A statement of purpose, personal statement or an SOP is a very specific piece of information accompanying your core application that promises to introduce the selection committee to your life in a way that tickles their curiosity and manages to bag you a spot in their university.
Now, there are innumerable ways to go about writing an SOP, which opens the unfortunate possibility of taking the route that might not be the right one.
That’s where Golden Draft comes to your rescue.
Here are the 5 absolute do-nots you need to pay attention to, which will give you an automatic head start in skipping the common mistakes that students make in their writing journey.
- Ignoring your Grammar Nazi genes :
Nobody enjoys being corrected for using the wrong punctuation or the incorrect preposition while speaking their hearts out. Well, ignoring that in your SOP might be a massive reason for having it dumped to the side. Not getting your essay checked for spelling errors and grammar mistakes translates as you not being serious with your application and can prove fatal to your selection process.
- Calling a molehill a mountain and building on it :
The selection committee spends an average of 20 minutes on one application which makes them incredibly efficient with catching a lie when they have to. Any form of exaggeration will reflect poorly in your essay and cause the committee to discard it without giving the rest of your application a chance.
- Becoming a clone manufacturing machine :
Your SOP should not grow into your resume’s long lost twin. While you can enlist all your relevant achievements and experiences in your resume, your SOP needs to be a crisp document with a maximum of three to four achievements that reside the closest to your university’s requirements. This way, you gain scope to elaborate on those few successes in depth instead of touching 20 projects superficially.
- Authoring a mini-novel based on your life :
It is natural to want to include all the important details from your life in your SOP, but a winning SOP encloses all the relevant information within the word limit provided by the university you’re applying to. In case there isn’t one, it’s best to fit your experiences in a maximum of 600-800 words which could use 1-2 pages at best. Anything exceeding this would be a lengthy read and prove to be a tedious, time-consuming task for the admission’s panel.
- Flaunting all your funny bones :
A good sense of humour is undoubtedly an impressive quality on most occasions; however a university application might not exactly be the best place to display that. Your true intention can get misunderstood when conveyed through text as it becomes difficult to judge the tone of the message being put through. It holds especially true when you’re dealing with officials who have this one piece of document to comprehend and judge your entire personality. So even though it’s exciting to add an informal touch to your application, it’s a little risky to choose this opportunity as a stage to display that.
While there are thousands of ways to choose from when it comes to writing your statement of purpose, keeping these points in mind can help you in avoiding the most commonly committed mistakes by students all across the world.
All the best!
