Statement of Purpose

Statement of purpose (SOP) is the mandatory requirement for applying to any non-management graduate schools in USA. The management graduate schools call it Admission Essay. The college admission essay for undergraduate school are said to be written on specific topic while it is more general for the graduate school.

Your previous academic background and GRE/TOEFL scores are enough to tell admission committee about your capabilities to deliver. But admission committee judges your motivation level to drive your life to your long term career goals with the help of Statement of Purpose. Since admission process of engineering college do not conduct interview, the interview committee gets to know about you through SOP.

Your SOP should talk about:

Why do you want to pursue the course you are applying for?

How the course selected have a relevance to your long term goals?

To write better personal statement, you need to think about yourself and perform the following exercise:

• Mention all your past accomplishment – academic, extracurricular activities, sports, social contributions.
• Mention your career goals and the reasons to choose your career goals.
• Mention the area that you want to study further and how the course of study helps you to achieve your above said goals.
• Mention why you expect the life that you have chosen? Why should you get all the things you have described above? How do you qualify all the success you desire?

A personal statement for an application should be a statement of your ideas or goals. It should include certain amount of personal history. It should depict your motivation level for graduate study, strengths and weaknesses, greatest achievements and solutions to hypothetical problems. You need to be clear and compact statement with the definite sense about what you want to do and enthusiasm for the area of study you have chosen.

Now, let us see what and how the admission committee will try to evaluate your statement:

• Your expectations in regards to the chosen program and career possibilities
• Your writing abilities
• Your areas of interest
• Your previous research or work experience
• Your reason to pursue engineering degree in particular field in particular college
• Your unique capabilities and maturity

Your statement should be grammatically correct with a good flow and should not exceed given word limit. It should be confident and friendly in tone. If writing is not your strength you can take guidance of colleague or friend who can help you out.