SOPTalk

A lot of students wonder why we discuss letters of recommendation on our site dedicated to the statement of purpose. The answer is because both are written statements about you and you exercise some level of control over both them. However an important aspect is that they are related.

While the statement of purpose is your own voice telling college admissions why they should admit you, a recommendation is an independent voice doing the same. Best of all it works as a testimonial since it highlights something great about you and adds some credibility to your application. It’s not critical the person providing your recommendation be well known but it is critical that they know you well.

Another point I would like to highlight is that your recommendation should add to your SOP. If your statement of purpose emphasizes your academic credentials and how your were a straight A student, then your recommendation could emphasize your active participation in the debate club and how that helped in your personal growth.

Think of it as telling a story from two points of view and both POVs provide a lot of depth and dimension to the main character - you. Good luck with your applications!

Tags: General, Writing Tips, letters of recommendation, recommendations // Add Comment »

Your grades, your test scores and your recommendations are pretty well established and there’s not a lot you can do about them. However your college admissions essay is your one shot to stand out amongst the crowd and make a difference, positive or negative. Here’s a great article from USA Today that discusses the importance (or not) of the college admissions essay.

There are some valid opinions espoused in the article. Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers believes that a come-from-behind attempt using the essay is not a substitute for competency and consistency demonstrated through one’s progress in school. Also he warns that college admissions officers have become good at detecting paid embellishments to essays.

While I agree with the above I firmly believe that there are always factors that may have impacted one’s ability to perform in school academically. Perhaps you were part of a school sports team and there was always the issue of balancing your studies with your games and practice. You have an opportunity to communicate that the college admissions committee in your essay.

Parke Muth, the associate dean of admissions at the University of Virginia agrees with me and says that for some students the essay can make a huge difference both positively or negatively. Here are some of his observations and advice:

• Add the Human Touch: The main challenge is picking a topic. Any topic can work - or fail. However an essay about community service should be about a moment in time, perhaps a vivid story about a homeless person you helped that got you started with your humanitarian efforts. Like any good writing that will make your essay come alive.
• Get to the point: He believes students often start out with too wide a focus that by the time they get to the details they run out of room. Schools want the details, those specific nuances that are special about you and help you stand out! Providing too much context may dilute your uniqueness.
• Tone of voice matters: Muth further suggests you read your completed essays to your best friend. If it sounds like them, you’ve probably done a good job. If it sounds like a Ph.D. thesis, it’s probably not your voice, the voice college admissions committees are looking for.
• Avoid essays by committee: Students often have their high school counselor look over their essays, then their Mom looks it over, then Dad and a friend friend or two. By the time it goes through a bunch of people, the life is out of it. Show your essay to one or two people, that is it.

So to conclude, a balanced application with decent grades and test scores and a strong essay has the best chance. But for those who don’t have them there’s still hope. I would recommend you read entire article and I would also check out the ensuing discussion to see some of the other reader’s opinions.

Tags: General // Add Comment »

When we started on this site in 1999, we decided to focus on students applying to Universities in the US. From the very start, we’ve been aware that many applicants to schools in other countries have been using our site for tips on application essays. We’d be very interested in hearing from users of our site who are applying to schools outside the US. It’s even better if you’ve already been admitted (congratulations!) or have started at your new school. Please drop us a line or a leave a comment on this blog about your experiences - how apropos do you consider the content of this site? What else do you think we should be trying to address? All feedback is appreciated!

Tags: Application advice, General, statement of purpose // Add Comment »

With the Fall application frenzy just a few months away I thought it would be great to highlight the need for students to start working on their statement of purpose early. We posted some polls on statementofpurpose.com a year or so back and have gathered some great feedback. Here’s the results from one of the poll questions:

As you can see over 78% of you said that you either started your sop late (21%) or you saved it for the last minute (a whopping 57%). This was by no means a scientific poll but you can see that the sample size is pretty large, around 1222 respondents. So it’s apparent that most students start working on their statements of purpose very late.

What is interesting is that almost 60% of you who responded to our other poll question deemed the statement of purpose the most important part of the application process. See below results based on 1635 responses.

What these two poll results indicate is even though students consider the sop very important, they treat it as an afterthought. We believe that the SOP is the single most important part of the application process that will help you stand out amongst the crowd and requires substantial time and effort. See our tips on starting your statement of purpose.

It’s very simple. You are investing a lot of energy in your applications. You are studying for tests, running around trying to get letters of recommendation, and most of all trying to figure what is a good college or University to attend. But don’t take the sop lightly. If you begin late you won’t be able to do justice to yourself. And if you start early, remember, well begun is half done. So good luck and happy writing!

Tags: Application advice, General, statement of purpose // Add Comment »

Yesterday’s Newsweek carried a story about the exploding demand for pharmacists - apparently the US will need 150,000 more by 2020 to meet the needs of aging baby boomers. Similarly, the Washington Post last week talked about the shortage of faculty in business schools. Stories like this point to hot careers, and give an idea about an applicant’s chances in those areas. Business school doctoral programs, for instance, are competing for good doctoral students. According to the Washington Post article, doctoral salaries have sharply risen, along with the international demand for business PhDs. This means that it’s a good time to apply to a business doctoral program - most also offer a reasonable stipend, healthcare and a full tuition waiver. And business schools can be fairly broad - so if you’ve been thinking of getting a PhD in industrial engineering, say, or industrial psychology or sociology, it may be possible to do it in the business school and have interdisciplinary links with other departments. Applicants for business PhDs, therefore, would be right at the front of the demand curve and be able to pick better programs in a seller’s market.

On the other hand, someone applying to a graduate program in Pharmacy might be behind the curve. The Newsweek article says that the pharmacy applicant pool has roughly doubled in the last five years, bringing down acceptance rates. So even with a good statement of purpose and a decent application, now may not be a good time to hope for admission to a good program. The article also says that with more colleges opening, the situation may ease up in the next few years. But for someone who thinks this is a perfect time to apply for a graduate degree, it may also be worthwhile to look at affiliated branches and programs such as those in chemical engineering, biotechnology, microbiology and so on. One thing to take away from the Newsweek article is that the global drug industry is booming. It is possible to latch on to it through a number of areas, not just pharmacy.

Check out the articles:

Washington Post article on shortage of business PhDs

Newsweek article on demand for pharmacists

Tags: Application advice, General, News stories // Add Comment »

A few more dos and don’ts:

Do:

• Keep your emails short and readable
• Use good grammar, punctuation and complete sentences
• Include a relevant subject line (such as ‘2007 MS application’) so that your email won’t be relegated unseen to the junk bin.
• Respond as promptly as possible. These are busy people who may forget you easily. A prompt response also shows that you are seriously interested in that school’s program.
• Send short thank-you emails. As the less powerful person in the situation, it is your job to get back.

Don’t:

• Send formula emails. Try to fit it to the specific person and institution. In a similar vein, be careful with copy-pasted emails where you send an email to one person but address it to another.
• Be unduly familiar. Address your respondent as Professor / Dr. So-and-so. Use the kind of language you would in a business letter.
• Use email smilies or acronyms, even common ones like BTW (by the way), FYI (for your information), IMHO (in my humble / honest opinion). First, older email users may not be familiar with them. Second, they bring in an unwelcome level of familiarity.
• Use frivolous or unsuitable names in your email (e.g. partygirl@aol.com). It’s best to use such email addresses for correspondence with friends and family.
• Assume that the professor will remember every particular about your application and correspondence. Remind them of relevant details. The focus is on relevant here - don’t repeat every single bit of information. If you reply to an email as part of a
  thread, you give the respondent an opportunity to scroll down and read earlier emails if necessary.
• Make unreasonable demands, such as expecting them to inform you early of your application status. (Though if you need to know to make a decision about another offer, it’s okay to send a polite email informing them of the situation and asking if they’ve made a decision on your application)
• Send long papers or large attachments. Often people would rather have you send such things to the admissions committee as part of your application packet. Don’t assume that faculty members have time to read lots of stuff (unless they’ve given you permission)
• Hound your repsondents. If they don’t reply, gracefully let it go.

Finally, there are plenty of good websites that explain email etiquette, and it’s worth checking out some of these. A couple that we liked are:
emailreplies.com This website focuses only on email etiquette, and has a quarterly newsletter.
owl.english.purdue.edu This is the Online Writing Lab at Purdue University. It has a few other useful handouts and exercises on various aspects of writing. Also links to other writing resources and labs
Queensland University This website covers a few issues that the others don’t. It has plenty of good common-sense advice.

Tags: General, Writing Tips // Add Comment »

Today’s New York Times talks about the biggest revamp in the history of the Graduate Record Exam. What does it mean for someone who’s thinking of applying to graduate school? A salient change is in the length and format of the exam - now it will be almost twice as long, and internet-based. It will also be more difficult - the article says there will be a greater emphasis on higher cognitive skills in the verbal section and on interpretation in the quantitative section. It seems from this that you have to do better to get an equivalent score (although percentile scores may not be significantly affected, since they rank test-takers), while preparing for a new format. At the same time, you hope that the schools you apply to are sufficiently aware of what to expect with the results of the revamped test.

ETS (the agency that administers the test) has delayed rollout of the revamped test until Fall 2007. If possible, therefore, it might be a smart strategy to try and take the test in the old format before the rollout. ETS has had occasional glitches with rollouts, and you would not want to be among those affected by a possible difficulty in the system. In any case, a new system takes time to get used to, not only by test-takers, but also by administrators and universities who are consumers of test results. And test preparation centers may not have a suitably effective curriculum in place till they have a chance to learn from the new set-up.

So if you have change anxiety try and take the test before they change it. But keep things in context - the GRE is only one part of your application packet. A disastrous score may kick you off the list of serious applicants, but if you are within a reasonable range of scores, it will not make or break your chances by itself. Focus on strengthening the rest of your application. Some schools accept the subject GRE as well - a good score on that can mitigate a little the effects of substandard GRE performance. Similarly, business schools may accept the GMAT or GRE, and you could hedge your bets by writing the GMAT as well.

In any case, check out Tamar Lewin’s article. It also talks about some pretty interesting strategies people have used to cheat on the exam (in fact, they’re revamping the test largely because of such security concerns).

nytimesgrearticle

EDUCATION | February 22, 2006
Testing Service Delays Rollout of Revamped Graduate Exam
By TAMAR LEWIN
The maker of the Graduate Record Exam said it encountered problems with setting up enough Internet-based test centers for test-takers.

Tags: Application advice, General, News stories // Add Comment »

When you apply to a school, it is often a good idea to write a short email to professors who are doing work you may be interested in. This note is a reminder of some things to keep in mind to ensure that you don’t ruin your chances by saying or doing the wrong thing on email.

When would you initiate emails to professors in a department you’re applying to? Let’s assume that these are people that don’t know you, and you haven’t been introduced by a mentor who knows them.

The first email:
This email is usually a few lines long, maybe a couple of paragraphs. You use it to express interest in the department’s and professor’s research, telling them what excites you about the research, and why (it should not, however, be copied and
pasted from your statement of purpose). In the second paragraph you may summarise a few salient parts of your background, hoping it sparks an ‘a-ha’ reaction. Many professors will not reply to this - they’re too busy, or not interested, have
no funds, or prefer to wait for the admissions committee to make its decision. That’s okay. If you do get an interested reply, continue the conversation as long as reasonable and necessary.Be courteous but not desperate. Even if you get just a
polite acknowledgement of your first mail, send a thank-you email in response. It may even be reasonable to ask for the contact details of a student who can tell you about life in the department.

The email update:
This email is usually a few weeks or months after the first introductory email. You might use it to give an update on your status or eligibility. Perhaps you have gained additional qualifications, successfully finished a project or begun working in a new area. In short, an event occurs that you think will positively impact your application, and you want to let people know about it. So in addition to writing to the admissions committee, you also write to inform the professors you are interested in.

The regret email:
You’ve made up your mind where you’re going, and it won’t be this university. Or the university informs you that they won’t be making you an offer. It’s good manners to express regret to the people you’ve been corresponding with. Even if you aren’t
going to their university, you may run across them again in your career. It will be good to leave them with a positive impression of you.

Tags: Application advice, General, Writing Tips // Add Comment »

The convenience and speed of emails has made keeping in touch easy. But Jonathan Glater shows how the spontaneity that email encourages has a downside too. While the article talks about how college students might make bad impressions on professors through thoughtless emailing, this is also a useful reminder for those of us in the thick of the admissions process. Through email we can contact professors who may have seemed unapproachable a few years ago. And yes, this may sometimes give us an edge, and interest a specific professor enough to ensure admission. But it is important to keep etiquette in mind (Look for a posting on email etiquette, coming up next). Remember that you are one of a number of applicants who may decide to email a professor. Pause and think before hitting the ’send’ button.

See the story at the New York Times (registration required) To: Professor@University.edu Subject: Why It’s All About Me

Tags: General // Add Comment »

Jay Mathews writes the Class Struggle column for the Washington Post. He’s written an op-ed piece today about standardized testing and how the conventional wisdom on it’s effects on classroom testing is overblown. I grew up in an environment where everybody taught to the test and the effects weren’t pretty. Many of our classes explicitly revolved around questions that had been posed in previous public exams and we were encouraged to memorize model answers to the set of questions most likely to be repeated. Then again, this was in India and it’s not valid to assume that such perversions are the natural outcome of systems like these. The write-up is interesting enough. Have a look at Let’s teach to the test

Tags: General, News stories // Add Comment »