This article is forwarded by -
Raihan Masud
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Make your SOP perfect
So now you have your statement of purpose. After correct it grammatically, you should read it and correct it several times to make it a coherent and unique essay that get you the admission offer.
Put your Statement of Purpose away for a while. Then, put yourself in an admissions committee’s place and start to read it in about 30 seconds. Be aware that you are going through a few hundred applications and classifying them into `accepted’, `maybe’ and `not accepted’ groups. Think of how you would look at SOPs and try to read yours through a stranger’s eyes.
Use this check-list to be sure that you have mentioned all critical information in your SOP in an honest and interesting manner. Your SOP should contain information that demonstrates:
· Interesting commence.
· Areas that you are interested in.
· The reasons of your interest to those areas.
· These interests are based on academic or job experience that the school may find useful.
· How these interests related to your anticipated future career.
· How do you think further studies will help you?
· Additional experiences that may help
· Your college and work projects were instrumental in confirming your interest in the field.
· Your teamwork ability that is very important in North America.
· The essay has been written about your personality. It should look like that it cannot be about anybody.
· The reasons that you have applied particular school. Talk about these reasons in a manner that demonstrate you have searched
about the school. Show the officer that you have applied to the school wisely.
Your essay should flow smoothly. You should go through paragraphs coherently. The SOP should be grammatically correct and end well to leave the officer with a sense of completion.
This self-checks will yield a few ideas for improvement. We recommends you to use it at least 3-4 times during this last stage of making your SOP more perfect. After these checks you may have some people to review your SOP. Experienced and professional people may help you a lot. For the last time check your essay for a spelling and grammar error. Try to type your SOP and use appropriate margins, font, and size. Avoid underlining, boldface and italics. Do not use special letterhead. Finally print your SOP on a good quality white paper.
As we mentioned before, do not tell your advantages, show them. That is, do not say how dedicated or committed you are. Show it by describing your accomplishments. Use positive language and avoid the passive voice.