How To Write A Perfect Statement of Purpose (SOP / Admissions Essay) | ChetChat MasterClass - YouTube

Hey everyone and welcome to ChetChat's master class

once again

I know you're sitting and thinking about applying to colleges abroad and you're overwhelmed by the idea of those

Multitude of essays and you're thinking hey, how do I get cracking on them? And how do I make them Perfect?

So today's masterclass is about how to write that perfect statement of purpose

We'll call it SOP for this class

But before we begin the class don't forget to press that subscribe button and the bell icon right next to the subscribe button

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so like I said

There's a multitude of essays but there are two types of essays that appear more often than the others

One is your personal statement and the other is called a statement of purpose

And before we talk about the statement of purpose in detail, which is really what this class is about

I'm going to tell you what the personal statement is and how the two of them are different

A Personal statement is a story about your personal experiences, your work, your volunteer

Experiences and everything in the past that has made you the person that you are today and led you to arrive at this

Juncture where you're motivated to apply to college.Now a personal statement is typically used by the admissions

office to figure out whether you fit into their student community or their student body

A Statement of purpose or an SOP on the other hand is a bridge between your past

Experience and the future that you want to build at this program specifically at this university

The SOP is used by the admissions counselors to decide whether you're a right fit for that program

now generally

undergraduate programs ask you for a personal statement and

Graduate schools ask you to submit a statement of purpose sometimes

Additionally a personal statement and a resume as well

So before you begin writing that perfect statement of purpose

It would be worthwhile

If you list down all your credentials your experience your awards

Certificates and everything down on a sheet of paper and divide that into three main categories

The first is what information do you think your CV or your resume should contain and mind you

Typically a resume is a one-pager

the second category of information is what is that information that you think should appear on your statement of purpose and

The third is what are those interesting stories about your life that you want to save for your personal statement?

And now that you've put everything on paper and you've divided it into three main categories

Let's begin this masterclass by talking about how to write that

perfect statement of purpose. Now for the sake of this class

I've divided this information into six P's

Because I thought that'll make it easy for you to remember and relate to as well

The first P is called purpose now in the SOP

You need to make a clear articulation of your goals and interests that

includes, now I'm going to give you a number of questions that you want to think about under this Big P of

Purpose the first question is why do you want to do graduate study in the first place?

Why do you want to pursue this particular degree?

Now if you're doing a research based program, is there any particular research interests that you have that you want to fulfill through this degree?

If you are undertaking on the other hand a professional program

What are the skills and knowledge that you hope to gain through this program?

some other questions under this overall category of purpose that you want to answer is

What do you want to do after you complete this program? For example, do you want to take up a job?

Do you want to set up a startup or do you want to get into research and academia?

these are some of the questions I want you to think about while addressing the first P, which is a really important P of the

purpose itself of applying for this program

The second P is called past experience

And the few questions that I want you to think about under this category of past experience is

What and what kind and how much of past experience do you already have?

And if you already have that work experience then what skills do you hope to gain from this program?

And how does that experience relate to this program. Now when you're talking about your past experience

It's important to share vivid concrete examples of the work that you've done. For example, you may have written a paper

Perhaps that paper got published somewhere

Perhaps you did a project that relates directly to the work that you want to do at this college

Maybe you made a presentation you worked with a mentor and all of that relates directly to the program

Give them those specific examples because then it makes them believe that you're ready for graduate school

The third P is what I call program and this is actually the crux of the SOP

Really very important because like I said the SOP is a connect between your past

Experience and the future that you want to build with this program at this college. Now under the heading of program

There are a few questions that I'd like you to think about while you're addressing this aspect

The first is if you're applying to a country other than the U.S. Particularly, for example, if you're applying to Canada, Australia

Germany you must answer the question. Why do you want to study in that country?

If you're applying to the US you could skip that question

The second aspect here is why do you want to study at that particular college?

And this is where you need to be careful about using the right vocabulary

You must remember to use the right words to show that you've done research on the college and are really interested in going and joining them

Coming to the program

Some of the questions you need to think about is how does your work connect with the program and how does the program

Fulfill your needs and interests

What are your expectations from the program and how are you going to contribute to the program? Does the department have a particular research?

Methodology that you that you like or does it have a certain asset of the curriculum that appeals to you or is there any particular?

Professor that for instance that you'd like to work with. Now, this is very interesting

If you do find that there is a professor out there in the department that has done work

Which is typically along the lines of the kind of work that you want to do

Then it makes a lot of sense for you to refer to that professor in your statement of purpose

you could even go as far as trying to contact the professor before you write the statement of purpose and

Asking them to endorse your SOP when it goes right in but having done all this research

Shows them that you are genuinely interested in the program and you're ready to work hard to get into this one

The fourth P is called

Personality

apart from your work and education

What is it about you that makes you unique

What is that one or two things about your personality that you want to showcase to the admissions officer?

What do you know about the student body?

and how do you think you're going to fit in is also an aspect of connecting your

personality to the personality of the college the key to writing a good SOP is being unique and

Standing out in the minds of the admissions

Counselor long after he's put away your statement and finished reading it instead of writing the obvious

I am honored to join this program and I want to gain certain skills and knowledge

how about you start your personal statement with a quote an

Anecdote or some experience from your personal life that connects directly with the program that you're wanting to pursue

The fifth P is what I call Plain English. You need to communicate clearly

effectively and

Logically, I know there is a tendency sometimes to rush into those big words to right-click and look up the thesaurus

and see is there this really fancy word that I can plug right into my SOP to make it sound exotic but my advice

Don't do that make it simple

effective, write

Appropriate words, but make it very very easy to read. There's also sometimes a tendency

I find that students have is to get somebody else to write their SOP. Now

I know it's tempting and I know you're feeling

Overwhelmed by the kind of work that it entails but my honest suggestion to you is don't do that

Give yourself time

Get right into it right slowly but write it yourself and there's another reason why you want to make sure you write it yourself

Because colleges have a way of connecting your previous pieces of writing to this

SOP, for example, there could be some other small essays that you've submitted

There could be your TOEFL or IELTS your scores that they're looking at

They could be your samples of writing that you submitted in the SAT writing test. For example

Or any of those pieces and they could link up the two to find out whether your writing is authentic

so authenticity

Uniqueness and genuineness are the hallmark here. So write it yourself and believe in yourself

The sixth P is the process, you know

I strongly believe that if you get the process, right the end result is definitely going to be perfect

So the first element of process that I'd like to talk about is begin early

so for instance

If you are applying to college and the dates for application are sometime around

October November this year and we are sitting right now in the month of June a good time to start is right away

Give yourself three to four months, you know writing is this process, It's like this pickle that brews and comes out

beautifully at the end because sometimes when you write and rewrite you start to see deeper meanings in what you've written and

eventually a

beautiful piece comes out only with that amount of time and effort that you give it. Read a lot of sample SOPs, for example

If that gives you confidence read them off the internet

But make sure you never ever lift a single line from there. The third tip I want to give you is follow directions

I remember telling you earlier about trying to be unique

Be unique

But do all of that

coloring while you're still inside the lines because anything other than that would be a

High-risk strategy and the last element of process is to proofread

Read and reread your statement check for grammatical errors, commas

Punctuation marks, writing errors and show it to a number of people, let people read it and give you feedback

Don't worry so much about negative feedback coming your way. Just show it to friends to professors to seniors

Maybe you have a relative who's worked in that area or studied in a similar College

Show it to them take their feedback on board and edit edit and edit. Don't overuse the word 'I'

Don't use too much of slang like can't and won't and don't assume that they know the full form of those acronyms

Give it out to them in full form. Talking about the word limit. Typically, they do specify a word limit

But if they don't, never let your SOP exceed two pages. Another tip I want to give you is in an SOP

Unlike the personal statement keep your personal

Information to a limited extent because a lot of it like I said is about the program and how you fit into the program

So bring in the personal elements only when you want to bring out your personality

Or you want to bring out your own

experiences perhaps you can use a reading app

Now plug in your computer onto a reading app and let the computer read the statement back to you

To me that works great because I hear it and I know hey

Something's not sounding right and I know what I need to change now

Before we close this class

I'm gonna make you listen to three experts on what

they think are some of the writing tips for a perfect essay. The personal statement forms the very foundation of your

application

So what you write in those 750 words

Which is the word limit for the personal statement is what will make or break your application

So for anyone who wants to write a personal statement to an American law school

I think there are six parts that a person should address. The first question which are a person to address

Is that what is his or her background? Where is that person coming from? This is a part of your personal story

So what it could be what motivated you to pursue law and what do you think of the legal career?

The second question is that what did you do while you were at law schools? So what were your passions?

What were your areas of interest?

What were your research interests while you were doing your first degree in law the third question, which is students must answer

Is that why is he or she choosing to do an LLM at this stage of their lives?

Okay, the fourth question they should answer is that why they are chosen this particular

University and the fifth question is a combination of the third and fourth question

You have to link it, that why are you doing an LLM from this university?

And finally, you have to give them a future plan as well. The admissions committee

They prefer students who have a clear post study plan

So now the sixth question

You should answer what will you do with your LLM degree once you are

returned to home country or any other place that you want to work and how will you link the

Lessons, which you have learned during LLM to your future

The main personal essay that you write for your college

the important thing to do is to

Kind of reflect back and sort of think about what you want the college to know about yourself and who you really are

Because the colleges want to see sort of that personality side

Rather than just see all of the things that you've listed on your resume or things that you may have done before

Like think about the adjectives that describe them think about small instances or experiences that they may have had

Which will actually show the college who they are and that being said, I think keeping it simple is really important

The simpler the essay. I think the more honest it is the minute you start using thesaurus

to make the words fancy and

it doesn't come across as your own language and writing so and let it seem like it's

From the heart and it's not a long essays

Well, one of the things that I think is really important that I stress to students

all the time is to remember that writing is a process and

that because there's not necessarily

a ton of preparation for writing in a lot of Indian schools

It might take a long time to get to an essay, especially sort of your central

personal statement or common app essay, or

Statement of purpose for graduate program one of the big things. I always tell students is nothing in your essay

Should be information that I could have gotten from your resume Sure

The essay is a chance to give the school a real sense of who you are

especially with undergraduate essays

They're really looking for

What kind of person you are how you think about the world and what you're gonna add to the school community?

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