Statement of Purpose: Using the Format Of a Cover Letter

[Annakei]

So I am preparing my application materials for next year's cycle (sue me I like to be prepared) and I remember a few of us struggling with keeping our SOPs to less than 500 words.

Well, what if we used the format of a cover letter to guide how much we include in the SOP? My last SOP was around 1100 words and I just thought about whether or not I would have included that much in a cover letter. That would be NO

Anyhoo, I thought I'd present the idea here for those of us who may be combing through our applications to see where we could improve things a bit.

I received high compliments for a cover letter I wrote not to long ago and I thought, "well why not just do this for your SOP!"

What do you think?

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[kapinkkidowski]

I dont think the format of a cover letter is really appropriate (actually I think it would be a big mistake); your statement of purpose is supposed to be much more than that, and besides your recs is considered one of the most important parts of your application. What else separates you from another applicant with the same GPA and GRE scores?

Also, why does the SOP have to be less than 500 words? Usually somewhere around 1000 is okay. Even schools where they SAID 500, when I actually called the psychology dept, they told me it was the graduate admissions office that put that cap on, and didnt penalize me (I actually received an interview) after submitting an essay that was more around 750.

I would suggest consulting the book "Graduate Admissions Essays: write your way into the graduate school of your choice" by Donald Asher. It has lots of examples with explanations as to why they are good essays, and a good number of exercizes that help you figure out what is important to include, and also ideas of how to make your essay stand out over others. Best, it consults admissions people as to what they HATE seeing in essays. Not to toot my own horn, but I got interviews to nearly every school to which I've applied. My boyfriend who is in engineering got into basically the top 5 rated PhD programs in his field. I think using this book helped us both a lot.

To conclude, I think it would be a huge mistake to make your SOP like a cover letter. Hope that helps!!

 

[lamorena]

500 seems so short! one school i applied to asked for 1500 words, another asked for 1200 (although i went over). on average, my personal statements were 4-5 pages.

 

[phillydave]

500 seems so short! one school i applied to asked for 1500 words, another asked for 1200 (although i went over). on average, my personal statements were 4-5 pages.

Ugh.. yeah that one...

 

[melon1129]

I think 500 words can def be done....All my essays were about 3-4 pgs and one school had a 500 word limit, so I basically just kept revising it until it was short enough. Just work on combining three sentences into one.

I also, put a lot of references to my CV when I wanted to elaborate on a research project. It really makes you cut out all of the fluff and get down to your reasons for applying....I was scared that since I couldn't elaborate as much as my other essays the school wouldnt really know that much about my research and experiences, but I did receive an interview at that school! Also, my bf thought my short essay was the best SOP I wrote.

 

[ILGirl]

500 seems so short! one school i applied to asked for 1500 words, another asked for 1200 (although i went over). on average, my personal statements were 4-5 pages.

Two schools required that the SOP be 500 words or less, so I followed their directions. Like melon, I believe my brief SOPs were my best ones.
I think the schools agreed because I got interviews with the schools for which I wrote the brief SOPs.

Out of curiosity, were you granted interviews/acceptances at the schools for which you wrote 4-5 page statements? For the schools in which you went over the word limit, were you granted interviews/acceptances? And how much over the word limit did you go?

 

[PrisonPsych]

I pretty much stuck with the word limits. Places that didn't give me a word limit got a longer statement. Length of statement didn't seem to affect where I got interviews - I got offered an interview at the place that got the longest version of my statement (6 pages), and at the place that got the shortest (1 page).

 

[lamorena]

Two schools required that the SOP be 500 words or less, so I followed their directions. Like melon, I believe my brief SOPs were my best ones.
I think the schools agreed because I got interviews with the schools for which I wrote the brief SOPs.

Out of curiosity, were you granted interviews/acceptances at the schools for which you wrote 4-5 page statements? For the schools in which you went over the word limit, were you granted interviews/acceptances? And how much over the word limit did you go?

i applied to 6 schools and have up coming interviews at 3..that includes the one school in which i went over. to be fair, a few of the schools i applied to didnt ask for word limits, so i submitted what i thought was adequate to cover everything i wanted/needed to say (about 5 pages). i applied mostly to psyd programs, not sure if that makes a difference..

although, the school that asked for 1500 words was a phd program (equal emphasis).. so, who knows.

 

[ILGirl]

i applied to 6 schools and have up coming interviews at 3..that includes the one school in which i went over. to be fair, a few of the schools i applied to didnt ask for word limits, so i submitted what i thought was adequate to cover everything i wanted/needed to say (about 5 pages). i applied mostly to psyd programs, not sure if that makes a difference..

although, the school that asked for 1500 words was a phd program (equal emphasis).. so, who knows.

When you went beyond the word limit, was it obvious, or just a little bit over? I'm sure that schools don't have the time to sit there and actually count the number of words used. . . . I've heard of people being rejected because they did not follow directions and went beyond the word limit.

I'm just wondering how many schools are adament about following the word limit guidelines.

I'm glad it worked out for you--Congratulations!!!