Mastering the statement of purpose

Here are some tips on what can you do to make your SOP good and not be boring

Hyderabad: While the pandemic seems to have put a pause to many students’ plans about going abroad for higher studies, it is still better for students to be optimistic about it and utilise this time to arm themselves with the skills and tools necessary for securing a seat in a good university abroad. One of the primary requirements for such an application is a statement of purpose or (SOP) as students like to call it.

A statement of purpose is something to be handled carefully, as universities receive hundreds, if not thousands of applications and you have to make sure your SOP stands out from the rest. A common mistake that most students make is following a very bland template given out by foreign-education consultancies and those templates usually read like a high-school English essay.

So what can you do to make your SOP good and not be boring? For starters, do not write information about your family members and what the name of your pet dog is or gossip about your friends or and any such information. It is as irrelevant as politics on a sports channel.

Keep the SOP about what you want to do and what you did before to enable you to pursue the course that you want to. Don’t start it with your name and your college and instead, start it with an experience of yours.

For example, if you’re applying for an MBA, write about the time when you worked on the organising team of your college. If you’re applying for a Master’s in Computer Science, write about the time you went to a Hackathon or some such. Let it be out at the beginning itself and narrate it properly.

Another common mistake that students make is that they make up things that they didn’t do. Considering the fact that admission officers in universities come across thousands of SOPs, they most likely know how to spot something that’s fake and they’ll ignore it immediately. Also, when you write about what you did not do, you won’t get the much-needed feel to write it and it will turn out to be an impassioned piece of writing.

Start with your experiences, write about what you did, what you learnt, and write about the experiences that made you want to pursue what you’re applying for. Write it from your heart and if you’re not sure of your language skill, get someone who’s good at English to edit it but make sure the words are yours.

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