<p>[Rate</a> Your Students: What Do We Want Students to Say in Their Grad School Statements of Purpose? Some Replies to An Early Thirsty.](<a href=“http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-do-we-want-students-to-say-in.html]Rate”>http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-do-we-want-students-to-say-in.html)</p>
<p>I think this is right on the money. And I have seen too many SOPs with cheesy intros so here’s your early warning sign!</p>
<p>Every single entry was terrific.</p>
<p>My favorites were numbers five and six, even though I merited a mention in entry number seven.</p>
<p>I’m sorry but who wrote this anyway?</p>
<p>Lol what’s the matter? Is your statement littered with things they told you not to write? I think its very informative and full of good advice.</p>
<p>Where do <em>I</em> get a job climbing coconut trees?!</p>
<p>I liked and relate to all, but my favorite was #7! That hit home for me!</p>
<p>Wee. I didn’t write about anything as to what motivated me to study what I want to study… I jumped right no… No child-hood stories (I have none, I wanted to do something different!). And I think the last statement - about WHO you want to work with, so true. And probably the reason for my Princeton Neuro invite.</p>
<p>I didn’t write about why i wanted to study what I wanted to study either, because as written in the comments, I don’t know why! I just think it is freaking amazing, that’s why.</p>
<p>And haha at the coconut thing. I think people forget that these are real people making decisions, it is not some complex algorithm.</p>
<p>I wrote on why I wanted to do biology, but only because the first two years of my undergrad were as an English major (and I wrote a total of one sentence on it). Thankfully, after a couple (dozen) revisions, I got everything pared down to 1.5 pages…and I’ve gotten positive feedback on it from every school I’ve applied to.</p>
<p>Revision is key!</p>
<p>Re: coconuts, I got my first lab job (an NIH internship) because I wrote about being a college cheerleader. The postdoc needed to pick a student ASAP, had a pile of ten apps on his desk, and decided to go with the cheerleader. :)</p>
<p>Re: Coconuts & Cheerleading.</p>
<p>Please, this is old news! Elle Woods did it first modeling animal-friendly lingerie.</p>
<p>My SOP to UC Somewhere was an ode to german beer. As a potential chemistry graduate student, this went over well and I received instant acceptance…</p>
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<p>This could save about 15 minutes in every non-super technical talk I go to.</p>