<p>Hi everybody,
Thanks for reading my post. I am applying for Biology PhD in fall 2008. I am just finishing up my personal statement, but I am having a bit hard time with it. I have a few specific questions and some general questions;</p>
<p>Specific questions:
1) I understand that every school has a bit different prompt for the statement, but they all follow the same pattern (experiences, why the field, & why the particular school). I am having hard time deciding how much detail should I include. For example, how much should I devote to my past experience vs. future aspirations vs. benefits of going to the particular school.</p>
<p>2) I got two different kinds of comments from two different proofreaders. One of them was a friend of mine who is good at scientific communication and she suggested I include more detail vs a post doc in my lab suggested cut all the fluff and list all the things straight to the point (not in a list manner but just paragraph dealing with each things in the prompt). My current version is kind of an essay that weaves all the prompt questions in a cohesive manner. What you all think?</p>
<p>General:
How did you handle school specific questions? How much length? How do you answer question without just copying facts from the school website?</p>
<p>If anyone wants to look over my statement, please drop me a line with your email address and I will be glad ot email u that. </p>
<p>I greatly appreciate your input. Thanks everyone for reading this.</p>
<p>I basically wrote one SOP that I tweaked to various degrees for different schools.</p>
<p>I wrote an intro that talked about why I wanted to go to grad school, a paragraph on my two majors, three paragraphs on undergrad research (a paragraph for each major project on which I worked), a paragraph on my research interests and faculty members in the program that I'd be interested in working with, and a short conclusion. The longest version was about a page and a half, single spaced.</p>
<p>Thanks guys for your input. Did you put the specific professor(s) on your statement."I want to work with professor x, y, & z etc." </p>
<p>Hi, molliebatmit, would you mind looking over my statement? As I understand you are at MIT (my first choice) and in contact with Dr. Jaenisch (also my top choice at MIT), you would be an ideal person for critique. Please let me know. Thanks.</p>
<p>I'm not at MIT -- I was an undergrad at MIT when I created my username. I'm now a grad student at Harvard.</p>
<p>A professor in your department would be the best choice to review your SOP -- I'm afraid I don't know too much about what they're supposed to be like other than what I wrote myself. (And I did mention specific professors in my SOP.)</p>