I just wrote about a dozen drafts and then edited each one for each school soooo, this is all still fairly fresh.
What I did was I considered my whole application and tried to figure out what my best attribute was. I figured it was the fact that I was living in Japan (it applies to my program) and so I started with that. It's a bit unusual and I wanted to use it to get their attention and make sure that they had that in mind as they read the rest of my statement. Basically I approached the SOP like it was a paper and followed a pretty tight structure.
The fact that my word limits kept changing affected it too. My first one had a limit of 1500 words - then 1000, then 500. I discovered that I was able to cut down my statement of 1500 to something like 375 and still say all the same things. I used the extra words I had then to expand those main points and improve the flow.
I didn't use a very personal tone (aka, "I've wanted to do this ever since I was a little girl"), but I did include personal stories that were relevant.
Essentially I figured that my goal was to have them see me as the most qualified, approachable, but professional applicant ever. So since that was how I wanted to be seen, I constructed those main points I wanted to get across in a manner that I felt reflected that.
What I did was I considered my whole application and tried to figure out what my best attribute was. I figured it was the fact that I was living in Japan (it applies to my program) and so I started with that. It's a bit unusual and I wanted to use it to get their attention and make sure that they had that in mind as they read the rest of my statement. Basically I approached the SOP like it was a paper and followed a pretty tight structure.
The fact that my word limits kept changing affected it too. My first one had a limit of 1500 words - then 1000, then 500. I discovered that I was able to cut down my statement of 1500 to something like 375 and still say all the same things. I used the extra words I had then to expand those main points and improve the flow.
I didn't use a very personal tone (aka, "I've wanted to do this ever since I was a little girl"), but I did include personal stories that were relevant.
Essentially I figured that my goal was to have them see me as the most qualified, approachable, but professional applicant ever. So since that was how I wanted to be seen, I constructed those main points I wanted to get across in a manner that I felt reflected that.
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