Personal Statement

[Mandolin140]

Hi All,

I am putting together my personal statement for applications. Can anyone offer some general tips or insights?


Best,

Andrew

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[Sancho Panza]

There's a section about personal statements in this document that you might find helpful http://www.unc.edu/~mjp1970/Mitch's Grad School Advice.pdf

 

[Mandolin140]

Thank you! I'll take a look at it

Best,

Andrew

 

[goldenslumbers]

I didn't want to add another thread, so I'll post my questions here:

Are you setting yourself up for a less likely chance of getting into a school by only putting one professor's name in your SOP? In some schools, I have one person who had a really wonderful response, so I put his/her name in my statement, and just listed the other one/two name(s) in the application itself. I feel like I should be listing more professors in case something happens and that professor can't accept students anymore. I also don't want the professor I've received positive reinforcement from to think I don't want to work with them as much since I put other professor's names down (though I doubt they would think this way).

If you just put one professor down in the SOP and on the application, is it true that only that specific professor will look at your application, or might it be that another professor sees your application and wants you to work with her/him?

Thanks!!

 

[AcronymAllergy]

I didn't want to add another thread, so I'll post my questions here:

Are you setting yourself up for a less likely chance of getting into a school by only putting one professor's name in your SOP? In some schools, I have one person who had a really wonderful response, so I put his/her name in my statement, and just listed the other one/two name(s) in the application itself. I feel like I should be listing more professors in case something happens and that professor can't accept students anymore. I also don't want the professor I've received positive reinforcement from to think I don't want to work with them as much since I put other professor's names down (though I doubt they would think this way).

If you just put one professor down in the SOP and on the application, is it true that only that specific professor will look at your application, or might it be that another professor sees your application and wants you to work with her/him?

Thanks!!

I'd essentially only mention professors in my SOP with whom I had a research match. If there are multiple such professors in one program, I'd be fine with mentioning them all. However, when doing so, you'll want to be sure that they're actually in somewhat related areas of research/practice; otherwise, you could come across as looking very scattered in your interests.

 

[goldenslumbers]

Thanks for the advice!