Quick points on SOP
- It has to be original and completely yours. You can copy formats of others, but never the contents.
- It is statement trying to convince the admissions committee why you 'fit-in' to their department. For this, you should know about their department inside out, know the research, the labs, the professors and be able to mention some of these in the SOP.
- Do not repeat your resume (Oh Yes! You should have an academic resume created for yourself) on the SOP.
- Refer some websites on Statement of Purpose. Ask seniors for their SOPs and get ideas from them. statementofpurpose.com is where I got my first ideas from.
- Do review the SOP many times. Ask your parents and friends to do so. No grammatical errors, no smileys, be professional and convincing.
Quick points on recommendation letters:
- Take recommendation letters from faculty members who know you well and can describe you on a personal level.
- The rank of the professor is not important if he is going to give you a standard 'He/She is a good student' recommendation.
- There is no binding rule that your recommenders should be from the same department that you studied in. If your mathematics faculty member knows you well, but you are a CS major, doesn't matter!
- Have at least 4 options for recommenders. Approach them early. Usually 3 recommenders are needed. Mix and match and ensure that 1 recommender is not common in all the universities recommendation.
- If your recommender wants to keep his/her recommendation confidential, you do no have a choice. Respect their sentiments.
- If your recommender gives you a choice of drafting a rough copy, brilliant! Put in immense effort, use polished language and great adjectives and hope that at least some of the points are taken
- It is better if the recommender holds a doctorate degree.
- Always thank the recommender profusely for recommending you.
The SOP and recommendation letters are the two major factors that can make or break your application. Do spend considerable time and effort on them. It will make all the difference in the end.
hey, is it useful to take a recommendation letter from a finance-management faculty along with electronics faculty (I am in EnI), if I plan to apply in Industrial Engineering? Also, is it tough to get financial aid for this program?
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It is most important that the faculty member knows you well, and can give a good personal recommendation(one that is not the same for all students.) If you have done courses under the finance/management faculty, then it does help rather than having all 3 Electronics and Instrumentation recommendations (esp. since you aren't applying to EE)If you have done courses related to IE in your B.E years, get those recos. Eg. Neural Networks or Operations Research are related to IE. Depends on the IE course structure of the university you apply to as well...
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