Structure Is Magic PDF

A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO WRITING YOUR PERFECT GRADUATE SOP
J O R DA N D O T S ON
STRUCTURE IS
MAGIC
A Step-by-Step
Guide to Writing Your
Perfect Graduate SOP
Jordan Dotson
CONTENTS
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter 1. Structure is Magic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Chapter 2. Why the Standard Script is

Completely Wrong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Chapter 3. Pre-Writing: Finding Your Frame Narrative . . 31
Chapter 4. The SOP Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Chapter 5. Turn Your Script Into an SOP . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Chapter 6. Common Problems and How to Fix Them . . . 54
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Appendix: Sample Essays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Request For Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
ii
INTRODUCTION
In the winter of 2019, I encountered a bewildering problem.

After fifteen years of helping applicants across the world
earn admission to US universities, I began conducting free
statement-of-purpose reviews on social media. At the time, I
just wanted to make a positive impact, and perhaps give a few
anxious students some hope.
“This will be easy and fun,” I thought. My students have

earned graduate admission to Harvard, MIT, Princeton, you
name it. They’ve done so in virtually every field, from STEM
to Fashion Design to Education. “When it comes to SOPs,” I
thought,“there are literally no problems I haven’t seen before.”
And you know what? As ludicrously boastful as this sounds: I

was mostly right.
When applicants began sending me first-draft statements

of purpose on Reddit and elsewhere, it wasn’t any new
writing quirk that bothered me. It wasn’t the pages-long
autobiographies. It wasn’t the specious claims of possessing
1
“excellent communication skills.” It wasn’t the 300-word
paragraphs detailing every reason why an applicant chose her
fabulous and exciting major in sociology. I expected these
issues. In fact, they were the very reason I wanted to help in
the first place.
Instead, the bewildering problem was one of volume.
Every day, I received as many as twenty drafts from students

in Los Angeles, Hyderabad, Wichita, Taipei, Cincinnati,
everywhere. Some were great, but the vast majority were
soulless bowls of word salad. They seemed like CVs recycled
into paragraphs. At least half of the authors appeared to have
no idea why they were even applying to graduate school in
the first place, and soon I began to sympathize with those
snippy, overworked admissions readers who plod through the
halls of the nation’s graduate departments. Spending whole
days reading mind-numbing essays is really a brutal task.
Each and every day I wasted hours upon hours, smacking my

bald head and repeating the same instructions over and over:
Don’t teach the teacher, they already know this.

Delete this, an SOP is not a CV.
Get rid of these abstract personal qualities, they really
aren’t believable.
It astounded me, truly, seeing how many college graduates

lacked the ability to write a decent persuasive essay. It felt
as if the vast majority simply didn’t understand how writing
2 Structure Is Magic
works. Sure, they could copy the conventional SOP templates
they found online, but often these templates are so vague and
misguided that only a truly magical writer can turn them into
a successful, powerful, mesmerizing personal statement.
(In this way, boring SOPs really are like salad, just the tasteless
iceberg lettuce and ranch dressing variety.Yes, technically they
are salads, but certainly not the kind anyone remembers fondly.
But how about a spinach salad with Riesling bosc pears, bleu
cheese crumbles, candied pecans, and a savory Dijon-shallot
mustard vinaigrette? Which would you choose if you’re
searching for the smartest chefs in the land?)
Of course, I knew this already. My students have always had

the same problems. But now, after seeing so many applicants
falling into these potholes, I got a little fed up. It wasn’t fair.
By the time a college senior sends out her master’s degree

applications, she’ll face exactly two moments in life when her
writing really matters. The first is when submitting freshman
applications.The second is now. In both of these moments, the
quality and persuasive character of her writing carry powerful
ramifications for the future. In both cases, she’s begging to be
judged.
Yet, after four years of high school, and four years pursuing
a bachelor’s degree, how much time have you spent learning
how to write an artful persuasive essay? How much practice
have you had conceptualizing the shape of compelling literary
nonfiction? Sure, hundreds of hours have been spent learning
Structure Is Magic 3
boring, rote research papers. But the two most important
essays that most students will ever write are NOT academic
research papers.
They’re stories. They’re sales letters. They’re intended to

compel an action.
So, I wrote a manifesto.
I titled it “Structure is Magic: A Guide to the Graduate SOP,”

and almost immediately it blew up in my face. To date, it’s
been read more than 10,000 times. It’s been shared on social
media in 51 countries, and I’m utterly astounded that so many
students have found it helpful.
In the last few months, I’ve received grateful notes from

dozens of applicants who claimed the article clarified the
Statement of Purpose in an instant. It made this bewildering
task seem doable, and they reported admissions to schools like
Columbia, Brown, Penn, and Georgia Tech. They also posted
loads of feedback like this:
During my entire admissions process I’ve been

legitimately concerned that I wouldn’t get into any of
my schools. As things stand today I’m 100% on my
admissions results including one admit to an Ivy League.
I really feel that Jordan’s guidance played a large role in
my success. Jordan’s method works brilliantly. Extracting
the underlying elements of compelling storytelling and
subtly including them in your personal statement will
not only make your letter more captivating, it will make
the admissions committee feel connected to your unique
story. This connection makes your essay memorable and
will help you stand out from other applicants. My first
draft was awful but Jordan’s expert guidance allowed
me to artfully incorporate these archetypal storytelling
techniques and I’m thrilled with the results. Highly
recommended.Thanks Jordan!
Honestly, as much as I loved hearing from all of these happy,

successful applicants, I was surprised. I’m still surprised, in fact.
That’s because the article isn’t perfect. It only provides the

broad strokes for structuring a compelling SOP. It teaches
a bit about story structure, and gives you a roadmap to
follow. Yet, it still leaves plenty of room for applicants to
make mistakes.
That’s why I’ve written this guide you’re reading now.
No more mistakes.
No more questions about HOW to write a statement of

purpose.
No more wondering if your essay is good enough to compete

with the very best students.
If you read this guide, and execute the instructions, I guarantee

that your SOP will charm your admissions reader. I guarantee
that the admissions committee, no matter your academic
field, will see you as a unique and memorable scholar with
boatloads of potential.
As you move forward, you’ll first encounter the article that

started it all, “Structure is Magic,” revised and updated to
make your overarching task as clear as possible.
Then, you’ll learn why the standard SOP template, available on

dozens of websites across the Internet, is horribly misguided.
You’ll learn how it’s based on academic-research writing, and
how to avoid this trap that ruins thousands of applications
every year (and bores thousands of professors to tears).
Next, we’ll discuss how to build your essay within a narrative

frame, a story that’s 100% unique, deeply human, and which
your readers will remember long after they grin and write
that green checkmark on your file.
Afterward, I’ll provide you with my “SOP Script.” This is an

almost infallible sequence of questions which, if answered
thoroughly, will generate an outline you can immediately
convert into a high-quality first draft. It’s a step-by-step, plug-
and-play process. To make certain you understand how it
works, I’ll walk you through an example myself.
Once you’ve built your own SOP Script, I’ll describe the 7
most common problems students face in their first drafts. For
each problem, I’ll tell you how to execute a fix.
Finally, in the Appendix, you’ll read sample SOPs from my

previous students, all of whom were admitted to their top-
choice graduate schools. A number of these samples come
from international applicants who were writing in their
second language, so they’re proof that anyone can succeed
with the “Structure is Magic” system, as long as they follow
the rules.
Now, before we begin digging into those rules, I want you to

remember the following propositions. Some of them I will
explain in time. Others you’ll just have to accept on trust.
Either way, these propositions form the foundation upon
which we’ll build your heroic SOP:
Structure is Magic Propositions
1. Standard statement-of-purpose outlines are

confusing. They generate boring, unmemorable
essays that leave most applicants looking bland and
similar.
2. Only the most gifted writers can turn these stale
outlines into unique, memorable, provocative essays
that increase chances of admission.
3. Timeless, archetypical storytelling models provide
a far more interesting and memorable way of
constructing a personal narrative.
4. When such narratives exhibit maturity, and a full
awareness of the high expectations of graduate
study, they evoke a positive emotional response in
the reader.
5. Positive emotional responses in your readers lead to
positive consideration of your entire application, as
well as the suspicion that you are a naturally gifted
writer, and thus, more talented than your competition.
6. Being perceived as more mature than your
competition, and more talented than your
competition, enhances your chances of graduate
admission.
Does this sound good to you? If so, let’s start enhancing your
chances of admission. All it takes a little structure.Trust me: it’s
easier than you think.
Chapter 1
Structure is Magic
It’s present in all of your favorite songs. It’s there, hidden, in

all of your favorite movies. It’s the addictive thing that makes
you binge watch Netflix shows for hours on end, and it’s
the engine of virtually every novel that’s ever kept you up at
night.
Ignore the structure of essays at your peril. To do so is as

stupid as taking the GRE in the dark.Your goal is to conquer
a somewhat vague and mysterious admissions committee, and
structure is your secret weapon, the magical potion that will
make them blink, smile a little, and then say: “Hey, I like this
one.”
But structure (as a kind of magic) is not just a set of arbitrary

rules that some stuffy, ancient Harvard professor declared and
sent out across the land attached to carrier pigeons. Structure,
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in fact, isn’t a set of rules at all. If it were, we’d call it “rules”
and not “structure.”
No, structure is patterns. In 5,000 years of recorded history,

humans have done a great deal of writing. Lots of speeches,
plays, essays, stories, songs, and fables. Most of them we have
forgotten. Why? Because they sucked. They were boring as
hell. They didn’t make people feel anything, and so they were
left to rot on the wayside of history (just like the thousands of
boring admissions essays submitted each year).
But some of them…oh, they were good.You’ve read many of

them. Oedipus Rex. Journey to the West. Petrarch’s sonnets.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Star Wars.
Beowulf. The Sword in the Stone. And one of my personal
favorites: Pixar’s Coco.
The one common thing among these memorable acts of writing

is that they consistently make people feel something. Curiously,
everyone feels the same thing.We all feel anxious when Frodo
wrestles with Gollum above the fiery pits of Mount Doom.
We all feel powerfully overjoyed when Miguel finally meets
his great grandfather.
When we look at all these successful, memorable pieces of

writing, we find patterns in the beats of the narrative, subtle
undercurrents that affect our subconscious and demand that
we keep reading, watching, or listening. This is the thing that
makes a story good, the thing that makes it timeless.
Structure, thus, isn’t an arbitrary set of rules, but the patterns
we’ve found in the works that people found powerful. It’s the
hidden subconscious language that affects human hearts in a
universal way.
Likewise, in university admissions essays, structure is the

magic that makes readers feel what we want them to feel: that
they’ve found a gifted, charming person, someone like them,
a little conflicted, potentially a friend, someone who, I don’t
know, just fits in this university that they call home. A Frodo.
A Miguel. A Luke Skywalker…someone that they just want
to see win. A hero in whom they see themselves.
Structure is the difference between becoming a Jedi, and

remaining a stubborn uneducated farm boy who spends his
days shooting womp rats on Tatooine.
Structure is The Force.
This is how you use it.
Statement of Purpose for Graduate

Admissions
Unlike undergraduate application essays which require a

more whimsical storytelling voice, graduate SOPs need to be
all business.
Think of this as a return-on-investment situation. Universities

have tremendous resources of time and expertise. They want
to choose the applicants who will give them the greatest
return on these resources. They’re investing in students, and
they want safe bets.
They do NOT want students who are uncertain about their

goals. They do NOT want students who only have a general
understanding of the details and processes of their branch
of graduate study. They do NOT want students who apply
because they believe it’s the only way to enhance their job
prospects. These students are immature and their applications
brim with naivety and entitlement. Graduate schools don’t
want them.
Instead, they want students who are guaranteed to succeed.

They want students who will undoubtedly take the university’s
resources and turn them into glorious contributions to the
lofty world of academia (thus furthering the university’s good
name and boosting their US News rankings).
Does this mean that universities only want the students with
the best grades? The most research experience? The best
GRE, GMAT, MCAT, and LSAT scores? Yes, of course. But
that’s not the whole story.
Sports gamblers know that the most gifted athletes don’t

always win championships. Instead, the best teams do.
Graduate students work closely with their professors. It’s a

small, tight-knit community. Yes, they only want brilliant
people in that community. But they also only want people
whom they know will play nice. Students who will make the
community better. Students who are just awesome human
beings. Not prickly blowhards seeking personal glory and a
smooth path into a high-salary job. (Unless you’re applying
for an MBA, in which case, that’s exactly what they want.)
This is the great power of the SOP. This is where you show
them that you’re a memorable human being, someone who
will make his graduate department a better place to be. And a
well-structured SOP is the absolute best way to do it.
The 4 Sections of a Memorable SOP
1. Introductory Frame Narrative

2. Why This Program
3. Why You’re (Overly) Qualified
4. Closing Frame Narrative
You may have heard of the “hero’s journey.” Popularized by

Joseph Campbell in his seminal 1949 work, The Hero with a
Thousand Faces, the hero’s journey is, according to Wikipedia:
…a broad category of tales and lore that involves a hero

who goes on an adventure, and in a decisive crisis wins
a victory, and then comes home changed or transformed.
We can use the hero’s journey to understand what makes

certain SOPs memorable in a timeless way. Screenwriters
have used this template for decades, and you should recognize
it as the outline of every single Pixar movie (as well as a few
dozen Oscar-winners). In the basic version, a hero is living
a normal life, until she encounters a conflict. This conflict
launches her on a journey where she faces trials and failures.
Then she meets a knowledgeable mentor who gives her
advice. She takes that advice, goes off to fight and defeat a
monster, then returns to her home a better person with some
magical trophy or knowledge that makes the world better for
everyone.
So, we have the following important elements:
1. A hero
2. A conflict (that begets a journey)
3. A mentor
4. A monster
5. A magical gift that makes the world better
Now, let’s reframe these elements:
1. Hero - You
2. A conflict that begets a journey - The moment in
time when you realized you NEEDED a graduate
degree
3. A mentor - The graduate program
4. A monster - The obstacles preventing you from
obtaining your future career and changing the world
(HR offices in Silicon Valley, for example, or niche
research questions that no one has answered).
5. A magical gift that makes the world better - Your
knowledge obtained from the university applied to
your career (e.g. cancer research, machine learning
in the fashion retail industry, or microfinance for
women in developing countries)
Now, let’s apply them to the structure above:
HERO struggles with CONFLICT and REALIZES she

needs to seek a MENTOR to achieve her GOAL
In this section of 1-2 paragraphs, you tell the very quick

story of how you came to be where you are at this moment,
applying to graduate school. You introduce some poignant
moment of reflection in your life. This cannot be a paragraph
of generalities. Instead, it should tell of a specific time and
place. It should show you experiencing a troubling moment,
and thus highlight why you NEED a mentor to accomplish
your goals. Think of a movie scene. It probably shouldn’t be
too dramatic, but it should contain all of the above elements,
even if only briefly.
Example:
Among international students in the U.S., it is a

common joke that “we can’t afford to be ill.” I learned
this myself during freshman year, when a viral infection
required an emergency room trip. It wasn’t a complicated
procedure, and I was home in a matter of hours. In
fact, the virus was much less harrowing than paying for
my treatment, a torturous, year-long process of back-
and-forth between the hospital which was never able to
accept my insurance, a physician who demanded separate
payment, and an aggressive debt collector who made
veiled threats. The total amount was $1,008 dollars.
I remember it clearly. I paid it in cash, bewildered and
aggravated.
The real problem for international students is not

whether we can afford healthcare, but whether we can
efficiently utilize the American system.This is a genuine
problem. Social demographics are changing worldwide.
Immigrant communities don’t stop growing.Thus, this is
not merely a personal affair, but also a risk issue which
needs to be addressed by service providers and their
international counterparts. That’s exactly why I seek to
study at Columbia: I want to play a role in improving
this system, both here in America, and in Germany, my
home.
2. Why This Program
HERO proves why this UNIQUE PROGRAM is the right

MENTOR for her and her GOAL
This section of 1-2 paragraphs details how your chosen

graduate PROGRAM will help you resolve the conflict from
Section 1. It will list all of the wonderful details about the
PROGRAM that make it unique and better for you than
other programs. These details will be specifically related to
you obtaining your ultimate goal.
Please, please note that I’m capitalizing “program” and not
writing “graduate school” in general. To convince your
mentor to take you as an apprentice, you need to show them
that you’re a worthy investment of their time. Do you think
MIT will take a student who just needs a general education in
computer science (one that they could get from any university,
or worse, online, for free)? Not a chance!
They’re looking for a student who has explored every

possible nuance of their unique Computation for Design
and Optimization program. They want students who already
know which classes they’ll take, which professors they’ll work
with, and what topic they’ll pursue in their capstone project.
These are the details which convince the university that
you’re going to be a 100% guaranteed success.
Example:
The Technology, Innovation, and Education program

at Harvard seems tailor made for my goal: to create
technology that makes education more effective, efficient
and engaging. This is the future of global education,
both for privileged urbanites, and those rural children
close to my heart. I am excited by the prospect of
coursework such as Transforming Education Through
Emerging Technologies with professor Christopher
Dede, for it shows how Harvard students fill the gaps
between emerging technologies and humanist ideals. I’m
particularly keen to explore the impact of social issues
(especially gender) in curriculum design, because these
issues are doubly raw in developing South America.The
TIE internship program will also be important for me.As
a Marketing major with sparse teaching experience (at
least compared to Education undergraduates), working
at the Boston Museum of Science or at Walden Media
will give me a clearer understanding of how educational
technologies work in real students’ hands.
HERO proves why she’s QUALIFIED to receive MENTOR’S

guidance
This section will take 1-2 paragraphs, or 3 if you’re a PhD

applicant who needs to explain some previous research
experience in depth. Basically, you’re showing how you’ve
prepared for this great challenge by working your butt off
in undergrad, or in your career, earning excellent grades,
professional honors, etc.
It’s a CV, of sorts. But don’t make the terrible mistake of

listing EVERY tiny detail from your past. Save that for your
actual CV. Trust me, they’ll find it. Instead, focus on the
MOST RELEVANT highlights from your career. Discuss
the obstacles you’ve conquered, those which prove you’re
ready to succeed in this great new journey. Then state clearly
how they’ll launch you into the future. (This is a statement of
PURPOSE, after all, not a statement of history).
It’s also advisable for many PhD applicants to discuss in detail
their proposed project, and illustrate precisely where their
work fits within the existing literature. Such students need to
explain why they, and only they, have the skills to complete
this project.
This doesn’t need to be a comprehensive review of the

literature. Instead, it should explain something like: “While
most scholars of this topic have done X, I propose that we
can’t understand X without Y.” It should not be incredibly
detailed, but it will show that you have some awareness of
the project in a greater whole. (credit to Reddit user psstein for
making this insightful point)
Also, stay on topic. If you’re applying to a program in

Computer Science, don’t talk about your impressive honors
in debate competition, or your track record fighting for the
rights of Japanese carp. Instead, focus exclusively on your
CS-major GPA, the extra graduate-level data science courses
you took, and your research experience studying initial
vector generation in cryptography. And please refrain from
explaining what “initial vector generation in cryptography”
means. They’re computer science professors. They know.
Don’t try to teach your teachers.
Example:
Of course, the program will be a great challenge, but I feel

my professional and academic backgrounds have prepared
me to face it head on. Majoring in mathematics at New
York University gave me a solid foundation in computer
science, from simple sums to complex algorithms, such
as Bayesian Optimization and Dijkstra’s Algorithm. I
gained a thorough understanding of how mathematical
reasoning provides insights through modeling, and
how to program machines that process large quantities
of real-time data. Moreover, I was honored to deepen
these interests last summer while interning with Dr.
Ryu Tanaka in the Big Data Research Program at
Tokyo Institute of Technology. In this program, I
focused primarily on large-scale dataset processing and
extraction, and the experience was both fascinating and
rewarding. Swimmingly, I was in my element when
tweaking algorithms to optimize data processing, because
for the first time, the pure math that I’d studied as an
undergraduate became applicable. At the same time, as I
considered the relevance of these concepts to the surgical
processes of medical cosmetology, I became certain of my
desire and readiness to expand my education into more
varied areas of computer science.
Firm declaration that MENTOR’S guidance + HERO’s hard

work will allow HERO to conquer MONSTERS and give
their MAGICAL GIFT to the world
In this section, you’ll briefly (BRIEFLY!) return to the frame

narrative from Section 1. One sentence, that’s all. Then you’ll
affirm that if they offer you admission, you’re going to work
hard, make them proud, then move on to face real monsters,
conquer your career, and in the end, make the world just a
tiny bit better.
Example:
International education is booming in China. It is said

that more than twenty international school brands are
looking to establish campuses there by 2020. I look
forward to making a difference in this significant period
of China’s education history by pursuing my own
education at JHU, and thus furthering my commitment
to the students who have given my life its greatest
purpose.
Conclusion

2. Why This Program
This 4-part structure has served hundreds of my students

extremely well. They’ve earned admission to graduate
programs in the best universities in America. The devil is in
the details, of course. You’ll have to revise multiple drafts.
You’ll have to tell your one-of-a-kind story in a readable,
authentic way. But if you take this magical structure and
work hard with it, I promise you’ll give yourself the best
possible chance of convincing your mentor to take you on.
Then, when you earn that glittering email that starts out
“Congratulations, hero…” please let me know about your
success. I love a good story about a young hero who goes out
and conquers the world.
Chapter 2
Why the Standard Script

is Completely Wrong
There’s a lot of bad advice out there on the Internet. Most of

it is well-intentioned. Most of it tells you WHAT to include
in a successful SOP, but none (that I’ve seen) tells you HOW
to do so in a convincing way.
Some of this bad advice even comes from directors of graduate

admissions at great universities. They’ll tell you clearly what
they’re looking for, though usually in vague, inscrutable terms:
“Show evidence that the applicant has thoroughly and

carefully researched the program.”
“Illustrate how it’s a mutually beneficial fit, and draw
clear connections between the degree and your future
goals.”
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“Don’t forget to clearly outline what you are willing to
commit to the program.”
This advice is correct, sure. But, it’s still bad. What does this
stuff even mean? How do we know that we’ve drawn a clear
connection between the degree and our goals? What exactly
AM I willing to commit to the program? Time? Money? My
hairline? Years of my life?
“Why didn’t school ever teach me to write this way?!” you

might scream.
The problem isn’t that the advice is bad. It’s not that it tells
you to do the wrong thing. The problem is that the people
giving this advice aren’t writers. They’re professors and
administrative pencil pushers (or worse, companies selling
GRE classes). They know what schools are looking for, but
don’t know HOW TO TEACH YOU to conjure that magic
out of the air.
Even worse, they all seem hell-bent on forcing you to use the
same old, horrendous SOP outline that’s bored admissions
readers for years. It looks a little something like this:
1st paragraph: Overarching statement of goals

2nd paragraph: Explanation of why you’re pursuing this goal
3rd paragraph: Academic/personal survey of the field
4th paragraph: Explanation of why this is the perfect program
5th paragraph: Summary of SOP
At first glance, this looks somewhat similar to the hero’s
journey structure we’ve studied thus far, doesn’t it? It has a lot
of similar pieces. Goals.Why this is the perfect program.Yet, if
we look a little closer, we can understand why this tired, old
structure is a terrible way to convince anyone that you’re an
academic superstar.
The Curse of Academic Writing
Notice how the structure above is only five paragraphs? Notice

how it begins with an introduction, provides some evidence, and
ends with a conclusion? Looks suspiciously familiar, doesn’t it?
It should, because it’s basically the same argumentative

structure taught to 8th graders all over the world. Which isn’t
to say it’s a bad structure - it’s the foundation for all forms of
written logic and debate. It’s just not appropriate for our task.
Of course, all of us SHOULD learn to write these papers.You

can’t get As in undergrad without them. What universities
don’t tell you, however, or perhaps what they don’t even
know, is that this essay template is virtually useless outside the
hallowed halls of academia.
Sure, it teaches you to think clearly (in some capacity). But

the fact remains that Introduction-Evidence-Conclusion is the
structure of academic research writing. It has little to do with any
other form of writing, and nothing at all to do with the style
of good application essays, which we call Creative Nonfiction or
Persuasive Nonfiction.
Yet, there is a definite reason why our universities focus so
much on this structure. The 5-paragraph template that you
learn in high school grows over time, gaining complexity as
students pass through undergrad, until it reaches its highest
form: research papers published by professors in peer-reviewed
journals like Nature and the Journal of Advertising Research.
That’s right: after 16 years of education, chances are you only

learned how to write like a stodgy professor.
And have you ever read these journals? They’re not exactly
paragons of clarity and heart. In fact, they’re purposefully
vague and evasive. Research writing is a technical skill, like
learning to compose a balance sheet or a legal brief. It lives
within the ream of logic, and any storyteller or advertiser will
tell you that logic is a terrible way to make someone to feel
a strong emotion, or convince them to take action. Instead,
research writing is intended to be an info dump for other
researchers to parse.
Unfortunately, this is a reflection of the terrible state of writing

education in our Western system. Except for creative writing
and journalism students, or those who study in the last few
remaining great books/liberal arts programs, virtually no one
leaves undergrad with any writing experience beyond these
passionless term papers. No one learns how to write persuasively,
or in a way that captivates readers’ hearts and minds.
If they did, we wouldn’t have a copywriting industry which

I once saw described as “a $50 billion industry where you’ll
find plenty of work and no competition.” Nor would we have
astoundingly greedy Top-5 business schools leaping to charge
thousands of dollars for overblown sales-writing courses,
while Udemy offers better courses for less than twenty bucks.
It’s kind of appalling.
Yet at the same time, it’s a glittering opportunity for you.
Step Away from the Herd
In my experience, around 80% of applicants will write first

drafts that resemble dull research papers. They state a claim
like “My objective is to earn a PhD in social anthropology,”
then present a lifeless sequence of “evidence” that makes the
author seem invisible.
And therein lies the great mistake in following the standard

SOP template: it makes you invisible.
Let’s think about this from the perspective of the reader. If you
follow the conventional wisdom, then your first paragraph will
present an overarching statement of goals alongside a personal
history. Since you and every other applicant are applying to
the same program, however, everyone has the exact same goal.To
the professors and administrators reading the SOPs, everyone’s
first paragraph looks, sounds, and feels exactly the same.
In fact, if you Google “successful graduate SOP examples,”

the first website will show you essays that begin with obvious
statements like: I am applying to XYZ University’s doctoral program
in Economics in pursuit of a career in academic research.
“Oh really?” thinks the sarcastic admissions reader. “That’s

what you’re doing? I never would have guessed!”
Others will give a chronological summary of all the music,

mathematical formulas, or foreign authors they’ve studied.
“Surprise, surprise!” thinks the bored professor. “An applicant

to a music composition program has studied music theory.
I’m astonished!”
In ultra-competitive grad school admissions, it’s probably

not a great idea to emphasize how you’re exactly the same as
everyone else. Nor is it particularly useful when a professor
skims past your first paragraph because she already knows
what it says (she’s read it five hundred times before, after all).
Next, the conventional wisdom tells you to provide an

explanation of why you’re pursuing this blatantly obvious
goal. Again, however, the reader already knows what you’re
going to say, because everyone has the exact same reasons for
applying.You all want a better job. It doesn’t really matter how
you phrase it, because that’s the truth. Maybe you’re changing
careers. Maybe you want to be a professional researcher. But
you’re still lobbying for the same career path that everyone
else is fighting for. It’s all just variations on the same theme.
Congratulations. If you’ve followed the conventional wisdom

thus far, then now you’re just another faceless member of the
herd. You’re a vague shadow identifiable only by your GPA,
alma mater, and GRE score.
Next, you’re told to provide a survey of the academic field. It

doesn’t matter that after nearly a page of writing, the reader
knows nothing unique about you. It’s more important, says the
common wisdom, to show that you possess an understanding
of the discipline.
But all good applicants possess this understanding. It’s a

REQUIREMENT. By expounding vague generalities about
the field, you’re not showing that you’re BETTER than other
applicants, you’re emphasizing that you have THE SAME
basic understanding that EVERYONE has.
Though well-intentioned, the standard SOP template is a poor

way to show that you’re a champion. It’s an act of conformity.
It sounds like a lifeless research paper, and it guarantees that
the reader forgets you the second they set the essay down.
Is that what you want? To be forgotten? To be a faceless

member of the herd? To be the literary equivalent of a “grad
student” emoji?
Or would you prefer to be a brilliant human being, a luminous

character so bursting with life that professors remember you
long, long after they smirk and write that green check mark
on your file?
You are not a research subject. Don’t write your SOP as if
you were. Instead, write a story about a hero. Because, in your
heart, you know that’s exactly what you are.
Now, let’s build an SOP Script that ensures you succeed in

this grand endeavor where so many others fail.
Chapter 3
Pre-Writing:
Finding Your Frame
Narrative
Before you begin outlining your SOP Script, you need to

find your frame narrative. This is a story from your own life
that’s relevant to your ultimate GOAL. Don’t worry about
writing out that goal just yet. Instead, just go by feeling.Think
of a story, a moment in your life, when something happened
that was meaningful, possibly inspirational, and that illustrates
why you want to go to graduate school.
For example, if you’re applying to an M.S. in Criminology, you

might remember the time when your Guatemalan immigrant
father was robbed at gunpoint in his charming store in New
York City and your family was devastated for days.
31
If you’re applying for an M.Ed. in Rural Education, you
might contemplate a particularly quirky and hardworking
student you taught as a high school science teacher in your
tiny Montana hometown.
Things should be a little different, however, if you’re applying

to a more academically rigorous, research-based program.
This includes all Ph.D. programs as well as research-oriented
STEM master’s degrees. SOPs for such programs require a
tight academic focus. Your frame narrative should thus deal
directly with your intellectual niche.
For example, if you’re a computer scientist, you might consider

the exact moment in the lab, late at night, just before the
coronavirus epidemic began, when you realized how much you
enjoyed machine learning in forecasting and anomaly detection.
If you’re a hopeful cell biologist, you might describe the

weather on the day when you co-presented a paper on stem-
cell activation at the World Congress for Hair Research.
Pro Tip:
NEVER choose a frame narrative that tells how much you
loved science, reading, or mathematics as a kid. That’s
astoundingly cliché, and it makes you look like a fool.
Let’s walk you through an example. I’m a book nerd, and if I

were applying to an M.A. in Comparative Literature, I might
tell the story of a single night when I was a senior in college.
That night I’d ensconced myself in a carrel deep in the bowels
of my university’s oldest, mustiest library. At the time I was
taking a class called “Poetics of Ecstasy,” and my reading
assignment was a collection titled The Erotic Spirit, edited by
the great Sam Hamill. While reading, I came across a poem
titled “Bamboo Mat” by the 12th-century Chinese poet,Yuan
Zhen, and immediately, the poem hit me like a gunshot. In
only twenty-two words, it conveyed a wistful depth of silence
that overwhelmed me. It was a poem of love lost, tight and
haunting, that rang true over a millennium later, and even
despite translation from Ancient Chinese, to Modern Chinese,
to English.Yet, what struck me most was how similar it was to
the best country music I’d grown up singing as a child. “This
guy,” I thought to myself, “could sit beside Hank Williams in
a bar and they’d stagger out later, best friends.”
“This is why I seek to study in the M.A. program in

Comparative Literature at Princeton University,” I might
write. “To probe the haunting way lyrical structures transcend
time and language.”
Make sense? This wasn’t the exact moment that I (or fictional
me, at least) chose to go to graduate school. But it was a
moment that perfectly illustrates WHY I want to be a
graduate student now. It was a moment of epiphany and pure
intellectual curiosity, and it allowed me to express my ultimate
GOAL in a unique way. It’s not a comprehensive history of my
literary studies, but a singular moment that showed the result
of all those studies, a moment when my education acquired a
dazzling higher purpose.
Pro Tip:
Include as much detail as possible in your frame narrative.
When reading my fictional example above, you quickly
comprehend my intellectual curiosities without me ever
having to declare them in a blunt, forceful way. Old, musty
library. Poetics of Ecstasy. The Erotic Spirit. Sam Hamill.
Bamboo Mat. 12th-century Chinese poet, Yuan Zhen.
Country music. Singing. Hank Williams. Even if you just read
a LIST of those details, you’d understand everything about
my academic goals. Most importantly, a professor reading
that story will understand immediately that I am just like
him, that we have the same academic interests. Strive for
the same degree of detail in your story.
GOALS and OBJECTIVES
In the example above, the final sentence reads: “to probe the
haunting way lyrical structures transcend time and language.”
This is my academic GOAL. My statement of purpose, if
you will.
Later in the essay, I will express this goal even more clearly:
to study translation/interpretation of classical Chinese poetry.
For now, however, I don’t need to worry about stating
things so bluntly. This is because I’ve already established my
intellectual curiosities through a highly detailed story. Readers
automatically believe good stories. They trust the storyteller,
and trust their purpose.
Imagine if I’d started the essay in the conventional “statement
of objective” style. Imagine if my very first sentence read:“My
objective is to study translation and interpretation of classical
Chinese poetry.”
Sounds a bit robotic, no?
If you sent an essay like that, the sarcastic admissions reader

would immediately skim to the second paragraph. “Duh,”
they’d think. “Of course that’s your objective. We’re a
Comparative Literature department specializing in classical
poetry. What else would your objective be?”
Now, the admissions reader thinks I’m dull. Now, I’m digging
myself out of a hole. Now, I’m just another bland, faceless
student begging for acceptance without having earned it
through a curious, thought-provoking story.
If you were a professor of classical Chinese poetry, which

student would you prefer? The one who says, “I want to study
classical Chinese poetry?” Or the one who says, “My whole
life changed one dark night in the library when the Tang
Dynasty poet Yuan Zhen taught me how lyricism transcends
oceans of time?”
If you were a professor specializing in rural education, would

you be more interested in meeting the student who says, “I
want to earn a Ph.D. in rural education?” Or the student
who says, “My whole life changed in a former logging
camp in Northern Montana, when my 4.0 biology student,
Eliza Dunwiddie, daughter of a lumberjack, became the
first graduate in the high school’s history to earn a college
scholarship.”
Stories. They have a power.
Call to Action
Alright. Have a frame narrative in mind? Maybe a few? Good.

Start jotting your stories down. I want you to spend at least
10 minutes writing down all the ideas you have racing around
in your head. Usually, this isn’t very difficult. Most students
come to this process with ideas fairly well formed.
If you can’t think of any good possibilities for a frame narrative,

however, don’t worry too much. In Appendix A you’ll find
multiple sample essays which should prove inspirational.They
represent a wide variety of academic fields, from machine
learning to health administration to educational technology.
They’ll show you how a frame narrative can often seem dry
on the surface (I’m looking at you, data science students), but
work decisively when they adhere to the building blocks of
the hero’s journey: hero, conflict, goal.
When you’re done, we’ll start building your SOP Script. First,
we’ll analyze your story ideas to make sure they have all the
elements of a successful hero’s journey. Then, we’ll answer a
series of questions to make sure that our entire SOP is as
thorough and convincing as possible.
Chapter 4
The SOP Script
When you’re confused, create an SOP Script. It’s an outline

I’ve already constructed for you. It includes a series of specific
questions that extract all the information you need to write a
fantastic SOP. All you have to do is work your way through,
answer each question honestly and thoughtfully, and in the
end you’ll have the skeleton of a beautiful essay.
Go ahead and take a look at the SOP Script on the next page.
Before you dive in to creating your own, however, I first want
to walk you through the questions. In the following section,
I’ll show you how I created my own SOP Script. Then I’ll
show you the first-draft SOP it generated.
Let’s get started.
37
SOP Script
Section 1: Introductory Frame Narrative
1. Who is the HERO?

2. What is the intellectual CONFLICT that you
intend to resolve by studying in graduate school?
3. When was a MOMENT when you struggled with
this conflict?
4. What is your ultimate GOAL?
5. Are you certain that your target program will help
you resolve this CONFLICT and achieve your
GOAL?
Section 2: Why This Program
1. Which 1-2 courses in the program excite you most

because they’ll help you achieve your GOAL? How
so?
2. Which professors do you look forward to working
with because they share the same GOAL? How so?
3. Which cocurricular opportunities (internships,
externships, etc.) will help you achieve your GOAL?
How so?
4. How is this program different from similar programs
at other universities? What makes it uniquely
important for you?
Section 3: Why I’m (Overly) Qualified
1. What was your undergrad GPA? Your major GPA?

Do these show that you worked hard?
2. Did you do any relevant research or independent
studies? How were these related to your GOAL (or
your proposed PhD project)?
3. Did you receive any official academic honors which
prove how disciplined a student you are?
4. Did you take any relevant graduate-level coursework?
5. Have you had any relevant internships or professional
experiences which were related to your GOAL?
How were they successful?
Section 4: Closing Frame Narrative
1. Are you ready to begin this new academic journey?

2. Does your academic and professional background
prove that you’re ready?
3. If admitted to the program, will you work hard and
prove your worth?
4. If admitted to the program, will it help you move
forward in pursuit of your GOAL?
Chapter 5
Turn Your Script

Into an SOP
To give you a better idea of how we turn an SOP Script into

a complete, dynamic SOP, I’m going to walk you through an
example. The following script is one I might compose myself
if were applying to the Master of Arts program in Comparative
Literature at the University of Chicago.
In order to compile this SOP Script, I spent about 10 minutes

Googling. After deciding that the Chicago program was
suitable, I spent about 20 minutes on the department website
searching for information uniquely relevant to me. In the
next few pages, you’ll notice a professor who I describe in
great detail and who seems amazingly perfect for me. Don’t
tell anyone, but…I’d never heard of him before today.
40
After the script, I will show you how these answers come
together in my (fictional) SOP. This is a first draft, and it took
about 30 minutes to write. Mostly this involved copying and
pasting answers from the SOP Script, editing the language, and
ensuring the logical flow of transitions between paragraphs.
Sample SOP Script
Section 1: Introductory Frame Narrative
1. Who is the HERO?
Me, a writer with an interest in East Asian literature.
2. What is the intellectual CONFLICT that you

intend to resolve by studying in graduate school?
What is the artistic element that gets preserved when

poetry is translated or interpreted into foreign languages?
Why does a great deal of classical Chinese poetry sound
so similar to modern American folk music? Why are Ezra
Pound’s interpretations of classical Chinese poetry still
considered masterpieces, even though he could neither
read nor speak Chinese?
3. When was a MOMENT when you encountered

this conflict?
That quiet night during my final semester of college,

when I discovered “Bamboo Mat” by Yuan Zhen, in a
collection titled The Erotic Spirit by Sam Hamill.
4. What is your ultimate GOAL?
To understand how lyricism transcends time, language,

and culture.
5. Are you certain that your target program will help
you resolve this CONFLICT and achieve your
GOAL?
Yes, particularly because of Dr. Haun Saussy, whose

primary teaching and research interests include classical
Chinese poetry and commentary, literary theory, the
comparative study of oral traditions, and the problems of
translation.
Section 2: Why This Program
1. Which 1-2 courses in the program excite you most

because they’ll help you achieve your GOAL? How
so?
27000 Historicizing Desire: This course examines

conceptions of desire in ancient China and ancient
Greece through an array of early philosophical, literary,
historical, legal, and medical texts (e.g., Sima Qian,
Mencius, Book of Songs, Plato, Sappho).
CMLT 30610 - The Task of the Self Translator: Can the

author betray herself in the act of translation? This seminar
will examine the self-translator as a figure who challenges
conventional models of translation and cross-cultural
circulation. We will read classical texts in translation
theory, recent work thematizing self-translation, and
literature written by bilingual authors and constituted by
self-translation.
These two courses seem particularly interesting not
because they’re survey courses of classical Chinese
literature, but because they dive deeply into the cultural
problems of translation, and emphasizes cross-cultural
similarities and differences. They seem to begin with
the assumption that something vital is preserved in
translation, while considering the technical aspects of
what is lost.
2. Which professors do you look forward to working

with because they share the same GOAL? How so?
Professor Haun Saussy. There might be no other

professor in the world more perfectly suited to helping
me explore my strange niche within comparative
poetry. His first book, The Problem of a Chinese Aesthetic
(Stanford UP, 1993) has shaped the foundation of my
questions regarding Tang Dynasty poetry. It examines
the tradition of commentary that has grown up around
the early Chinese poetry collection Shi jing (known
in English as the Book of Songs), raising questions
of intercultural hermeneutics, the theory of figural
language, and the relation between literature and
philosophy.
While engagement with China is primary, Professor

Saussy recognizes that understanding any culture arises
from comparison with other times, places, belief-systems,
political orders, and forms of communication.
3. Which cocurricular opportunities (internships,
externships, etc.) will help you achieve your
GOAL? How so?
Not too much, to be honest. The MAPH Internships

program might provide some interesting opportunities
to work with contemporary literature in translation,
particularly with The Chicago Review literary magazine,
which has published translated Chinese poetry as recently
as 2018. But again, it’s not that important.
4. How is this program different from similar

programs at other universities? What makes it
uniquely important for you?
The most obvious benefit is that this is a master’s

program. Most other graduate programs in Comparative
Literature are solely Ph.D. programs (the department will
know this, so I may not need to say it outright). Others
restrict their master’s programs to BA/MA students. It
also provides easy access to cross-disciplinary Creative
Writing coursework, as well as the Two-Year Language
Option which would allow me to spend extra time
honing my Chinese translation skills (which is truly a
lifelong pursuit).
Section 3: Why I’m (Overly) Qualified
1. What was your undergrad GPA? Your major GPA?

Do these show that you worked hard?
While double-majoring in Economics and English (with

a focus in poetry writing), I maintained a 3.9 English
major GPA. This included taking 4 more literature/
writing workshops than necessary to complete my major.
(Note to self: do NOT mention Econ major GPA, which
was awful, nor how much you loathe economics to this
day.)
2. Did you do any relevant research or independent

studies? How were these related to your GOAL (or
your proposed PhD project)?
In 2004, I spent a summer in London researching

representations of the city in its poetry across a 300-year
period, and in 2005 completed a substantial thesis under
the guidance of Professor Bernard Hopkins.
3. Did you receive any official academic honors

which prove how disciplined a student you are?
National English Honor Society. A paper on Yeats’s

aesthetics accepted to the honor society’s national
convention. Grad school “Outstanding Academic Paper”
award for my MFA thesis on magical realism as a function
of language.
4. Did you take any relevant graduate-level coursework?
Not as an undergraduate, but I earned my MFA in

Creative Writing in Hong Kong where my reading
consisted primarily of transnational writers and writing
in translation.
5. Have you had any relevant internships or

professional experiences which were related to
your GOAL? How were they successful?
Founder and Managing Editor of a literary magazine

which published Chinese poetry in translation. Many
years of experience working as a musician and creative
writing teacher in Asia. Trilingual in English, Spanish,
and Chinese. Co-authored a Chinese-language guide
to college application essays in 2011 (the most difficult
translation/editing task I’ve ever undertaken).
Section 4: Closing Frame Narrative
1. Are you ready to begin this new academic journey?
Yes. Absolutely. Now more than ever.
2. Does your academic and professional background

prove that you’re ready?
My history as a student, writer, and editor prove that I’m

more than ready.
3. If admitted to the program, will you work hard
and prove your worth?
Just as hard as I’ve worked at everything else.
4. If admitted to the program, will it help you move

forward in pursuit of your GOAL?
ONLY this program will help me move toward my goal

of understanding lyricism and aesthetics in translation.
Without this program, I could never achieve my goal.
My SOP
One night in the spring of 2005, I’d ensconced myself in a
carrel deep in the bowels of my university’s oldest, mustiest
library. At the time I was taking a class called “Poetics of
Ecstasy,” and my reading assignment for the evening was a
collection titled The Erotic Spirit, edited by the great Sam
Hamill. While reading, I came across a poem titled “Bamboo
Mat” by the 12th-century Chinese poet, Yuan Zhen, and
immediately, the poem hit me like a gunshot. In only twenty-
two translated words, it conveyed a wistful depth of silence
that overwhelmed me. It was a poem of love lost, tight and
haunting, that rang true over a millennium later, despite
permutation from Ancient Chinese, to Modern Chinese, to
English. Yet, what struck me most about this poem was how
similar it was to the best country music I’d grown up singing
as a child. “This guy,” I thought to myself, “could sit beside
Hank Williams in a tavern and they’d stagger out later, best
friends.”
This epiphany stayed with me in the years that followed, as

I moved to China to study the language and its literature.
It remained in the back of my mind as I performed music
in bilingual bands, as I taught poetry writing to students for
whom English was their second or third language, and as I
earned my MFA in Fiction under global award-winning,
Chinese diaspora authors from Hong Kong, Canada, the US,
and Malaysia. Even today, Yuan Zhen’s twenty-two words
(or twenty Chinese characters) resonate in the back of my
mind, and this is why I seek to study in the MAPH program
in Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago: to
probe the haunting way lyrical structures transcend time and
language.
Perhaps no graduate program in the world is more uniquely

suited to helping me explore this niche within comparative
poetry. Certainly, coursework like 27000 - Historicizing Desire
and CMLT 30610 - The Task of the Self Translator will be vital
as I begin to understand what Professor Haun Saussy referred
to as “the other side of allegory” in his foundational text, The
Problem of a Chinese Aesthetic. Such courses seem particularly
interesting not because they are surveys of East Asian literature,
but because they dive deeply into the kind of hermeneutics
most often reserved for the Western canon. At the same time,
the MAPH program is one of only a few autonomous master’s
degrees in comparative literature in America, and the only one
with a Two-Year Language Option that would allow me to
continue studying Ancient Chinese as part of my individual
curriculum. Most importantly, however, is the opportunity to
study under Dr. Saussy himself. Knowing that I will be able
to take his course, Exploratory Translation, this fall, and having
already communicated with him about the parameters of a
potential thesis on Shi-form Tang Dynasty poetry, I am certain
that the University of Chicago is the only place where I can
achieve my goals in comparative poetry and linguistics.
Perfect as the opportunity may seem, however, the task of

studying ancient Chinese literature can never be easy. Yet
academic challenges like this have always inspired my best
work. As an undergraduate English major at the University of
Virginia, I maintained a 3.9 major GPA even as I took four
extra classes to complete a specialization in poetry writing,
all while double majoring in Economics. During my final
year, I spent a summer researching the poetry of London,
then completed a 40-page honors thesis under the guidance
of Dr. Bernard Hopkins. Another paper, on the evolution of
W.B. Yeats’s aesthetics across his career, was accepted to the
National English Honor Society’s annual convention, where I
spoke on a panel dedicated to Irish literature.
This dedication to research and writing accompanied me

throughout my career in China, even as I returned to my
roots as an MFA student exploring the lyricism of my mother
tongue. Curiously, my inclination toward prosody and oral
traditions rose again while writing my critical thesis, and
the paper, a linguistic examination of magical realism, was
honored as the English Department’s singular “Outstanding
Academic Paper” for the year 2015, and was subsequently
published in The Writers Chronicle.
Now, I hope to return my focus to the literature which first

inspired me to travel the world, to dwell in a culture and
country I’ve come to see as my second home, and to study
a language whose puzzles are marvelous and neverending. If
given the opportunity to enroll in the MAPH program at the
University of Chicago, I will work hard to be a credit to the
institution, and to make every contribution possible to our
understanding of this ancient poetry which is as powerful and
haunting today as it’s ever been.
How to Edit, Revise, and Recycle for Other
Graduate Schools
This first draft naturally totaled 796 words. That’s a good

number. This means it will easily fit the 1,000-word limit for
the Chicago program, and it will also be easy to edit down for
other programs which have a 750-word limit.
Since my first two paragraphs (Section 1) are somewhat bulky,

I’d probably focus on editing these down if the word limit
requires it. I might even delete the second paragraph entirely,
or condense it and move it to Section 3.
In Section 2, I quoted the professor whose work is perfectly

suited to my own. I found this quotation in about 3 minutes
after searching Google Books. Honestly, this quote isn’t even
that relevant, and the professor himself would probably read it
and realize that I wasn’t making much sense.Thus, if this were
a real essay, I’d probably skim the professor’s book and find
something that is 100% accurate. If this degree of planning
and research seems like overkill to you, then you probably
aren’t suited for high-level graduate studies.
In Section 3, I mentioned that I have “already communicated

with [the professor] about the parameters of a potential
thesis.” Obviously, this isn’t true. But if I were applying to the
program, you can certainly bet that I WOULD do this. Being
a top candidate, after all, means preparing as thoroughly as
possible.
Were this a Ph.D. application (most likely with a 1,000-word
limit), I’d expand Section 2 or 3 to include a clear research
proposition. As mentioned in Chapter 1, that statement would
look something like this:
“While most scholars of this topic have done X, I propose

that we can’t understand X without Y.”
Thus, I might write:
“While most scholars of Tang Dynasty poetry focus on the

tonalism and meter inherent to the Chinese language (which
cannot be preserved in translation), I propose that it’s equally
valuable to parse the imagism that persists through translation
and interpretation, such as in Ezra Pound’s seminal collection,
Cathay.”
Finally, it’s easy to see how I might recycle this essay for
other programs. I’d only have to revise Section 2 (Why This
Program) to include suitable information for each target
school. After doing this once, it’s incredibly easy to rinse,
recycle, and repeat.
Chapter 6
Common Problems and

How to Fix Them
When I review students’ essays, many of them have the exact

same problems. Business students often have trouble figuring
out why one school is different from another (except in terms
of prestige). International applicants nearly always write long,
wordy, dry paragraphs. When composing frame narratives,
social science scholars tell vague, lifeless stories that aren’t
really stories at all, and engineers write 800 words explaining
every detail of every project they’ve ever worked on, without
indicating what they want to do in the future.
And don’t get me started on medical school applicants. If

you’d seen some of the first drafts I’ve seen, you’d understand
why average acceptance rates are 7% and dropping and every
year.
54
Luckily however, these problems seem to occur in patterns.
If you can locate the pattern, you can easily fix your essay. It’s
not rocket surgery. It’s just good writing.
The following 7 problems represent the responses I most

often give to students after reading their first drafts. After each,
I’ll show you an example, and tell you how to execute a fix.
1. “Your first paragraph is not a frame narrative”
This is a problem that most often occurs with STEM

students. Typically, they’ve had little writing experience in
college beyond academic research. That is, nothing beyond
Introduction - Evidence - Conclusion. They don’t quite grasp
the nuances of logic and emotion that go into a well-crafted
story. Often it seems like they have all the right pieces in their
head, but stop short of actually writing them on the page.
Here’s an example:
While developing simulation software for industrial

robots at TechLine Co., I found computer vision
an essential element for a smart assembly line. The
robotic systems in a so-called smart factory must
make decisions to pick-and-place objects and detect
flaws in piles of products. Tasks such as dynamic
object reconstruction and 3D computer vision are
challenging in practice, however. The robotic systems’
decision-making process only functions under certain
circumstances. These problems compel me to enroll in
the Master’s Program in Robotic Systems Engineering
at Georgia Tech.
Notice that cringe-y moment that occurs just as you begin

reading the final sentence? That’s the feeling of a shattered
story, of a busted plot, of logic swirling down the drain. The
author has (pedantically) explained a problem, but not how it
affected her.
In drafts like this, the writer forgets that the essay is about
YOU. To be a story, it must have a character, and a conflict. In
the example above we have a conflict, but no character.
This example would work fine if the author added another

sentence or two that showed her STRUGGLING with the
problem. For example:
“I wrestled with this problem so often during the

last year that eventually I realized the problem
wasn’t in the software at all, but in the hardware.
I have much experience with AI, but little with
robot construction, and it is this problem that
compels me to enroll in the master’s program in
Robotic Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. I
want to build smart assembly lines whose decision-
making processes function like a symphony.”
How to Fix
A story must have a HERO and a CONFLICT. Ask yourself?

Do we have a hero? Can we see the hero? Do we have a
conflict? Can we see the hero STRUGGLING with the
conflict? We have to see that struggle, or at least, you have to
tell us about it. Just because you have an idea in your head
doesn’t mean it’s obvious on the page.
Remember what a frame narrative is:
HERO struggles with CONFLICT and REALIZES she needs to

seek a MENTOR to achieve her GOAL
When your Introductory Frame Narrative falls flat, it’s

probably because you’re not spending enough time illustrating
your struggle.
2. “Don’t be Captain Obvious” or “Don’t teach the
teacher”
This is the problem I encounter more than any other, and I

suspect it’s present in over 80% of all SOPs submitted to top
universities each year. It looks a little something like this:
In the ORIE program, I will learn from faculty who

are actively shaping the future of Big Data, and master
the intricacies of business analytics, optimal decision-
making and machine learning. I greatly look forward
to the Studio courses, which focus on preparing students
for innovation within major tech companies or startup
ventures. In cross-disciplinary teams, I’ll work with
business, law, and other students to create our own startup
as well as develop usable solutions for real corporations.
Nothing could be more perfect for me.
Sound good to you? It’s got a lot of fancy sentences, right? Well
curiously enough, it’s almost entirely cut-and-pasted from the
Cornell Tech website.This is what we in the editorial industry
call “fluff,” and what high school students call “bullshit.”
When universities publish course descriptions on their

website, they’re creating a sales tool. They’re trying to attract
students. They’re listing the GENERAL, abstract benefits that
ALL students in the program will receive. Thus, it’s a terrible
idea to repackage those benefits in your own words and repeat
them right back to the university. They know these things
already. They literally published it for you to read, so you can
apply to be THEIR STUDENT. (Cough, cough, don’t teach the
teacher, Captain Obvious.)
Imagine you sat down for a Harvard interview. There’s a

friendly old white-haired man in a lab coat, and he fires up
RStudio on his desktop computer and says:
“We’re so happy you’re interested in us. In this

program, you will gain an understanding of data
management fundamentals as well as the latest
technologies and techniques for the collection,
storage, and analysis of information. Now tell us,
why is this program right for you?”
You smile, smack the arm of your chair, and say: “Why is it
right for me? Because I want to gain an understanding of data
management fundamentals as well as the latest technologies
and techniques for the collection, storage, and analysis of
information.You guys are just perfect for me!”
What does the fine old Harvard gentleman think?
This problem occurs when students don’t actually have good

reasons for applying to a graduate program, or they simply
haven’t done enough research. Usually, they’re only applying
to this school because of ranking, prestige, or some other lazy
man’s metric.
How to Fix
Instead of telling the university the general benefit or

purpose of their program, tell them WHY the program is
INTERESTING to you. Use emotional words. Connect the
course/benefit to your own past experience and future goals.
For example, imagine if our naïve student above responded to

his interview by saying:
“More than anything, I’m fascinated by the

intensity of the Data Science and Systems
course, which seems far more in-depth than the
graduate coursework I took as a college senior.
It’s also uniquely relevant to my career goal in
professional sports analysis, considering that
Professor Hernandez has been a keynote speaker
at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference for the
past two years.”
Remember the framework for Section 2:
HERO proves why this UNIQUE PROGRAM is the right

MENTOR for her and her GOAL
When your Why This Program section seems lifeless, you

probably haven’t connected the program to YOU and YOUR
GOAL. Ask yourself: “Am I describing why the program is
good for all students, or why it’s good for me specifically?”
3. “Too many research details” or “Too much about
the past, not enough about the future”
This is another problem I see very often with STEM students,

but also with the occasional psychology or economics student
who’s done a great deal of undergrad research. It’s as if they
want to prove themselves to their future professors by defining
every minute detail of their research experience. They want
to show how smart and knowledgeable they are.They want to
prove that “I am qualified! I am a part of your tribe!”
Curiously, this doesn’t work at all.
Usually, these students will spend 600 or more words on

Section 3 alone, explaining and defining all the technical jargon
relevant to their work. It’s as if they think the reader can’t
possibly understand their research.
Here’s a short example:
In my most recent project, I was the Lead Engineer

and collaborated with Senior Engineers in developing
magnetic-damping pistons for a car-suspension system.
A suspension system is a set of linkages connecting a
car’s chassis and wheels. It reduces the shock transmitted
from the wheel by offering a degree of relative motion.
Normal suspensions consist of a spring, a damping
piston, and the linkage beams.
Again, it’s a kind of “don’t teach the teacher” moment.
Imagine two engineering professors, Ranajit and Emilia, who
cross paths in the halls of CalTech. “Hey Ranajit,” Emilia says.
“Long time no see. What have you been working on lately?”
“Oh hey Emilia,” Ranajit stammers. “I was just finishing up

the 3D modeling for a magnetic-damping piston system
for car suspensions. A suspension system is a set of linkages
connecting a car’s chassis and wheels. It reduces the shock
transmitted from the wheel by offering a degree of relative
motion.”
What does Emilia think as she stares dull-eyed at Ranajit?
“Uh, I know that, you idiot. I’m a professor at CalTech. Why

are you mansplaining basic engineering to me?”
Over-explaining the technical jargon or details of your

research makes it seem as if you’re still struggling with the
basics yourself, and not contemplating questions for the future.
It shows a lack of awareness. And it’s tedious and boring.
Worst of all, it does not tell us anything about YOU. Graduate

departments aren’t judging the validity of past research.
They’re judging YOUR ability to conduct new research in
the future.
How to Fix
Remember that this is a statement of PURPOSE. We only

discuss the past insofar as it illuminates your potential in the
future. We only discuss your accomplishments if they prove
that you’re qualified to tackle new problems.
Remember the outline of Section 3:
HERO proves why she’s QUALIFIED to receive MENTOR’S

guidance
In this section, you’re not listing entries from your CV (that’s

what the CV is for). Instead, you’re arguing that you’re ready
to take on the new and more complex challenges your mentor
will present in the future.
In the example above, Ranajit would be better off saying

something like this:
“In my most recent project, I worked as Lead

Engineer developing magnetic-damping pistons
for a car-suspension system. The project was
ultimately a success, though most interesting
were the conflicts that arose while dealing with
magnetic contamination and heat generation in
eddy current dampers.”
“Really?” Emilia might say to Ranajit. “What were these

problems? Is this what your new research is going to address?”
When your Why I’m (Overly) Qualified section drags

on in a pedantic, mansplaining way, ask yourself: “Did this
research present any questions that I want to explore in
graduate school?”
If it did present interesting questions, then delete all the
tedious technical stuff and describe those fascinating questions
instead.
If your research did not present interesting questions, but

you feel that mentioning it might be necessary to prove that
you’re qualified for graduate-level research, then you have
two options:
1) Cut the research description down to the shortest, most

basic summary possible, and move all the details to your
CV (where they absolutely belong).
2) Delete the research description entirely. Not everything

from our past belongs in the SOP (though again, it does
belong in the CV).
4. “Delete the abstract qualities”
Very similar to our previous problem, this issue appears in

Section 3 when students feel the need to show off how capable
they are. Personally, I think this is a lingering bad habit from
freshman application essays, when misguided students claim
to possess abstract qualities like leadership, teamwork, and critical
thinking.
Here’s an example:
During my time at the Shreveport Child and Family

Center, I assisted in the collection of EEG and eye-
tracking data from toddlers. The lab allowed me to
develop my skills in organization, communication,
and attention to detail, all qualities I will surely carry
with me to the graduate program in Clinical Psychology
at UCLA.
Let’s get this out of the way right now. Despite what HR
idiots tell you, and despite what you’ve learned from the
goofy resume-consultants in your university Career Services
office, NO ONE ON EARTH OF REASONABLE
INTELLIGENCE cares about abstract qualities like “critical
thinking skills.”
“Oh, you pay attention to detail? Marvelous! So does every

other applicant. What makes you special?”
“Oh, you have excellent communication skills? Then why

does your bland essay prove otherwise?”
“Oh, you have critical thinking skills? Then you probably
ought to prove it, cowboy.”
This introduces the problem of what we call the “epistemology

of bragging.” In a 2012 article, Psychology Today described it
thus:
“The epistemology of bragging refers to the

question of whether something you say about
yourself can be verified or not. How do I know
you’re telling the truth when you claim to have
achieved some great outcome? If you tell me but
don’t give me hard evidence, I have to rely on
your word and your word alone. When bragging
is based on your self-report only, you run the risk
of not being believed.”
The funny thing about this problem is that it only seems to

occur when we make abstract claims. It doesn’t crop up when
we present concrete examples, or pose intelligent questions.
How to Fix
In the practice of writing, we work like demons to eliminate

vague abstractions because they’re meaningless. The term
“critical thinking skills” doesn’t leave an impression in the
mind. It doesn’t convey any real information, and thus sounds
like empty bragging.
Let’s reconsider the example from the previous problem:
“In my most recent project, I developed magnetic-
damping pistons for a car-suspension system, and acquired
the teamwork and research skills required of a graduate
student.”
It’s not easy to believe this author, is it? What if he was actually
the worst member of the team? What if the research was
wholly invalid? Does he even know WHICH research skills
are required of a graduate student? There’s no proof.
“In my most recent project, I worked as Lead Engineer

developing magnetic-damping pistons for a car-suspension
system. The project was ultimately a success, though most
interesting were the conflicts that arose while dealing with
magnetic contamination and heat generation in eddy current
dampers.”
This author sounds like a thinker, doesn’t he? He seems to be

on to something.
When your Why I’m (Overly) Qualified section fills up

with fluffy, unprovable claims, first locate the vague abstractions
and delete them. Then 1) think of concrete details that prove
they’re true, or 2) pose an intellectual question to the reader
that illustrates your ability to think and communicate.
Do NOT, however, circle back to the mistakes from Problem

3 above. The world has too many mansplainers already.
5. “There’s no logical flow”
This problem occurs when applicants think of the four

sections as wholly separate info dumps, and not as Lego
blocks which must fit together. Though we view the SOP as
four unique sections, we cannot treat them as independent.
They’re living, breathing episodes of your journey. They need
to flow naturally from one to the next.
This is actually a somewhat subtle problem that’s often difficult

to explain to applicants with sparse writing experience. Yet,
the problem can often be solved by recycling MadLib-type
sentences at the ends and beginnings of our paragraphs.
In most of the successful SOPs presented in this guide, you’ll

find variations on the following transitional, “roadmap”
sentences:
End of Section 1
This is the question that pushes me to study at [XYZ

University]: so I can learn how to [insert ABC goal].
That’s exactly why I seek to study at [XYZ University]:

I want to play a role in [insert ABC goal].
This is precisely why I seek admission to the Master’s

program in [ABC at XYZ University]: to [insert
ABC goal].
Beginning of Section 2
After a sentence which establishes your GOAL at the end

of Section 1, the first sentence of Section 2 will then flow
naturally into a new line of thought:
The [ABC program at XYZ] seems tailor made for

my goal: to [insert expanded description of goal
which highlights unique program benefits].
The [ABC program in the School of XYZ]

distinguishes itself from other programs by the sheer
uniqueness of its [insert unique program benefit].
The most exciting aspect of the [ABC program at

XYZ] is its strength in [insert unique program
benefit].
After establishing your unique study plan in Section 2, you

need a new signpost indicating that you’re segueing into
proof of your credentials:
Certainly, the program will be a challenge, but luckily

my undergraduate career has prepared me to face it head
on.
Luckily, my education thus far has prepared me to

succeed in this endeavor.
Of course, the program will be a challenge, but I believe
my academic experience thus far has prepared me to
succeed.
Accepting this challenge requires more than blind faith,

however, and fortunately my performance in [XYZ]
thus far indicates my willingness to rise to the occasion.
Honestly, Section 4 has a lot of leeway. You can play around

with it, as long as it refers back to your frame narrative and
your academic goal.
Even so, I know that there is no end to learning, and studying

at [XYZ University] will be a significant step toward
achieving my goal of [insert ABC goal].
In my career, I’ve had the great privilege of [refer back to

frame narrative]. Now, however, I’m ready to take on the
greater challenge of pursuing [insert ABC goal].
With a strong background in [XYZ], and much experience

using [ABC], I am eager to formally study [insert academic
topic] so that I can play a role in [insert ABC goal].
How to Fix
If your draft feels clunky, try recycling one of the above

transitions to help give your paragraphs some logical flow.
Or, an even better solution might be to find an experienced

writer who can give you advice on how to improve your
inter-paragraph transitions.
NOTE OF CAUTION
You should NEVER copy any of the above transitions

word-for-word. In fact, you should NEVER copy any of
the sentences from our sample essays at all. For one thing,
your SOP needs to sound like YOU, and copying other
applicants’ prose is a guaranteed way to sound like a faker.
More importantly however, many universities these days are
extremely good at finding plagiarizers. You can thank the AI
revolution for that.
Copying sentences outright is a fantastic way to get rejected.

Instead, tinker with the phrases. Play around with them.
Reconstruct them in your own voice, and find a good writer
to help you make sure that everything sounds smooth and
copacetic.
6. “Too wordy”
Ah, the devil that hounds us all.
It’s bad enough that we have to construct our SOPs to fit

draconian word limits. Perhaps even worse is the universal
truth that excessive wordiness equals bad writing. (And as you
should know by now, you ARE being judged on your writing
ability.)
Curiously however, I see this problem most often in

international applicants, and North Americans who graduated
from colleges which don’t have very high writing standards
(you’d be surprised - some of these are very “elite” schools).
This problem can take a great many forms.Vague abstractions.

Excessive use of adverbs and prepositional phrases. Even just
good old-fashioned bullshitting.
Most of the time I’ll address this problem with a simple

demand: “Reduce word total by 20%.” And yes, I realize this
isn’t very helpful.
Luckily, the fix is the same in every instance.
How to Fix
Let me introduce you to two great friends, Grammarly and

the Hemingway Editor.
You’re probably already using your word processor’s grammar-
and spell-check function. But they’re not very helpful, are they?
Grammarly is a substantial step up. It will fix your wonky grammar

and highlight ways you can remove a few clunky phrases. Usually,
it will help us knock 10-50 words out of a lengthy SOP. It helps
a great deal more if you buy the premium version.
Hemingway, however, is far better. It doesn’t actually tell us

HOW to fix our wordiest, most offensive sentences. It WILL,
however, highlight (literally) every single sentence in your
draft that needs some work.
While typing the first draft of this chapter, I copied and pasted
the whole thing into Hemingway, and this is what it told me:
51 adverbs. Aim for 43 or fewer.

5 uses of passive voice, meeting the goal of 53 or fewer. (Success!)
18 phrases have simpler alternatives.
34 of 267 sentences are hard to read.
36 of 267 sentences are very hard to read.
In providing this information, Hemingway has highlighted all

of those adverbs, clunky phrases, and opaque sentences with
an easy-to-understand color-coding system. One by one, I
can work my way through and fix the writing until it meets
my word-limit goal.
Best of all, Hemingway is free.
7. “This isn’t an SOP, it’s an autobiography”
All too often, applicants get bogged down in their own

personal history.They forget that the SOP is not a chronology
of the past, but a vivid prediction of the future.
This problem is one that sales professionals often encounter:

confusing “features” and “benefits.” No matter the product,
whether cars, skin cream, or gym memberships, people don’t
make purchases because of features.
No one buys a Mercedes after reading a list of its high-rated

safety features. They buy because they want the aura of being
someone who drives a Mercedes.
No one buys a Crossfit membership after counting the

number of polished barbells in the gym. They buy because
they want to be healthy and strong.
Likewise, universities don’t “buy” students after reading a list

of their research assistantships and professional experience. If
they did, they’d only ask for a CV, and not a Statement of
Purpose. Instead, they “buy” students after visualizing how
successful the applicant will be in their program.
Typically, an “autobiography” essay starts with a paragraph

about undergrad, or even high school. Then it moves
sequentially forward in time, listing obstacles the applicant
encountered, and what they learned from these obstacles.
Often, these “lessons” will be linked to an abstract quality like
“leadership skills.” Finally, after a long journey which seems
to have no coherent theme (except that the applicant was
involved), it ends with a short paragraph saying: “The XYZ
program will help me achieve my goal of becoming an ABC.”
Obviously, this doesn’t work. It doesn’t guide the admissions

reader toward visualizing your success in the future. It doesn’t
give them proof that YOU have visualized how you’ll succeed
in the future. Instead, it only provides proof that you’re
someone who constantly struggles, and seems to dwell in the
past.
How to Fix
Though very common, this problem is the most difficult to

fix. Basically, you have to start from scratch.
Most often, when I read these essays, I scour the various

episodes from an applicant’s life. I search for one (and only
one) story that’s unique, interesting, and deeply related to
their academic goals. Then I point at this episode and say,
“Start here. This is your frame narrative.”
Then, I hand them the SOP Script.
Typically, these applicants simply haven’t taken the time to

visualize themselves in the graduate program. They haven’t
figured out what’s special about the program, nor why they
are uniquely qualified to enroll.
For these types of applicants, the only solution is to start from
the beginning. Answer the questions in the SOP Script, and
clarify your own plans with deadly purpose.
CONCLUSION
In this guide, you’ve learned how to structure the four sections

of a memorable graduate statement of purpose:

2. Why This Program
You’ve learned how this structure pings the same heart notes
as the classic “hero’s journey.” It offers up a humble hero
who has struggled through an intellectual conflict, and thus
decided that they need a mentor to teach them how to
battle monsters and obtain some precious and worthy gift
they can offer to the world.
You’ve learned how the conventional wisdom about graduate

application essays is terribly misguided. While this “standard
script” is based on logical structures suited to academic
research writing, it is quite ineffective at convincing readers
that the author is unique. If your goal is to persuade a mentor
78
to actively choose you for entry into their private group
of students, then following the conventional wisdom offers a
low probability of success. (At the very least, it won’t improve
your chances.)
You’ve learned how to craft a frame narrative that represents

your unique potential for graduate scholarship. This frame
narrative, this story from your life, must be detailed and
intensely personal. It must show you struggling with
intellectual questions, and thus, encapsulate your goal as
a student. At the same time, it must paint a vivid portrait of
a human being who is unique and memorable among a
crowd of students with similar goals.
You’ve received an “SOP Script.” This script offers you a

series of questions you must answer as thoroughly as possible.
If you do so, the script will generate a nearly foolproof
roadmap for crafting an intelligent, persuasive, and memorable
statement of purpose. The SOP Script makes it easy and
natural to portray yourself within the timeless structure of the
hero’s journey.
You’ve followed me as I answered the questions in the SOP

Script myself, and then turned those answers into my own
first-draft essay. You learned how I began my journey as a
scholar of literary structures, and how I might convince an
elite graduate school that I am a student worthy of their
mentorship. You also learned how we can tweak, edit, and
recycle our SOPs for multiple schools.
You’ve learned about the seven most common problems
applicants face in their first-draft SOPs. Often, they write
frame narratives that don’t represent an intellectual struggle.
They might deal in generalized features of the program
that relate to every student, but don’t illuminate their own
unique goals. They might spend too much time talking about
their past accomplishments, or claim to possess abstract skills
without providing proof. For all these problems and more,
you’ve learned how to execute a fix.
There is one last thing I want to remind you of, however:

don’t let the simplicity of the SOP Script fool you. Despite
helping hundreds of applicants earn admission to America’s
most elite universities, before I came to understand the deep
power of this storytelling structure, I constantly struggled
with helping my students prove how unique and worthy they
truly were.We fumbled over ideas, and sent endless drafts back
and forth through email. Sometimes it would take us 10 or
more drafts before something magical clicked and we knew
that the essays were “right.”
I smile thinking back on those times now, because you won’t

have to go through any such trouble. My most recent students
from 2020 all finished their SOPs in 3 drafts or less, and each
of them started with the SOP Script. And they’ve earned
wondrous admissions.
I refuse to take credit for their success, however, and I refuse

to take credit for yours.You’re the one who’s done all the hard
work. You’ve toiled as a student. You’ve stressed and worried.
You’ve earned the grades and submitted the papers. You’ve
accomplished so much in the research lab, in your internships,
or in the library. Your success is yours and yours alone. The
SOP Script is just the distillation of your own journey. It’s
you, and your life, made timeless.
Now, all that remains is for you to take this knowledge and go
out and conquer the world.
If along the way you have a question, comment, or concern

(and especially if you have a story of your wild success), I
welcome them all via email. You can reach me at jordan@
writeivy.com.
Really, if you use the SOP Script and find it helpful, I’d love
it if you could leave me a quick positive note at http://www.
writeivy.com/scriptreviews/.Your feedback means the world
to me, and it will give other applicants confidence too.
My Magical Gift to You
If this guide represents the end of my own hero’s journey,

then I must present you with a gift, right? The online “SOP
Script” is that gift, my magical potion for convincing the wise
mentors of academia to accept you as their student.
If you would like a PDF version of the SOP Script that you
can edit and print off yourself, please visit:
http://www.writeivy.com/sopscript/
To access the worksheet, you’ll need to enter the following
password:
memorablewriting
At that site, you’ll also find an ever-evolving cache of resources

including my most frequently asked questions. Whenever a
student asks me a good question, whether by email, on Reddit,
or elsewhere, I list my responses for everyone who’s purchased
this guidebook to see. This is just my way of saying thanks for
reading this book.
See you over at

http://www.writeivy.com/sopscript/
Jordan
APPENDIX:
SAMPLE ESSAYS
1. Master’s in Health Administration
Among international students in the U.S., it is a common joke

that “we can’t afford to be ill.” I learned this myself during
freshman year, when a viral infection required an emergency
room trip. It wasn’t a complicated procedure, and I was home
in a matter of hours. In fact, the virus was much less harrowing
than paying for my treatment, a torturous, year-long process
of back-and-forth between the hospital which was never able
to accept my insurance, a physician who demanded separate
payment, and an aggressive debt collector who made veiled
threats. The total amount was $1,012 dollars. I remember it
clearly. I paid it in cash, bewildered and aggravated.
The real problem for international students is not whether

we can afford healthcare, but whether we can efficiently
utilize the American system. This is a genuine problem.
83
Social demographics are changing worldwide. Immigrant
communities don’t stop growing. Thus, this is not merely a
personal affair, but also a risk issue which needs to be addressed
by service providers and their international counterparts.
That’s exactly why I seek to study at Columbia: I want to play
a role in improving this system, both here in America, and in
India, my home.
The MHA program at Mailman distinguishes itself from

other programs by the sheer uniqueness of its curriculum.
The Thomas P. Ference Health System Simulation, for one,
is fascinating. Many programs have professional development
and practicum requirements, but no others seem to culminate
with such detailed strategic exercises. Pursuing fieldwork at
Columbia also will be doubly effective for me: if not New
York City, where else in America do healthcare providers
work with so many immigrants and foreign nationals? By
studying at Mailman, I’ll be able to see more clearly how
management affects healthcare service among a diverse and
multilingual population.What’s more, the classroom emphasis
on data analytics and computational tools will provide me
with a skillset applicable to any environment in the world.
Luckily,my education thus far has prepared me to succeed in this

endeavor. As a Gender Studies major, I researched inequalities
in women’s right of access to reproductive healthcare. This
interest led to minor in Healthcare Management, where my
economics and statistics coursework proved useful when
researching the cost-benefit of mandated HPV vaccines. Yet
seeking a more complete understanding of the field, I began
enrolling in computer science and engineering classes, in
which I obtained foundational skills for data-driven analytics.
All the while, my GPA only increased.
Even so, I know that there is no end to learning, and studying

in Columbia Mailman will be a significant step toward
achieving my goal of working as a strategy consultant in a
major multicultural city, such as New York or Hong Kong.
If given this opportunity, I will work extremely hard to be a
credit to the university, and thus prepare for a career in service
to the global citizens whose lives are dearest to my heart.
2. Master’s in Computer Science
Sociology and Statistics, my first two majors, often seemed

like unwieldy jigsaw puzzles. Yet even during my first social
psychology and statistics courses as a freshman, I felt fascinated
by how they interlocked. The former provided insights to
social problems. The latter forecast those same problems
through modeling. Reading Suicide by Emile Durkheim
allowed me to dissect suicide rates from religious and social
structural perspectives, while statistics projects predicted life
spans and mental health through regression models. These
intersections became my driving focus as a student. Yet, as
I developed a passion for modeling realistic problems, I was
ultimately led to declare my third major, computer science,
which proved most fascinating of all.
My transition to computer science was necessary. By my

junior year, I found myself less interested in the theoretical
hypothesis testing and variable-relationship inferencing that
constituted most of my statistics coursework. Testing for
significance just wasn’t that satisfying. Instead, I grew eager to
understand what’s happening behind the interfaces, how to
parallelize computation across different cores. I found myself
curious about flexible models that better simulate real-world
problems, and grew eager to know every detail from theory to
implementation to assembly language. Accordingly, I took all
the relevant courses: computer algorithms, neural networks,
machine learning, Markov’s net, data structures, databases,
reinforcement learning, and real analysis, while simultaneously
completing data science internships. During this process, it
became clear to me that my great fascination lies not at all
in statistical theory, but in forecasting and anomaly detection.
This is exactly why I seek admission to the Master’s program
in Computer Science at Harvard University: to study the
machine learning and computing techniques that are pushing
the current boundaries of predictive power.
The most exciting aspect of the CS program at Harvard is its

strength in machine learning. Having implemented multilayer
neural network packages from scratch, I’m eager to learn
about Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN) and Convolution
Neural Networks. Professor Finale Doshi-Velez’s paper
discussing the combination of RNN with hidden Markov
models to improve interpretability is both relevant to my
internship experience with time-series data, and highlights a
deep personal interest of mine. Likewise, it’s galvanizing to read
how Harvard Ph.D. student Julian Kates-Harbeck’s research
on RNN and “deep learning” helped to successfully forecast
disruptions in fusion reactors – such predictive modeling
is exactly what I hope to explore. A research environment
such as this is inspiring, especially alongside neural networks-
heavy classes like CS281and CS265. The opportunity for a
secondary field focus at Harvard is also valuable to me. I intend
to choose Computational Science and Engineering through
which I will learn about parallel computing and methods to
organize and process large data sets.
Of course, the program will be a challenge, but I believe my

academic experience thus far has prepared me to succeed.
While completing three majors at Rice, I’ve taken non-
required courses like real analysis, advanced linear algebra, and
multiple-machine learning courses,all while maintaining a 3.86
GPA. Combined with my probability/statistics background, I
not only learned modeling theory, but also gained experience
in tedious data cleaning, writing complete machine-
learning packages as well as evaluating model performance.
I constructed a Multilayer Neural Network python package
from scratch, as well as a series of packages including Random
forest, PCA, KNN and more. I’ve implemented model-free
reinforcement learning algorithms and probabilistic inference
in a hidden Markov model to track ghost movements in the
Pacman world. I’ve implemented a fully functional Data Base
Management System that accepts concurrent SQL queries,
and later led a group project to design, implement, test and
access an end-to-end Secure File Sharing System from scratch
(like Dropbox). Thus, my programming and object-oriented
design skills have grown robust.
Perhaps my most rewarding undergraduate experience,

however, was working under professor Tony Stark to conduct
research on pseudo-random number generators. Unlike
most public number generators, our cryptographic version
was structured on the SHA-256 hash function in a block-
chaining manner.The hash is segmented to generated random
numbers in the requested range. For me, this experience was
a tremendous lesson in how to identify a real-world problem,
and how to creatively optimize for a working solution, and I
look forward to applying and honing these skills even further
at Harvard.
As alluded to previously, if admitted to the CSE program,
I hope to focus my studies on anomaly detection and
forecasting, interests I furthered as a data-science intern for
Spotify last summer. There, I worked closely on time-series
data to monitor the app’s second day user-retention rate, and
conducted performance forecasting for content channels. I’m
already exploring this field in a professional sense, in fact:
earlier this year I received a Machine Learning Engineer
offer from Nike, and will work there till fall semester starts
to devise a new time-series supply-chain forecasting tool that
will help predict raw material quantities six months before
manufacture. As I grow increasingly aware of the beneficial
impacts of anomaly detection and forecasting, I am ever more
determined to advance my understanding of the field.
As an undergraduate, I’ve had the great privilege of completing

three interdisciplinary majors at a wonderful university. Now,
however, I’m ready to take on the greater challenge of focusing
with tremendous intent. If admitted to the CSE master’s
program at Harvard, I will work hard to be a credit to the
university, and to make my own contribution to a department
which is advancing the frontiers of machine learning. To do
so would be the greatest honor of my career.
3. Master’s in Educational Technology
My grandfather spent his entire life teaching in a decrepit

classroom with no electricity. Every night he lit candles to
lecture his students. If there were no candles, the students
listened in the dark. Even so, my grandfather devoted himself
to his job, despite the ambitions he’d had as a younger man.
Hundreds of impoverished students went to college because
of his efforts. He was selfless and honorable, just as a candle
offers light while consuming itself.
I thought about my grandfather often last summer while

working with students from Daliangshan, a village sometimes
described as the poorest in China. Each family’s annual income
there is only $300. Some of my seventh-grade students were
already locked into arranged marriages. Most frightening,
however, was the curse of Daliangshan’s opioid economy. The
students’ life trajectories were clear: they drop out of school,
start planting poppy, accept arranged marriages to local drug
traffickers, then spend the rest of their lives never venturing
beyond the mountains which separate them from the world.
Interestingly, college is a viable dream for the youths of

Daliangshan. Unfortunately, they don’t believe so. They think
university tuition is ridiculously expensive. Government and
charity organizations do provide educational access; their
classrooms have multi-media equipment, and they have
smartphones. Yet with learning conditions much better than
those from my grandfather’s time, all they do is watch silly
videos, and the teachers only show boring, propagandistic
news programs.They just have no inspiration. Seeing this made
me pity the children, because they don’t have someone like
my grandfather to connect them to the world. Teachers like
him used to burn themselves out just to help a few hundred
students, yet today, with “burning” new technologies capable
of inspiring so many more, there is still a gap in access. Why?
This is the question that pushes me to study at the University
of Pennsylvania: so I can learn how to connect those students
to the world.
The Learning Sciences and Technologies program at Penn

seems tailor made for my goal: to create technology that
makes education more effective, efficient and engaging.
This is the future of global education, both for privileged
urbanites, and those rural children close to my heart. I am
excited by the prospect of coursework such as Video Games
and Virtual Worlds as Sites for Learning with professor Yasmin B.
Kafai, for it shows how Penn students fill the gaps between
emerging technologies and humanist ideals. I’m particularly
keen to explore the impact of social issues (especially gender)
in curriculum design, because these issues are doubly raw
in developing China. The two-semester internship program
will also be important for me. As a Marketing major with
sparse teaching experience (at least compared to Education
undergraduates), working at the Free Library of Philadelphia
or in the Philadelphia Zoo will give me a clearer understanding
of how educational technologies work in real students’ hands.
Certainly, the program will be a challenge, but luckily my

undergraduate career has prepared me to face it head on. Since
discovering my passion at Indiana University, I have taken
numerous courses in educational psychology and sociology,
all the while maintaining a 3.8 GPA. I also conducted an
independent study on inequality of access to learning
resources in China (the most difficult assignment I have ever
completed). After group interviews, I attempted to quantify
my country’s deep-rooted inequalities, knowing how lucky
I am to study at overseas universities myself. Inspired by this
project, I applied to be a teaching assistant at a prestigious
Beijing high school last summer. There I saw students from
China’s richest families enjoying video games in class. They
used mobile phones to track English learning, to conduct
spontaneous research, and to collaborate in online group
projects. They had the same tools as my Daliangshan students,
yet used them in vastly different ways. As such, they have
different destinies. Witnessing this compelled me to think
deeply about how technology can be a force for good in the
world, if only it’s made accessible to those who need it most.
At Pennsylvania, I believe, I can begin to understand these
gaps.
My grandfather helped hundreds of students in his lifetime.

In this way he became their hero. If given the chance to study
in the LST program, I will work hard to be a credit to the
university, hoping that, one day, I can become an unspoken
hero to thousands of students more.
4. Master’s in Data Science
When I began my career as a researcher at TTSY Capital in

Connecticut, I quickly realized how large-scale data analysis
was the most important aspect of the job, and also a hotbed
of conflict. Research is essential to the decision-making
process for investment, particularly in the healthcare industry,
my focus. Yet, I often found myself lacking confidence in
the source and accuracy of data. Moreover, it was curious
to see executives ignore the data in favor of surreptitious,
unpublicized information; they did not trust the technological
models such as algorithmic trading and quantitative investing,
and instead relied almost entirely on older research methods.
These considerations stayed with me in the last few years as I

co-founded BioSea, a medical cosmetology company in San
Francisco. Standing in the atrium of our brand new 10,000ft²
clinic, I felt both excited and filled with questions. Leveraging
technology would be integral to our growth. Data analytics
would allow us to target unique demographics and fine-tune
marketing campaigns in real-time. Developing our own app
would let us compile a clinic directory, crowdsource reviews,
and promote pricing transparency as we evaluate feedback
from doctors and patients. What seemed most powerful,
however, was the possibility to probe the manufacturing side,
where AI and machine learning are revolutionizing medical
cosmetology equipment. Imagine personalized, AI-driven
recommendations for clients’ plastic surgery plans. If initiating
cleft lip surgery, surgeons could adjust incision width in unit
millimeters and, along with patients, view in real-time the
after-result on 3D models. Of course, this would require 100%
confidence in the tools and data, for the stakes in cosmetology
are arguably greater than with investment - it’s a medical
profession, and we work with real human bodies.These stakes,
however, represent great potential, and that is exactly why I
hope to study in the graduate program in Computer Science
& Systems at the School of Engineering & Technology in the
University of Washington Tacoma: by better understanding
emerging trends in computer science, I can avoid the mistakes
I saw earlier in my career, and fully embrace technologically
driven business models.
The CSS program at UW Tacoma seems to be a program

personalized for me. I’m well aware of how companies in
the Pacific Northwest are leading the charge in America’s
technology boom, and this makes the program’s industry
partnerships and internship opportunities particularly
attractive. I also appreciate the university’s ease of access to
research projects. I’m not yet certain of pursuing a thesis
option myself, but the opportunity to engage in the process
will help me better understand how emerging technologies
will revolutionize the medical cosmetology industry in the
future. Multiple UW Tacoma professors, such as Martine
De Cock and Donald Chinn, seem to be conducting vital
work in machine learning and algorithms, and the ability
to contribute to their work will be highly beneficial for my
professional growth.
Of course, the program will be a great challenge, but I feel my

professional and academic backgrounds have prepared me to
face it head on. Majoring in mathematics at Boston College
gave me a solid foundation in computer science, from simple
sums to complex algorithms, such as Bayesian Optimization
and Dijkstra’s Algorithm. I gained a thorough understanding
of how mathematical reasoning provides insights through
modeling, and how to program machines that process large
quantities of real-time data. Moreover, I was honored to
deepen these interests last summer while interning with
Dr. Thomas Wayne in the Big Data Research Program at
UC-Berkeley. In this program, I focused primarily on large-
scale dataset processing and extraction, and the experience
was both fascinating and rewarding. Swimmingly, I was in
my element when tweaking algorithms to optimize data
processing, because for the first time, the pure math that I’d
studied as an undergraduate became applicable. At the same
time, as I considered the relevance of these concepts to the
surgical processes of medical cosmetology, I became certain
of my desire and readiness to expand my education into more
varied areas of computer science.
With a strong background in mathematics, and much

experience using big data and software development in the
finance and healthcare industries, I am eager to formally study
computer science so that I can play a role in the changes which
will benefit our world and my own business in the very near
future. If admitted to the graduate program at UW Tacoma, I
will work hard to be a credit to the university, and hopefully,
eventually, become a medical industry professional who can
convert her education into positive real-world change.
5. Master’s in Education
My favorite part of being a college counselor is helping

students with their application essays. It’s revelatory when
a young girl compares herself to a cat, a bicycle, or a hair
clip, all depending on which perspective she sees. Magical
ideas emerge when a student thinks deeply about his own
self-image, wondering why he’s never self-conscious during
Model United Nations, but is terrified when speaking to girls
at a party. By opening one’s mind, the intimate task of writing
college essays becomes a game in which we drag students out
of their boxes, guide them to reflect on their experiences, and
help them reconstruct themselves in prose.
Years of having fun in this game explains why JHU’s ITGL

program in Creative and Innovative Education captivates me
so much. It specializes in this narrow but most interesting area,
the one in which I hope to continue building my career. This
feeling was confirmed for me recently while I was tracking
reports about the declination of America’s Creativity and
found an essay titled The Creativity Crisis by Po Bronson and
Ashley Merryman. It quoted a Professor Jonathan Plucker of
Indiana University as saying that “the correlation to lifetime
creative accomplishment was more than three times stronger
for childhood creativity than childhood IQ”. While reading,
I wondered about the statistical analysis used to figure out
the “three times.” After searching on the Internet however,
I realized that this Professor Plucker of Indiana University is
now at JHU, and will be, in fact, the adviser of the creative
education program. The coincidence surprised me and made
me even more certain in my eagerness to apply to this program.
Should I be admitted, I hope Professor Plucker won’t mind
my personally inquiring about such fascinating and important
discoveries.
A keen and curious person as such, I continually practice self-

guided learning in my spare time. I learned English entirely
from reading books and making friends with people on the
road. Homestay parents, travel mates, foreign business partners
and colleagues have all been my teachers. However, having
witnessed the tremendous intellectual leaps that my students
take when immersed in rigorous English-language academic
environments, I can’t help but want to take the same step.
Though I have studied in international immersion programs,
I have never completed any prolonged systematic academic
work in the English language, and know that the ITGL
program is just the challenge I need.
After completing the program, I hope to do one year’s

practicum if possible, to further my understanding of education
practice in the US. Then I’ll come back to China, where my
family is waiting for me, and my career is deeply rooted.
International education is booming in China. It is said that

more than twenty international school brands are looking to
establish campuses in China by 2020. I look forward to making
a difference in this significant period of China’s education
history, by further pursuing my own education at JHU, and
thus furthering my commitment to the students who have
given my life its greatest purpose.
REQUEST FOR REVIEW
Now that you’ve finished your SOP Script, would you take
just a few seconds out of your day and share your thoughts
about it here:
http://www.writeivy.com/scriptreviews/
Leaving a review shows others how this guide can help them
as well.
If you’ve never written a review, don’t worry. Here’s an

example of one I’ve recently received:
I found out about the SOP guide that Jordan wrote

through /r/StatementOfPurpose.The blog in itself was
a huge help. The structure and template given in the
blog made SOP writing so much easier. Later, I reached
out to him on Reddit to review my SOP. He was very
prompt and detailed in his feedback. He was always
so encouraging and helped me make my SOP more
98
personal and effective. Anyone struggling with SOP
writing should definitely reach out to Jordan.
You can leave your review here: http://www.writeivy.com/

scriptreviews/
Once you leave a review, be sure to email me at jordan@

writeivy.com so I can express my endless thanks!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jordan Dotson has worked as a private college counselor and

creative writing teacher since 2005, serving families in the
US, China, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Canada, France,
Switzerland, Indonesia, and Australia. His students are award-
winning artists and painters, Wall Street mavens and startup
tycoons, profound philosophers and medical researchers with
endless lists of citations, and all-in-all they’ve earned admission
to every American university of note (some, such as Harvard
and Stanford, many times over).
Jordan received his BA in English from the University

of Virginia, and his MFA in Creative Writing from City
University of Hong Kong. His work focuses on the use of
imaginative writing as a tool to develop creative and analytical
skills, especially in second-language learners.
Jordan is the author of the 2011 Chinese-language guidebook

to US university admissions: Show, Don’t Tell: How Normal
Chinese Students Conquer America’s Best Universities. He’s
guest lectured at the University of Virginia and Guangdong
100
University of Foreign Studies, and he’s been featured in the
New York Times, The Writer’s Chronicle, and The Chronicle
of Higher Education.
In his free time, Jordan is an award-winning fiction and

screenplay writer. More than anything else, however, Jordan is
proud of his students and all they’ve accomplished.

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A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO WRITING YOUR PERFECT GRADUATE SOP

Chapter 1. Structure is Magic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Chapter 2. Why the Standard Script is

Chapter 3. Pre-Writing: Finding Your Frame Narrative . . 31

Chapter 4. The SOP Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Chapter 5. Turn Your Script Into an SOP . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Chapter 6. Common Problems and How to Fix Them . . . 54

Appendix: Sample Essays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Request For Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

In the winter of 2019, I encountered a bewildering problem.

“This will be easy and fun,” I thought. My students have

And you know what? As ludicrously boastful as this sounds: I

When applicants began sending me first-draft statements

Instead, the bewildering problem was one of volume.

Every day, I received as many as twenty drafts from students

Each and every day I wasted hours upon hours, smacking my

Don’t teach the teacher, they already know this.

It astounded me, truly, seeing how many college graduates

Of course, I knew this already. My students have always had

By the time a college senior sends out her master’s degree

They’re stories. They’re sales letters. They’re intended to

So, I wrote a manifesto.

I titled it “Structure is Magic: A Guide to the Graduate SOP,”

In the last few months, I’ve received grateful notes from

During my entire admissions process I’ve been

Honestly, as much as I loved hearing from all of these happy,

That’s because the article isn’t perfect. It only provides the

That’s why I’ve written this guide you’re reading now.

No more questions about HOW to write a statement of

No more wondering if your essay is good enough to compete

If you read this guide, and execute the instructions, I guarantee

As you move forward, you’ll first encounter the article that

Then, you’ll learn why the standard SOP template, available on

Next, we’ll discuss how to build your essay within a narrative

Afterward, I’ll provide you with my “SOP Script.” This is an

Finally, in the Appendix, you’ll read sample SOPs from my

Now, before we begin digging into those rules, I want you to

Structure is Magic Propositions

1. Standard statement-of-purpose outlines are

It’s present in all of your favorite songs. It’s there, hidden, in

Ignore the structure of essays at your peril. To do so is as

But structure (as a kind of magic) is not just a set of arbitrary

No, structure is patterns. In 5,000 years of recorded history,

But some of them…oh, they were good.You’ve read many of

The one common thing among these memorable acts of writing

When we look at all these successful, memorable pieces of

Likewise, in university admissions essays, structure is the

Structure is the difference between becoming a Jedi, and

Structure is The Force.

This is how you use it.

Statement of Purpose for Graduate

Unlike undergraduate application essays which require a

Think of this as a return-on-investment situation. Universities

They do NOT want students who are uncertain about their

Instead, they want students who are guaranteed to succeed.

Sports gamblers know that the most gifted athletes don’t

Graduate students work closely with their professors. It’s a

The 4 Sections of a Memorable SOP

1. Introductory Frame Narrative

You may have heard of the “hero’s journey.” Popularized by

…a broad category of tales and lore that involves a hero

We can use the hero’s journey to understand what makes