Questions tagged [statement-of-purpose]
Concerning an individual, what influences them, professional interests, and plan for the future, typically described as part of a college applicant's application for admission.
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Should a statement of purpose be structured into sections?
I'm considering applying to Purdue University's computer science PhD program. While reading the section on the statement of purpose, I saw the following interesting comment:
There is no word limit ...
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Why do people dislike the resources I've used in the past to get into master's and Ph.D. programs?
I'm an autistic Ph.D student (US, 4.5 years in) who's been active on a fair amount of forums and have received a fair number of negative comments in the past month regarding my academic experience. ...
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Explain opportunity gap in SoP without proving it?
I'm applying for PhD programs in Computer Science (experimental part of AI/ML), and writing my SoP for it.
A part of SoP is supposed to talk about examples of what kind of work one wants to do later ...
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Should I write about my experience with academic bullying on PhD application personal statements?
After my M.Sc, I got involved in working on a project on relativistic astrophysics. The professor was a relatively good name in the field. Initially, he gave me papers, books to read, problems to ...
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How can we identify and filter AI-generated statements of purpose (SoP) and recommendation letters?
How can we effectively identify and filter out statement of purpose (SoP) and recommendation letters that are generated by AI tools?
The authenticity of these documents is crucial for our admission ...
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Personal/Diversity Statement
I advised students to spend several weeks crafting a statement of purpose for PhD applications in the US, and have reviewed them. However, many students now report that there is an additional "...
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In addition to naming three professors, should I mention that I am open to working with other professors in SOP?
I am naming three professors from specific Ph.D. programs with whom I have identified similarities in our research interests in my SOP. In the last sentence, I want to mention that I am also ...
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Mentioning faculty in SOP while already mentioning them elsewhere in application
Should I explicitly mention faculty in my SOP for a PhD program when there are prompts in other parts of the application where I already specifically chose faculty of interest? Would this be ...
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Is it risky or inappropriate to mention a history of substance abuse in a PhD application personal statement?
A PhD program that I am applying to requires a personal statement based on the following prompt: "what struggles have you overcome?"
Would it be risky to write something with the following ...
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Pronouns of professors in Statement of Purpose
In recent years, we have seen the emergence of numerous pronouns beyond the regular he/him and she/her, such as they/them, Xe/xem, Ver/vir, and many more. However, the issue arises when browsing ...
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How important is to show Extracurricular or Leadership skills in SOP apart from academic background and research interests?
I have an 83-word small paragraph in my SOP (computer science, PhD) mentioning that I am the honorary moderator of a computer club and how I organize events and motivate students to participate in ...
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I can't afford to pay for Statement of Purpose (SOP) proofread. What should I do?
Reliable SOP proofreading services are very costly, almost around $150-$200. I have written an SOP for my Ph.D. program in the USA, which is almost 1400 words, but I need to reduce it to 1000 words. ...
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In my Statement of Purpose (SOP), is it best to write about my specific area of interest, or to broaden my options?
I am currently a 4th year CS undergrad student.
If I tailor my Statement of Purpose (SOP) around my research interests (which are related to the research project I am working on with my professor), I ...
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Statement of Purpose for Math PhD's with a fairly complicated mathematical history
TL;DR: I'm applying for a PhD program in mathematics, but my academic performance was bad for a long while and I already have a PhD attempt that I ended early. (However, I now have good enough ...
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Is it better for a statement of purpose for a physics PhD program to be straightforward as opposed to attempting to make the style interesting?
Consider a statement of purpose of a physics PhD program.
Some people say that the statement of purpose does not matter, but a horrible one can hurt you. So, all that is necessary is to write a decent,...
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