Third Draft SOP

[beckalex]

Hi everyone! You're probably getting sick of my SOP at this point, but here's a third draft. I've changed the opening paragraph completely and went with a more personal "hook" at the encouragement of my professors. I've also shortened it a little bit, cleaned up some awkward phrasing (or at least tried to - I've only done one grammar edit as I'm

Comments

[indicolite]

I actually agree with Nobie's comment. Please do not take my words wrong; I understand that this is a very personal and emotionally fraught subject. But the first sentence throws the reader into an entirely different direction than where you are heading. Could you rephrase the first three sentences as something like, "I grew up with half my identity and family history a complete unknown; I lost my father at an early age, and one of the few things I knew about him was that he was adopted." That way, it is about your intellectual curiosity rather than heading down the path of "I overcame a very sad story..." I would also de-emphasize the feelings of grief and loneliness, for that same reason.

Since you say that you immersed yourself in Jewish literature to learn about your mother's background, the sentence "I knew...other half" is redundant. Make every sentence count!

"Combined with my life-long love of reading, research such as these weighed most heavily on the many influences that led me to pursue the field of history." That is another redundant sentence; besides, when you say "X such as this was most Y" that...doesn't make sense; either you say specifically what was most Y, or the random set of things like X cannot all be most Y, am I making sense? Cut it, is my advice.

"I have buffered my education" - Again, that is the wrong word. You supplemented your education; you expanded your knowledge; you improved your range of skills; but you did not buffer your education.

"However, I am open to the new directions and challenges that a Ph.D. program will point me to." Redundant; cut it.

"my education and training...will bring forth the eye-opening challenges necessary for my growth" - I have the feeling last draft that this sentence didn't make sense, and it still doesn't. Whose eyes opened? Who got challenged? Where were the challenges brought forth from? And while I'm at it, what exactly is the difference between education and training here, that you mention them both?

Can you keep it simple and just say, "These programs, and faculty, will help me grow as a historian specializing in early modern cultural and book history" (I would not put 'a professor' there; there is many a slip between the cup and the lip, and they can't guarantee they will make you one; 'historian' implies well enough that you want to stay in academia.)