TL’DR:

A good Statement of Purpose (SoP) answers two key questions:

1. What did you do?
2. What do you want to do?

When you clearly address these points, you naturally answer the most important question: Why you?

In general:

• Be yourself
• Be concise yet specific
• Highlight the most important content: use bold, italic, underline etc…
• Show your passion

Start as early as possible on the first draft.

How SoP should be like?

In my opinion, an SoP should serve (strictly) as a research statement. It should focus on describing your past experiences and explaining how they connect to what you want to do in the future.

cs-sop contains many great examples that helped me a lot in drafting my SoP. I highly recommend it. It offers an excellent overview of the general framework, structure, flow, and expected content.

From my own experience proofreading students’ and friends’ statements, here are my two cents:

Introduction

By the first few sentences—or at least by the end of the first paragraph—readers should understand your overarching research goal.

• Dream big: This goal should be ambitious enough that it hasn’t been fully explored before (hence the need for a PhD).
• Be grounded: This goal should also be small enough that it seems achievable during a PhD.

Keep this research goal as the main theme throughout your SoP.

Past Research

If you have a concrete research goal, things become simpler. The rest of your paragraphs should explain why you can accomplish this goal. In other words, discuss how your past experiences have prepared you for it.

Highlight the following:

• Your unique contributions to past projects
• Relevant research skills
• Why the project was significant, and why your role was significant
• Concrete/specific examples of your contributions
• What you learned
• How these experiences or lessons will help you in your PhD

Try not to repeat information already listed on your CV. Most universities have some page/word limits, so use your word count wisely. Avoid making your SoP a paragraph-long version of your CV.

Why PhD & Why School

If you look at the SoPs on cs-sop, you’ll see that the structure / content of this section is fairly similar across statements.

So what make your statement stand out is to customize it as much as possible for the particular lab or PI you’re interested in. Make sure you understand the lab’s most recent research directions, which might differ from their earlier or more well-known work. This also helps you find out if the lab is a good research fit for your goals.

My SoP