Thursday, October 26, 2017

Statement of Purpose: Why Do You Want This School?

Just answered a question at Urch about stating the reasons for choosing a specific school in an SoP and, more specifically, about stating that the reason is a specific faculty research . Thought my answer could be useful to someone later here.

I believe different people have different reasons to want a school. So, if your strongest reason is really a specific faculty I think you should go ahead and say it. And of course try to explain why in a convincing way. If that's not the reason, then you should tell them what is the reason.

I think too many applicants try to write what they think the school wants to hear, or try to follow a magic prescription for an SoP. Then the reasons sound weak, vague, generic, without personality. Because they are not the true reasons.

A combination of reasons can be important too, instead of just the strongest reason. Even if the faculty is your strongest reason, it is probably also the strongest reason in many other applications the school is evaluating.

Again, I didn't go too deep into that in my SoP (not enough space for that), but I was really asked about that kind of thing afterwards in the interview. And when I was asked, I was able to list reason after reason after reason. And many of my reasons wouldn't make sense for another applicant. Because they are MY reasons. It would be very hard to find another applicant saying the same things. By the way, I don't think my reasons were that amazing, but they were honest, and so I can be much more convincing that way.


Thursday, October 19, 2017

A Little More Than 2 Months

First month in the US was a chaos with too many different things to do. Second month was a chaos with one thing to do: to study.

Marketing classes are really great. Marketing Strategy requires us to read many papers, present them, debate about the subjects which are being presented. Very dynamic, things go fast here. Multivariate Methods in Marketing is something that can take a whole life to really understand, so the course is like an introduction to a big and complex universe. It can be pretty overwhelming at times, so it's good to have a supportive professor for this course. So, both courses are not easy, but are both fascinating.

However, most of my time is spent studying for the Economics course, Quantitative Economics Analysis. There is very little about Economics here, it's mostly about Maths and Statistics actually. Looks simple, but it's the hardest course I'm taking now. In Marketing classes, PhD students still seem lively. In Economics classes, PhD students look exhausted. Getting a good grade for this course is the first big hurdle to overcome in this journey through coursework. But things I just beginning, better to be prepared for more to come.

I haven't been able to do much besides studying. I went to a football game at the university's stadium  and to a Vietnamese restaurant (got something that looks like ramen), but that's about it.