Thread by @cblatts

With PhD applications due soon, thousands of young people are currently beginning their statements of purpose with the same cliché story, or the same anodyne statement

Stop right now!

Here are 10 thoughts for doing this right. Helps you, and helps admissions committees.👇

Let’s clarify your #1 job as an applicant: Send the best, clearest signal of your abilities as a future researcher & minimize noise around that signal

For every program slot there are ~50 applicants. A dept planning for a class of 20 students may receive 1000 applications.

In econ, poli sci & public policy, depts delegate admissions to a committee of 2-6 faculty. They don’t have time to read 1000 applications in detail but they want to admit the most talented & creative young researchers who will come to their program.

There are several ways you can signal your proclivities for research.

This thread is about increasing signal and reducing noise in your written statement, but you can read about the other bits of the application process in this post:

chrisblattman.com/blog/2022/03/2…

1/ Don’t tell your life story. This is not an undergrad entry essay about your trials & tribulations, or your journey to wanting to be an academic.

It’s not that we don’t care. It’s just that it’s probably not relevant to judging your ability as a researcher.

If your journey does happen to be relevant, then weave that into the narrative around the core: your research ideas.

Committees have hundreds of these things to read and so you only want to focus on the most important information.

2/ Don’t be cliché. Don’t start your with your epiphany—the day the scales fell from your eyes and you realized you were inspired tackle question and social issue X. Especially if X involves an impoverished child. SO MANY letters begin this way, and it is unhelpful and unoriginal

3/ Be information dense. Most material is unnecessary and unhelpful, so delete it. Every sentence should communicate substantive ideas or information about your abilities as a researcher.

There are so many applications, readers look for excuses to stop reading. They will skim your statement for for 20 seconds. If its information dense they will look at it for for 45 or maybe 60 seconds. Every time you give banal information, it is another reason to stop reading.

Examples of banality:

- Generic flattery about being excited to join a program, admiration for the faculty, etc

- Unspecific interests in a research subject or field

- Routine information such as “I am graduating in May…”

- Filler sentences like “Please find enclosed…”

4/ Immediately communicate what kind of scholar you want to be

Use first paragraphs to:

- State fields of interest at broadest level

- Give 2-3 specific topics and questions within that field

- Name who you would like to work with in the department and why it’s a good fit

5/ Then use MOST OF THE STATEMENT to develop 1 (max 2) of these ideas as specifically as possible

The idea is not to say “this is what I will do for my dissertation” because no applicant knows that

Show that you know how to ask and answer an original & interesting question

This is hard to do (because you don’t yet have a PhD) but doing it well is a good signal of your creativity, knowledge of the field, and potential as a researcher.

I’ve written more about this here:

chrisblattman.com/blog/2022/01/1…

6/ Only if necessary, give information that help us understand any weaknesses or puzzles

- Why you studied X but are applying for Y

- What happened in that single bad semester on your transcript

- How to interpret your foreign GPA, and where you ranked in your class

7/ 1Get help. Your letter writers, professors you work for, or a PhD student you know can read & give feedback on your statement. Ask them for their advice. Do this early.

P.S. More on getting reommendation letters here:

chrisblattman.com/blog/2022/04/0…

8/ Don’t be repetitive. This is not the place to restate your CV. Only add essential, high-density information the reader cannot get elsewhere in the application packet. Otherwise, just let the research proposal speak for itself.

9/ Omit needless words! After you have deleted all the platitudes, keep deleting! Every extra word or sentence lowers the average quality of the document.

Look for the least useful paragraphs & cut them

Make a 6-line paragraph 4 lines

Make a 15-word sentence 10 words

10/ Make it easy to skim and read quickly

- Use subheadings

- Limit jargon

- Each paragraph should be a distinct idea

- Paragraphs should have a hierarchical structure, with the big idea or general point as the first topic sentence, and the rest of the paragraph elaborating

Good luck! And once you make it in, check out my other advice posts for PhD students. Or take a look at my other advice for undergraduates and Masters students

chrisblattman.com/phd-advice/

chrisblattman.com/undergrad-ma/

Students at elite schools get this info from their advisors. As a foreigner at a state school, and a first gen college student, I never received this guidance.

Think of these advice posts as trying to level the playing field. Please spread them around or add your advice here.