A strong SOP and LOR are required if you want to get admission to your dream college. While the student composes the SOP, the recommender, who may be the student’s former supervisor or teacher, writes the LOR. Both documents’ contents differ greatly from one another.
To present the ideal student qualities to university administrators, they both accomplish the same goal.
And coming up with a strong SOP and LOR is not a cakewalk. Pupils and teachers have to keep certain points in mind. Even a minor mistake in any of the documents can cost your career.
Let’s discuss a few points, following which you can develop an effective LOR and SOP.
Tips for writing a strong SOP –
- Self-reflect– You should begin by reflecting on your life’s major moments and listing how they affected your thinking, personality, and behaviour. You must devote a lot of time to introspection. But try to avoid writing about anything such as ‘how yoga is important for youth.’
Most MS applicants (those without any prior employment experience) have very few options outside of academia. Therefore, it would be preferable to discuss inspirations, goals, aspirations, interests, vision, values, and mottos, as well as one’s successes and mistakes.
- Tell the purpose– When applying to a university, you seek to advance your academic standing in a particular field. Then, it serves a greater goal than just obtaining a foreign degree: finding employment (unless you plan to attend a foreign university just to travel to foreign locations).
Your expectations from the university and the proposed program must be stated explicitly.
- Talk about passion and potential– Instead of just saying, show that you care. Only if you are passionate about a field can you succeed in it.
Your real enthusiasm for the subject matter must be clear to the reader. Therefore, it is essential to communicate in a captivating and persuasive way.
Your potential is the capacity to achieve success in something. Therefore, you should review your college experience and talk about how recent accomplishments and activities are relevant.
You must show that you have the motivation and drive to stick with the targeted program and finish it effectively.
Achievements in extracurricular and academic pursuits must be discussed. In addition, it must demonstrate that you are adequately prepared for the program.
- Make it unique and personal– The SOP is appropriately referred to as a personal statement because it must describe your personality and demonstrate your fit for the given program. If necessary, don’t be afraid to include any failures.
The admissions committee will accept or reject your application, depending on your GPA, test results, recommendation letters, and other factors.
In contrast to MBA or Undergraduate entrance processes, the MS admission process typically does not entail interviews. As a result, the SOP is essential to the MS admissions process.
- Write stories, not statements– The majority of people will choose a novel over a newspaper, and do you know why?
Because a novel tells a tale, a brilliantly crafted work of literature that you will be emotionally engaged to, but a newspaper only provides you with news and a few attention-grabbing headlines.
You become involved in the plot and let out those human emotions as a result. You put yourself in the narrator’s or character’s shoes and comprehend why he or she acted in the way that they or did or made the choices they or did. Compared to statements, people can recall stories considerably more easily.
- Quantify your stories– Despite the fact that experts asked you to create a story, you must keep in mind that your story should not seem like a thesis. Instead, it ought to be the best source of knowledge about you.
And numbers are crucial when it comes to information. So both qualitative and quantitative elements should be present in your narrative.
And in order for the reader to grasp the depth of your story, it must have measurable quantities rather than just stories.
- Be specific– You must make sure that everything you include in your statement of aim is absolutely specific.
Simply saying anything because you believe it will impress the admissions committee is not a good idea. Whatever you say, you need to get really specific.
Be self-aware. Saying, “I selected this degree because I adore this field,” is insufficient.
Give specific reasons why you love this field, why you choose to work in it for the rest of your life, what talents you’re striving to acquire, how it makes you feel whole as a person, etc.
Talk to your pals as you normally would, without circling the subject. Avoid using clichéd phrases like “I will change the society,” “I want to discover myself,” and similar expressions.
Simply be direct and succinct at all times, but avoid being arrogant. Instead, find your justifications, then come up with a charming, unique method to express them.
- Customise your essay– A major error that which majority of the pupils commit is creating a simple template for their statement of purpose and, if they apply to more than one university, just modify the relevant names and facts.
The rest of the sentence, however, is a perfect replica. This is never a good idea since, despite how similar they may appear to be, each university is significantly different from the rest.
Each of them is defined by a unique set of traits, and they all have distinctive cultures, techniques, visions, values, mottos, strengths, and weaknesses. These factors are far more significant than departments, university rankings, the quantity of Ph. D.s, or other hedonistic characteristics.
- Be yourself– An SOP may ask you to write stories. In that case, you might be tempted to “invent” stories. Simply put, don’t do that. Only come up with fantastic tales to tell if you can.
Some individuals may have had typical upbringings and ordinary lives and most likely didn’t accomplish anything particularly noteworthy.
All right, no problem. Write nothing if it isn’t something amazing to write. Be a regular person and produce regular stories.
Rather than trying to pass as someone you are not, it is preferable to be normal. One reading is all it takes for the admissions officers to distinguish between a genuine application and a fraudulent one.
- Address the problems– You have a fantastic chance to address some of your issues in the statement of purpose.
To comfort the admissions committee, you can address any concerns about your academic history. Discuss your career gap year or any issues you may have had at work in your statement of purpose. It’s important to strive to be as open and mature while discussing your issues.
Instead of attempting to defend yourself, you can identify the precise causes of the issues, but more significantly, you should emphasise “how” you dealt with the problem and “what” you took out from experience. For illustration, suppose you had a semester of all Cs or all Ds.
Unless there is a compelling reason, a decent graduate school won’t typically want you to have a toy kitchen company profile like this.
Spend some time and write a few paragraphs to describe what occurred.
- Proofread and edit– Students also attempt to keep their essays to themselves, which is a mistake.
Perhaps they are reserved or believe their loved ones aren’t knowledgeable on the subject. They, therefore, believe that asking friends and family to comment on their essays is pointless. Wrong.
Your statement of purpose describes who you are as a person and student. There is technical jargon involved, and your family members might not be knowledgeable about it. They are, however, real authorities on “you.” This is precisely why you ought to speak with them.
- Tips for writing an effective LOR paragraph wise –
- First paragraph– It will provide the following information about the recommender: title, division, name of the organisation, city, and extent of affiliation with the applicant, as well as the length of time (number of years) of this affiliation.
The recommender must always mention the organisational department and the applicant’s designation. The applicant’s tasks and roles that impressed the interviewer should be discussed.
- Second paragraph– The person writing the recommendation will discuss the applicant’s career accomplishments, such as Studying In Canada. An application, for instance, might have assisted in quantifying issues, cutting process costs, or helping the organization reach specific objectives.
The recommender should highlight any client appreciation the candidate has received in this part. This paragraph primarily focuses on the applicant’s leadership abilities.
- Third paragraph– Projects, workshops, lectures, and other topics will be covered. This will include information about their names and the applicant’s contribution to the same.
The recommendation should include details about these activities and the applicant’s participation in various situations that particularly impressed the recommender.
The recommender may also include examples of times when the applicant implemented theoretical ideas in real-world situations to achieve the greatest results, which significantly impressed him or her.
The recommender may include information regarding any business-related, academic, or research endeavours the applicant engaged in that the recommender desires to share with the university’s admissions committee.
- Fourth paragraph– The person writing the recommendation will be asked to discuss the applicant’s extracurricular or co-curricular activities at work as well as his or her accomplishments in those areas.
The LOR should end with information about the recommender, such as his or her name, title, department, organization, and contact details.
In some situations, email is also required. Applicants should be aware that the LOR should make clear any relationships they have with the recommenders.
Conclusion
Last but not least, try getting assistance from professors. Don’t be afraid to ask a professor you know at your undergraduate university for suggestions on how to improve your statement of intent.
They are undoubtedly very seasoned candidates, and throughout their professions, they may have seen hundreds of pupils and personal statements.
