Statement of Purpose Key Points

SOP should have a proper introduction. If you use a quote make sure that you relate it with your own ideology. It should voice your motivation and passion in very strong and clear words. Flamboyance and grandiloquence are not necessary but the focus should be on clarity and effectiveness. Demonstrate your research works and projects in a way that show your interest and learning. If you have professional experience, take the opportunity to highlight your learning and motivation in a better way. Don’t delve around technical details while writing about academic projects or those undertaken at the workplace. If you have many projects to your credit highlight those which are the most significant and are directly related to your areas of interest. The minor or less important ones can be confined to the CV only. Don’t fall into the temptation of writing everything about you in the SOP. Rather with every project show your motivation like how and why you got interested in particular fields such as networking or AI and connect it with your motivation to pursue research-based MS. Reflect seriously and deeply upon your purpose of doing MS. Do research on your short term and long term goals and write them in a crisp manner. It is essential that clarity of goals should be borne in the mind while writing the SOP. Your focus should be on making the SOP unique so that it stands out among the applicants. Read the description of research works undertaken by the professors and the courses offered by the university to which you are applying to carefully. You can include unique features and information about courses and research works that interest you in your SOP. Demonstrate that you are a perfect fit for the university by showing how you can contribute to it by connecting your past accomplishments with contributions to the university. Confine your SOP to 700-900 words. Don’t stretch it too long as many universities do have a requirement of 500-600 words SOP. Be brief and effective and avoid a verbose and pompous style.