Hello,

Salute for the awesome work you guys are doing on this thread over last ten years.
Already learned a lot about SOP's.
However, I have very specific questions regarding mentioning specialization in SOP for
MS CS.
1) Almost all my projects and work experience point to and can justify MS CS with focus
on Theoretical Computer Science(TCS). I have experience with Algorithm analysis &
design and computational complexity. I will mention in SOP that I aim to get more
knowledge in this field(with aim as research oriented job in industry) and will be honored
if given a chance to do research with Professor.
But I have read somewhere on edulix that professors are not very interested in admitting
students for MS CS with focus on TCS as it takes year of research to find something new.
Do you have any idea if that is the case ? Will it hurt my chances of admission?
2) I am aiming generally for non thesis MS and MCS wherever possible.
Should I mention the Professors name and research work in that case ? How I should go
about it in SOP ?
3) Or Should I mention TCS as one of the areas I am interested in and mention some
other subjects like AI/ML also as interests? In this case what should I mention in last
paragraph for SOP? Should I mention professors/research from both areas ?

Post: #1
Elements of a good SOP (with SOP related queries)

I hope this post dispels a lot of issues that people face, both in mind and rote when
penning their SOPs. Here is what I look for in many cases when I review people's SOPs.
These are some minor points, which make a major difference, and some major points,
which also make a major difference. I have tried to outline as many of them as possible,
both from what I have seen in SOPs till now and what I got on my own SOP reviews
from other people better than me.
1. A Theme.
This is one of the foremost elements of your SOP. It is its soul and substance. It is
supposed to take the reader through your intent and purpose to pursue your Masters /
Ph.D or whichever advanced degree you are applying for. It gives them an insight into
what laid the foundation for this major decision in life, what was the motivation to make
this happen.
At the same time, this is one of the most difficult elements to fit in, mainly because the
theme, along with the clarity of thought is what causes the reader to get a hang of your
thoughts about the matter. Get the reader to think like you for moment, put himself in
your place. This is going to fall into place after a lot of revisions from many people. So
do not worry if you do not get it right at the first go.
2. Flow of Thought.
This is what I personally consider to be the element that makes the readers job easier
to judge the standard of your SOP. I have seen many a SOP that has a lot of clutter.
People have so many ideas to put in, so many things that they want to convey, that in
the end, they make a hash of things. You tend to jump from your motivation during your

childhood and suddenly link it to what happened sometime during your working days.
Then you tend to jump back to college foundations and then move on to how you
became more focused etc.
This kind of SOP clutter is what kills it. The SOP has to have a free flowing style, moving
smoothly from one phase of your life (I use this term loosely, but will clarify it later on)
to another. The phase transition should coincide with the transition and maturity of
thought through your phases. One you get this right, you are done with around 25%. I
normally look for a smooth transition when reading. I start raising red flags against the
SOP when I start to sense a lot of jumping about. The other major 50% comes from the
theme and the clarity of thought, one handled in the previous point and the other in the
next point.
3. Clarity of Thought
This element dictates how well you can express your thoughts to the person reading
your SOP. This interacts, combines and encapsulates a lot of other elements, for e.g.,
the theme, the flow and the precise nature of your writing. Here is how it works. I would
define clarity of thought if you can achieve a level of expression with optimal sentence
formation (not forming long, drawn out sentences) while maintaining a good, clear flow
of thought that sticks to the theme of the SOP.
At first look, it seems to be a daunting task. But as you slowly go through SOP revisions,
you will start to realize how the clarity develops and how it binds WITH the other
elements and how it binds the other elements TOGETHER.
4. Precis(e) Writing
Precis(e) writing is exactly what the name says it is. Keep it sweet and simple. Do not
ramble on and on. Your SOP reviewer on the admissions committee is definitely not
interested in knowing what you did during school. This is what I meant when I said I am
using the term phases of life loosely. Just because you have to develop a flow does not
mean that you have to start when you were 5 years old. And the reader definitely does
not need to know a lot of technical details about your projects. You have a limited
amount of space, so make it count. Also, avoid blowing your own trumpet. It is perfectly
ok to state facts like you were the college topper, but avoid making it sound like there is
no one like you, if you get my point. One other thing, tone down the use of superlatives
as much as you can.
5. Grammatical Correctness
Another important part of your SOP is your grammatical correctness. I know many
people tend to think that they are being grammatically correct and many mistakes go
unnoticed. This happens when you keep reading and re-reading your own SOP. You tend
to overlook a lot of small mistakes that can be easily caught by another person who
does not share the same mindset.
Try to maintain as much grammatical correctness as possible. When you think you have
done the best you can, check #7. Get someone else, who you think is better at english
than you to re-read your SOP. Unless you are a Professor of English yourself.
6. Sentence Formation
I hope to make this topic clear with a case in point. Do not, I repeat, do not ramble on
and on. Form short sentences. The attention span of the human mind is too short. If you
ramble on, the mind forgets what is the beginning before it reaches the end. And that
does not bode well for you. When you go through so many SOPs, your mind is trained to

notice the good parts and the bad parts. So if you start rambling, people find out very
easily. Take for example this point. What did I say in the beginning of the point? If you
can remember without looking, I am not rambling. But if you cannot remember with
what I started, I have definitely rambled a lot. And I need to get some structure into this
point. I rest my case. Also, if you think you are forming too long a sentence, only one
solution. FRAGMENT.
7. Peer Review.
Finally, one of the most important parts, I daresay, the most important part. Select 3-4
people (or even less) who you think are better than you in different areas, someone in
your technical area of specialization, another person who has a better command over
English than you have and a totally unrelated person who has nothing to do with your
field. Get your SOP reviewed by these people till a majority of them are satisfied with
how it is.
The first one serves to oversee your SOPs minor technical details and they can
understand what you are talking about. They will serve as a proxy for the admissions
committee members who review your SOP since they can relate to what you are talking
about.
The second one serves are your reviewer for grammatical correctness.
And finally, the third one serves as an unrelated person who might catch some
overlooked errors that the other two and you might have missed.
Hope this helps anyone who is formulating an SOP and finds it really difficult to start.
Dont worry. You can start by writing down everything that you want to write. You can
always make the long story short. But making a short story long takes a lot more effort.
So put onto paper whatever you have and then start revising it.
Eventually, after 7-8 revisions, you will have close to a perfect SOP.
======================================================
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Points to ponder about an SOP by onusopus
1. Know the difference between a Statement of Purpose and Statement of
Fact/Achievements. Never put in lines like I did this and that which will bore any reader.
You are never asked to write what all you achieved in your life. You are asked to write
down what you intend to do with the next step of your education and how it is going to
help your career. Achievements that preferably align with the purpose are ok, but
otherwise throw then out.
2. Dont get too technical in a SOP. What are resumes for?
3. Your SOP is not a platform to showcase your writing skills. The trick is to strike a
balance between being prosaic and being crisp. It would be so tempting to use all the
words you read in Barrons and Kaplan and other such sources. Refrain from doing that.
At the same time, never make your SOP so simple that it becomes drab to read. "I did
<something>" is probably one of the most common and probably the WORST statement
ever than can go on your SOP. Haveing the right words in the right places is something
that your SOP should focus on (after your purpose or intent that is).
4. Never write a very generic SOP. Gather information on the university and department
that you are applying to. They should get the feel that you have really bent your back

and put a lot of thought process on your choices. Do not write your SOP with a fill in the
blank mentality. Does not work that way. More importantly focus on how well you would
fit into that university and what best you can do with the resources available for the
betterment of your career, the department and the university, preferably in that order.
5. The introduction and conclusion paragraphs are probably the most important part of
your SOP. The introduction sets the tone for the rest of the SOP and the conclusion
should make an indelible impression. Utilize these two paragraphs as much as you can.
6. Never read any online SOPs or your friends. The human mind is a good follower. It
subconsciously starts imitating what you saw in the previous SOPs and before you can
realise it, it is no longer your SOP any more. For the first couple of drafts, write down
everything you feel like. Let it be on paper. You can then chop and change. Once you
form a base, you can modify yours accordingly.
7. Be strong in what you say. This is probably one thing that I will stress on. Your SOP
should radiate (this is a big word that I don't necessarily expect everyone to follow) the
intent and the focus. Be proud of what you have done. Even if it is a small calculator
app. You still gained something from it. But at the same time, making it look like you are
the only one who can build that small calculator app is going to be your downfall.
8. A good SOP IMO would typically answer these questions in one way or the other. Why
do you want to pursue your Masters, in this particular department and in this very
university.
9. Coming to talking about work experience, do not talk about it as though you joined a
company without any motive or intention. You have worked your way through a four
year engineering course and you better know what you like and want to work on. If you
do not, there is something wrong somewhere. Do not write your SOP as if you got
placed in some random company through campus placements and you settled down
there. There should be a motive behind it. Consider this as an example of a mechanical
student writing his/her SOP (no prejudice, just an example) - I completed my under
graduation from XYZ university and was consistently in the top 10% of the class. I
wanted to get into the corporate world and I was recruited by ABC company, one of the
best IT firms in India through my campus. Cliched from beginning to end. A better line
would be I would like to specialize in during my Masters for which I needed a strong
foundation in Computer Aided Design, which I gained during my time at XYZ, which
specializes in <something short> (Do not elucidate four lines about what the company
does). Now, it has a purpose.
10. Avoid cooking up imaginary stories of your own or trying to make small things look
big on your SOP.
11. What you learnt from the leadership positions and the problems you faced do some
justice to the intent building factor IF they are relevant. But please do not overdo it or
even do it if it is not related.
12. About publications, and I mean research publications and not paper presentations,
focus on WHAT the paper accomplished RATHER THAN the name, author names and
titles. Content matters, not prosaic titles which are two lines long.
13. DO NOT TYPEFACE font in a SOP until absolutely necessary. Like an achievement of a
best paper award, or an excellence award for example. Otherwise typefacing your font
makes your SOP look UGLY period.
14. Extra curricular activities do not belong on your SOP. So stop wasting space on
them. No one really cares if you captained your school cricket team of you were a state

player. Everyone from India (especially) can walk on water and is a state player or can
play an instrument or can read books or is a well known writer. Cut the crap.
=============================================
The SOP clichs to avoid - Some SOP Humor from AmuG
1. The Prodigy.
To quote a friend Please dont tell me about how you were born out of your mothers
womb with a PC in hand. Unless of course, that actually did happen. In which case you
should be telling us more about it. But for most of us, it wasnt the case. So do not start
your SOP by telling me how as a five year old, the fact the computer works on binary
system fascinated you or how you were thinking about the inner workings of a game
when playing Road Rash and decided then and there to take up Computer Science.
2. The Achiever.
Please do not fill up the limited space you have in your SOP yapping about how you did
this and that and this and more of that and then again this. Unless you can relate the
things you did in the past to what you want to do in a Masters program, dont waste
space on it. Remember you have a resume to put all your wonderful achievements.
3. The GOD.
Yes, your SOP is a place to show the adcom that you are capable of doing this course
but do not wax lyrical about how amazing you are. Do not make statements saying how
dedicated you are, how hardworking you are, in short how GOD-like you are, but back it
up with an anecdote. Show them that you are hardworking and dedicated.
4. The Narrator.
Please fight the urge to use your SOP as an abridged auto biography. No the adcom is
NOT interested to know that "Once upon a time in a land far far away, you peed your
pants and how overcoming that was a pivotal moment in your life". Tell them about the
things, by which I mean the important things that steered you in this direction.
5. The ET (ExTra circular) Kid.
You might have been the kid that did it all. Cricket, Chess and everything in between AKA the Complan kid. And yes you should mention it; it gives you the extra edge. But
please dont dedicate paragraphs explaining the complexities of cricket.
6. The Connect the Dots game.
Yes, you want the adcom to be engaged while reading your SOP, you want your SOP to
grab their attention but please dont play the Connect the dots game with them. Have
a flow to your SOP. In your fifth para, please do not go back to something you
mentioned in the first para without relevance.
7. The English High Tide
Yes, you just did brilliantly well in GRE and you learned a LOT of English words. That
does not mean you want to fill in your SOP with every word youve ever learned! You
dont have be the I talk English, I walk English, I eat English kind.
8. The Extra, Extra, Read All About It

Even the most controversial newspaper articles stick to a word limit, and so should your
SOP. You might have a lot to say, but do remember the adcom goes through a lot of
SOPs so choose what to have it and chose it wisely!
======================================================
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IF YOUR QUESTIONS ARE NOT BEING ANSWERED "SPECIFICALLY" OR
WHOEVER YOU HAVE TAGGED IS NOT RESPONDING TO A CERTAIN POINT, IT
MEANS THAT THE ANSWERS ARE ALREADY PRESENT IN THE THREAD AND YOU
HAVE TO LOOK FOR THEM. WE DO NOT WANT TO POPULATE THE THREAD WITH
MEANINGLESS POSTS WHICH SAY "YOUR QUESTION HAS ALREADY BEEN
ANSWERED IN THE THREAD. PLEASE SEARCH.". SO PLEASE SAVE US THE
TROUBLE AND DO THE SEARCHING BEFOREHAND.
Bonus Tip: For the schools that ask you to submit answers to questions in lieu of an
SOP, don't be afraid to talk about things you've talked about in other places or other
answers if that helps you save space. For example, if you're asked about your motivation
for applying to that program in one question, and then asked what you plan to do if
admitted in a follow-up question, recognize that those are two parts of the same coin.
Answer them accordingly, and link the answers together, such as: "In an earlier
question, I answered why I want to get into Podunk State's MS in Extraterrestrial Affairs.
Specifically what I aim to do after graduating from that program is to work in the field of
Extraterrestrial Industrial Relations. As my experience in Extraterrestrial languages
makes for a good foundation in the field, courses such as Extraterrestrial Technology and
Cross-galactic Cultures would help me broaden my understanding about what it means
to actually understand extraterrestrial cultures, and not just communicate with them."
Then, if a follow-up question to that asks you about your long-term career goals, link it
back to that one with something like: "The knowledge of extraterrestrial cultures gained
in the MS in Extraterrestrial Affairs program through courses like Cross-galactic Cultures
would allow me to become a diplomat in the Department of Extraterrestrial Relations,
which is my long-term goal."