who look promising. Now you might ask me two questions,
a) what band of cgpa will I call similar results and b) how do I define
who is promising? For the first question, it has no definite
quantitative answer. I would say anything above 3.8 cgpa is similar.
Likewise 3.6 to 3.8 may be considered as in a similar band. Others may
come up with different ranges. In case of GRE, the same kind of ranging
can be done. Now come to the second question, who is the promising
candidate and how do you prove yourself as a promising candidate to the
admission committee. The answer is the SOP. When everyone looks the
same in terms of scores, your SOP gives you an edge. You better think
of taking this SOP writing job into a serious consideration right away.

3. What do I say in my SOP?


Now that you have understood the importance of the SOP, what should you
put in your SOP? This question needs a lot of brainstorm to come up
with a good answer. Different people will give you different ideas,
even though all will circle around some basic ideas – it’s all about
you. An SOP is a bigger version of an Elevator Speech, I would say. The
admission committee reads hundreds of SOPs each year and they are quite
seasoned and bored with reading the same thing again and again. You
will have a vantage point only when you write an SOP that attracts the
attention of the professor who is bored and tired in late afternoon
thinking of going home. Do not write something mediocre by doing some
“chothabazi”. Be genuine.
Here
comes the big question, “How do I attract their attention showing that
I am good?” There is no direct answer unfortunately and there are no
specific rules for doing so. Looks like I do not have any direct answer
for anything today. But sometime life is like this. You will have to
come up with your own answers. Devise your own game plan. Every SOP is
unique in a sense that it tells about a unique person. Find out what
makes you unique or special compared to the others. Make a list. Now
again you ask me a question (I am never bored with questions, ask me as
much as you want), “I am the hall champion in playing the Age of
Empires, does that make me unique?” Umm… probably not. You are applying
for a graduate admission, keep that in mind. Your research intent,
capability, potential, past experience, projects you have done that
inspired you to come this far are some points that you can focus on.
Just do not say that you are good, passionate, and hard working. Show
them with examples that you are really the person that you say. Show
them that you are good. When every applicant has good scores the
admission committee uses all the scores just as a baseline. But what
they really look for is the potential. Scores give the quantitative
potential, but the qualitative potential is the key to beat others when
everyone is good.
So what do you say in your SOP – the
potential that you have inside you which makes you a perfect candidate
for this admission. Just don’t say it, show it.

4. What research interest should I put in it?


Looks
like I am dealing with a lot of questions today. No problem. This one
is easy – select something that has some implementation or effective
output. More precisely, a research field that can earn some revenue (in
monetary sense) in the real world. Why do you even care about whether
your research topic will earn money? Because the people or
organizations who are funding the professors want money. Except some
organizations like NSF (National Science Foundation) who give money for
advancement of science, everyone is giving this fund so that they can
get some output from it in return that will boost their future market.
Intel wants more power efficient chip design methodology. You show
interest in power-aware chip design; you have a higher chance of
getting an admission as most of the chip industries are focusing on
power issues nowadays. Maybe you have noticed that Intel is not
increasing its microprocessor clock frequency further anymore. They are
trying to make it more power efficient. Anyway, that’s a different
topic which is not the focus of this article.
So the
baseline is, stay away from theoretical computer science topics. Some
of you may have interests in theory, but you should be careful that not
too many people do research in theory as funding is low in those areas.
Low funding means lower admission chance.
5. I had something else in my undergrad thesis!!


This is a common problem for most BUET undergrad students. Due to the
lack of research opportunities, most of us end up doing something that
we do not like. Most frustrating part is that we end up doing our
thesis in theory. So when you are writing your SOP, you are confused
because you like Computer Architecture but your undergrad thesis is on
Graph Theory. Moreover, showing intent in theory may lower your chance
of getting the admission. What will you do? My suggestions!! It does
not matter if you have your undergrad thesis on something else. The
admission committee knows how much research an undergrad can do. They
do not expect too much from you. Even though you have done something on
a different topic, state your intent clearly. But focus on your passion
that you want a research career, you have some research background.
Your undergrad thesis might help in this case to prove that you are
worthy of doing research.
What if you have an MS from
BUET? Then you should have a legitimate reason to switch from your MS
thesis subject to the new topic that you are going state in your SOP.
This is a bad idea I would say, cause coming up with this legitimate
reason is not so easy. If you don’t want to switch, then that’s good.
But as I said before, sticking with theoretical research may lower your
chance of getting admission.

6. Do research on research


You read right, you will have to do research on research. Selecting
which university to apply is a big dilemma for a student. One of the
key factors that should be considered is what research opportunities
are currently going on in that university. Go to their research web
pages. Browse thoroughly. Then go to the faculty web pages. Find out
what they are doing NOW. Professors generally have interests in
multiple related fields. But at some point of time they work on some
specific topics. Figure that out. Show your interest in your SOP on
that topic. Most probably they have fund on those fields. Sometime
looking at research projects’ web pages help a lot to get some idea
about ongoing research fields.
7. Tailor it accordingly


May
be you are not applying to only one university. Do you write only one
SOP for all of them? Maybe not. Because different universities will
have research strengths in different fields. You might want to modify
your research interests a little bit so that it fits that particular
university. As I said in my email, you will have to sell yourself. Give
them whatever they want. You do not have to modify the entire SOP, just
the place where you show your intent. In this case essentially you are
writing only one SOP for all of them but just modifying a little bit to
fit a certain university.

8. Consistency in interest


Be
consistent when you state your research intent. Do not show interest in
too many diverse fields. For example, showing interest in both
Distributed Systems and VLSI is not a good idea. Maybe Wireless Sensor
Networks and Distributed Systems sound a lot more consistent. Do not
use some fancy words to sound yourself as if you know everything. Be
reasonable.
Ask your friends and seniors to know which
fields are currently most active. Remember – Information is the key.
You can be miles ahead of others if you know more. If you can say
something on these recent areas, it will give you a better position to
impress the admission committee. For instance, wireless sensor
networks, power-aware chip design are some of the most active research
fields nowadays. Others can name more.

9. No paper? You have job experience??



I
have a friend who works in one of the telecommunication companies in
Dhaka. He is trying hard to get an admission in North America. But
sometimes he gets frustrated as he does not have any research
experience or any paper published. Is that a big issue if you don’t
have any paper? I would say no. If you ask the senior students who are
already doing their MS/PhD, you will find most of them had no paper
published at the time of their admission. As I said before, the
admission committee does not ask for too much from an undergrad in
terms of previous research activity. You should not forget one thing
that you have something else that can be a lot more beneficial - job
experience. If you show your research interest that relates to
telecommunication, it can be a great plus point. Similarly those who
are working in the software industry back in Dhaka can also focus on
that. Whatever you have, show it. Sell yourself.
10. Now that you are ready …


Ok,
enough of these vague ideas that I threw over you so far. Let’s discuss
about something concrete. Now that you have decided what are your
interests and all that, how do you start writing your SOP? Following
are some key points to consider. This list is not necessarily complete
but can be helpful.

• a) Take preparation
  early. It takes time to write a good SOP. At least a month or may be
  more. Make a list of what points you are going to discuss in it. Find
  out what are your strengths.
  
• b)
  Layout a structure. Decide how many paragraphs you will have, what will
  be the contents of each paragraph. A basic layout of paragraphs can be
  like this –
  
  
  1. Para I – Introduction. State your
     intent in short. Do you want to have an MS or PhD? What research fields
     do you like to work on? This intro should be a summary of the remaining
     paragraphs.
     
  2. Para II - Your educational background. Things you have done that inspired you to take a research oriented career path.
     
  3. Para
     III - Your research interest and reasons behind selecting that field.
     This interest can be based on your academic or job experience. Make the
     relation clear. This paragraph can be decomposed into two paragraphs.\
     
  4. Para
     IV – Reasons behind choosing that particular university. Research
     activities in that university those attracted your attention.
     
  5. Para
     V – End paragraph focusing on your passion, goal, intent, reasons
     behind being a perfect candidate for this admission and a nice finish.
     
  
  


This layout is just an example from the top of my head. You might come up with something more appropriate.



• c)
  Make the introduction attractive so that the reader thinks it is going
  to be a good one. Attract his attention. State your intent clearly.
  
• d)
  Do not write a lengthy SOP. The reader does not have too much time to
  spend on one. Be concise. The optimal size of an SOP should be within
  two pages.
  
• e) Do not start with
  your childhood fascination with computer, the day your father bought
  you a computer and you fell in love with it. Don’t be funny.
  
• f)
  Be coherent in each paragraph. Keep the transition from one sentence to
  another smooth. The flow of the writing is too much important. Keep the
  flow smooth when you start a new paragraph. There should be a
  connection between two consecutive paragraphs so that the reader does
  not feel lost.
  
• g) Never use any kind of negative tone, use active voice.
  
• h)
  In one of the paragraphs, state the reason behind choosing that
  particular university that made you interested about that university.
  
• i) Five to six paragraph should be sufficient.
  
• j) Use standard font and font size. Do not use any kind of fancy font. Be professional.
  
• k) Focus on teamwork. People in here want a person to be team oriented.
  
• l) State the reason behind choosing a certain research area.
  
• m)
  Leave a sense of completion when you finish. Do not just cut off at
  some point. The reader should feel that you have said everything and
  nothing else is left.
  
• n) You
  can collect some sample SOPs from others to get an idea on how to write
  a good one. But never ever copy. Be genuine, be yourself.
  
• o)
  After writing a draft copy, print it and proofread. Correct the errors
  and again print and proofread, three times at least. The reader will
  reject you as soon as he finds that you do not know the basic rules of
  grammar. These people read hundreds of technical reports. They do not
  like grammatical mistakes at all. You mush have 0% tolerance for
  grammatical mistakes.
  
• p) Get
  corrections from at least two people. One who knows English grammar
  better and one who knows how to write a good SOP. Do not rely on your
  own instinct. Opinion from a different person’s perspective always
  helps.
  
• q) Do not use tough
  words, like GRE words. It might be tempting to use those words as you
  might have just completed your GRE. But avoid this. Do not put too much
  “shahitto” in your writing. Use simple words and simple sentences. Do
  not use long complex sentences.
  
• r) You can also get some help online. There are tons of websites that can help you to write a better SOP.
  
• s)
  Do not procrastinate. Start writing today. Again I am telling you, it
  takes time. Edit, proofread, print, rewrite again and again until you
  are happy. Don’t be happy too early. Criticize yourself. You are not
  competing with only other BUET people; hundreds of students from other
  countries are also competing at the same time.
  

11. Finally…



Yes, finally I am done. But there is a big journey ahead of you. Be confident. Be positive. Wish you a big a success.

Source:
This article is Written by
Helali Mortuza Bhuiyan
Graduate Student, Computer Engineering
University of Virginia
helali@virginia.edu
October 3, 2006