How to write a good Statement of Purpose(SOP)

[YoungEconomist]

How long should the SOP be?

[YoungEconomist]

I could have kept all these info for myself given that I am applying again this Fall.A wrong SOP could reduce the competitiveness and increase my chances but I simply don't behave in that sense!

Maybe you're irrational?

[jeeves0923]

I'd say certainly less than 1000 words, but preferably around a page. Otherwise, they would undoubtedly be bored.

[bscout]

it is hard to understand why you gave me a negative reputation on this post! ).

That also will increase your chances of admission?

[TruDog]

My best advice would be to make sure that you have the name of the school correct. I know several people who forgot to copy and paste the right name, which definitely doesn't help your cause.

Additionally, for those students coming from lesser-known schools, this is your chance to sell yourself and your undergraduate education. It's really important to note your research and courses taken, because some schools don't really think that students from non-PhD granting universities have any idea what they're getting into in a PhD program. (I had almost no clue.)

[asianeconomist]

I was just wondering that does it make sense to idolize a person in your SOP and basically state that you would like to emulate his/her contributions to society. For instance, an Indian referring about Amartya Sen.

[asianeconomist]

My best advice would be to make sure that you have the name of the school correct. I know several people who forgot to copy and paste the right name, which definitely doesn't help your cause.

LOL. I actually got the name of one of the professors wrong. Close shave I guess.

[jenizaro]

I don't know if my SOP was an important factor in my admission outcomes. I think the most critical component of my application were my LORs, especially one of them. With my SOP what I tried to do as much as possible was to show that I had a lot of ideas about research projects. Over the years I have assembled a list of questions and observations on different topics and I pretty much tried to summarize those in my SOP. Something a little bit like what Akerlof recommends here:

http://emlab.berkeley.edu/users/webf...7/lecture1.pdf (see point 11 at page 5)

I want to think that my SOP readers saw at least one interesting research idea in that and that this benefited my application. Though I really don't know...

[Bayern]

Additionally, for those students coming from lesser-known schools, this is your chance to sell yourself and your undergraduate education. It's really important to note your research and courses taken, because some schools don't really think that students from non-PhD granting universities have any idea what they're getting into in a PhD program. (I had almost no clue.)

I am from a LAC. When you mention "note your research and courses taken", do you mean that we should go into some details on the math, adv econ courses, and research I have done at this level? How do we really convince them that the some of the courses we are taking is quite advanced, and that I can handle hard math other than just naming the math courses? How can we make it different than the details provided in the transcript?

[jenizaro]

Bayern: you could comment on the books used or describe in detail the topics covered. For instance: we reviewed all the first 4 chapters of W. Feller in my Probability class, or we saw this and that application to microeconomics of the lagrange multipliers method in my adavnced calculus class. I think that's what TruDog means.