Statement of Intent letters for grad school...

Well, I’m down to the wire, apps are due at the end of the month, and I have no idea how to write a statement of intent (or statement of purpose). I don’t know what to do, I don’t know where to start, I don’t know how to make it not suck.

Any tips? Advice? Warnings? Any help would be a great help.

My advice, for what it’s worth (and my personal statement turned out to be worth a full ride for my first two years of grad school) is: Tell the committee a story. If you write a bunch of vague generalities about how much you love your subject and what you might possibly want to accomplish in grad school, it’ll sound exactly like every other personal statement out there. If you can give them a concrete story about something you’ve already done that shows you have a passion for the subject and some idea what studying it at the graduate level entails, you’re already ahead of the crowd.

Relevant work experience is always good – my own personal statement consisted of the story of my first teaching job, minus the truly scandalous bits – but if you’ve done any academic research in your field, such as a senior thesis, that’s even better. Explain what sparked your interest in this area, what questions you initially started asking yourself, how you set up the project, what sort of setbacks you encountered and how you dealt with them, and what you ended up learning. If you haven’t got any work or research experience that’s applicable, then you can always write about a mentoring relationship with a faculty member or a class that inspired you to to want to study the subject at the graduate level (but avoid generalizations and platitudes: give the reader a clear sense of which ideas and unanswered questions in the field intrigue you). You get the idea; basically, you want to give the admissions committee a sense of your academic interests and personal qualities without hammering them over the head with your Love of History (or whatever), and storytelling is the best way to do it subtly and memorably.

So, what field? And why do you want to go to grad school, anyway?

In lieu of specifics, pending answers to those questions, the fundamental things apply:

[ul]
[li]Be succinct;[/li][li]Be coherent;[/li][li]This isn’t the best venue for presenting yourself in all your dazzling psychological and intellectual complexity: pick one major theme and focus on it;[/li][li]Don’t use any word that wouldn’t naturally come out of your mouth in conversation;[/li][li]On the other hand, don’t use a lot of the words that would naturally come out of your mouth in conversation;[/li][li]Proofread;[/li][li]Get someone else to proofread;[/li][li]Proofread again;[/li][li]Get a different someone else to proofread;[/li][li]If there’s a particular phrase or sentence in it you’re really proud of, cut it unless you can absolutely convince yourself that it’s essential not to (even then it’s probably still a good idea)[/li][li]Give yourself at least a day to let the whole thing sit once you think you’re done with it, then read it again.[/li][/ul]

Also, since this is grad school app rather than undergrad, you’ll want to focus on issues related to your field of study and intended career – you’ve had four years of college (or more) to “find yourself” and all; grad school admission committees want to know what makes you someone who’s likely to complete the program in a reasonable period of time and then get out there in the world and make them look good. That’s your theme: provide the evidence to support it. Talking about formative experiences, or adults who’ve influenced you, or other stuff that you’d often include in an undergraduate app is out of place unless they specifically and directly tie into your planned course of study and career direction.

On preview, I think that Fretful Porpentine has some excellent advice, but I’ll add this, for what it’s worth.

I’ve been drafting one of my own such statements for an application I’m submitting a little later this month. My wife, who has a graduate degree, suggested some things for me to cover in my statement, so I’ll share them here:

– Why you are applying to this particular school. Your reasons could include its reputation, the fact that it is a small (or large) school, its faculty and their achievements, etc.

– What led you to the decision to undertake graduate studies? Why this particular field of graduate studies? Reasons here could be academic, or as a result of choices you made in the non-academic world.

– What you would like to do with your graduate degree. This is fairly easy if you are thinking about something like law or medicine, but it may be a little more challenging if you are thinking about something like a graduate degree in, say, history.

– Anything else that makes you stand out or be memorable somehow. In my case, I’m trying to return to school after 20 years away from formal study. But I’ve woven those twenty years of work and life experiences through my statement, which may prove to be a nice change from those statements that will come from those straight out of undergraduate studies.

For what its worth, I kept the draft of my statement fairly conversational and friendly, though neither excessively familiar nor in a heavily academic style.

I just had to do the same thing, to apply for graduate school for a master’s in Library Science. I’m a really good chatty b.s.'r, but I hesitate to offer you any tips, as I don’t know if my letter went over or not, yet!

Everyone’s given some good advice, but here’s one tip worth mentioning.

Explain WHY you want to study at THEIR school. Often this ties in with a particular professor or an emphasis that a particular department has. For example, I’m studying with Dr. Magliocco at Cal. State, Northridge. Her work (presently) is in NeoPagan studies and folklore. This tied in nicely with my own studies of magic, so she could guide my research.

Explaining why you want to attend their institution and giving specific reasons always stands out.

The biggest decision for graduate school is not the particular institution, but rather the person who’ll guide your research. If your interest and their’s is fairly well matched, you’ll do well, otherwise, it can be an uphill battle.

Sorry I didn’t provide specifics before. I’m applying for an MFA in Creative Writing at University of Utah, University of Arizona, University of Kansas, UC Irvine, and Notre Dame. I want to go to grad school because I’m scared to leave Academia…

That’s probably not the best answer.

I actually want to be a writing professor eventually. I have a wacky plan to get an additional MA in American Lit and (hopefully!) a PhD at UofU in Creative Writing.

All these suggestions are great! Woo, keep them coming!

Oh my god, that didn’t even occur to me. I’m practically going into this blind. I think panic is onsetting.

Don’t Panic :stuck_out_tongue:

I hope that’s large and friendly on your system. Anyway, the point about the advisor you’re going to work with is a valid one (a big reason I dropped out of an English lit Ph.D. program myself is that my intended dissertation advisor died between the time I accepted an aid offer and the time I actually started the program), but it’s somewhat less crucial for a “performance” related degree like an MFA. You’ll still have to satisfy the powers that be that you’re up to their standards to get out alive, but you probably won’t have the same pressure to conform to your advisor’s particular theoretical platform or critical approach as you would in a Ph.D. program in lit. Nevertheless, you must have some reason for having selected those particular programs to apply to from the universe of possibilities, and I’d hope at least that part of the consideration had to do with who’s teaching writing at each. An MFA program is different from a research-oriented Ph.D. program in that the main things it has to offer are the quality of the faculty and the quality of the other students – the size of the library, any special holdings, the theoretical bent of the faculty, etc. are all less important than in a traditional research program.

And you’re right; while “fear of leaving academia” is probably one of the leading reasons people go to graduate school (it was up there with “don’t want to start paying back student loans” and “I absolutely have to get out of Arkansas now” for me), it’s not one that plays well in a grad school application. So I’d focus on:
[ul]
[li]why you want to teach writing for a living,[/li][li]why you think the institution in question would be particularly well-suited to help you accomplish that, and[/li][li]whatever evidence you can muster that indicates you’re likely to succeed at it.[/li][/ul]

Ok, I won’t panic. :slight_smile:

I think I have an idea now, combining several suggestions from this thread. This whole process can be so overwhelming, I’ve been trying to take it one step at a time, but that hasn’t really helped. I’ll be happy when this is over…so very happy.

pssst.

You should come to KU.

That is all.

Actually, I know very little about graduate CW studies here, but I liked it, and stuff. I might be able to get you in touch with some profs, though. I minored in English.

Can you give me more information, FilmGeek? I admit, I chose to apply there for various and sundry reasons that weren’t really about academics. Anything you think I might be interested in or should know about the campus/classes/people/costs, etc. :slight_smile: I’d really appreciate it.

Email me and we’ll take it off board, okay?

As Rackensack said, DON’T PANIC!!

Try reading this book:

Getting What You Came For: the smart student’s guide to earning a Master’s or PhD.
by Robert L. Peters, Ph.D. (revised edition)

Read it and you’ll have a good idea of what to expect.

In the mean time, try doing a bit of research at the various schools you’ve applied to. See who’s on the staff and what sort of work they do. See if any of it, in any way, shape or form dovetails into your own interests. If it does, contact them, via email is fine. Tell them you’re interested in their work and that you’re interested in studying with them. It also helps if you can quote some of their work and sound like you know what you’re talking about

Right this minute, I’m looking up the staff, their books, and ordering them through the inter-library system. I should have them by the end of the week. It doesn’t give me a great deal of time (and I only have myself to thank for that) but it’s a start and better than nothing. :slight_smile:

Thanks again, everybody, for the responses. Also thanks for the encouragement. I tried this somewhere else and the first response I got was “you don’t want to go to grad school” followed by the “worthless degree” lecture. As much fun as that lecture is, it’s really not what I need right now, you know what I mean?

Tip: When applying to grad school at Princeton where (at least in 1987) the spot for the statement of intent is on the lengthy application form, don’t circle all the typos in red ink.

Not unless you want to get in there, I suppose.

:smiley:

Seriously, it will be ok. For me, the biggest :smack: came when I finally finished grad school and realised how easy they are to write (great, where was this knowledge 8 years prior?) But that means you will also be able to write abstracts, proposals, and all those other cool things that will keep you happily in academe for years to come.

I’m coming from a science background, so my experience with these things is probably very different from you really need. That said, I’d agree with the need to check up on the faculty at the different schools you’re applying to: you need to figure out who you want to work with and be able to come up with a good reason why. Most schools are pretty good about not holding you to this once you arrive - in other words, they’ll expect you to appear confidant in your essays even though they realize you’re actually be 100% sure of whatever particular specialization you claimed you wanted to pursue.

One of the most important pieces of advice I received was that the admissions committee already knows you want to go to grad school. You want to convince them that you’ll be good at it, not that you really want it. In other words, “I want to write about [something very specific and detailed; I don’t know know what creative writing MFAs require :)].” You don’t want to write, “Ever since Christmas 1987, when my aunt gave me the old typewriter, I wanted to be a professional writer.”

Of course, YMMV - if you do have a fascinating story about how you went to Madagascar for three years and meditated on the Mysteries of the Cosmos and then an old man appeared who, dying in your hands, made you swear to learn the ways of the novelist so you could carry his last words to the world, then I suppose you should go for it. But from your post, it doesn’t sound like your decision was quite that exciting. Anyway, if you want to see my essays, I think I might still have them - email me if you’re interested.

I’m actually going to draw a parallel between my most challenging writing course and my experiences as a writing tutor in a narrative essay. Does that sound super lame?

I read hundreds of these a year.

  1. Talk about specific parts of the program, and the professors’ areas of expertise, that you would like to learn ablout/have exposure to.

  2. Talk about why you’d wan to learn these things–how do they contribute to your goals (both concrete and aspirational)?

  3. Talk about the qualities and strengths you would bring to the program–i.e., why should they pick you rather than some brilliant yet antisocial yutz?

  4. Don’t be afraid to use their language back to them, but be sure you know what it means so you don’t sound like you’re just parroting their materials.

  5. Strike a balance between reasonable self-disclosure and professionalism. You want to show them you’re interesting, not scary.

Since it’s an MFA, they probably requested a portfolio, too. That will weigh heavily. You may want to use your essay to talk about how you use feedback on your writing. If they provide financial assistance that’s related to you teaching undergrads, talk about your interest in teaching and how that will intersect with your writing.