Essays

Statement of Purpose

Nearly all graduate applications in APS/Physics require a Statement of Purpose (SoP). The SoP is a 1-2 page essay where you should discuss your motivations for pursuing a graduate degree, your research and career interests, why you would be a good fit for the program in question, and any additional important information that is not covered in your application (ex. explaining poor grades during a semester or a poor GRE score). The SoP should portray you as a mature, motivated student and should give the applications committee a sense of your goals and interests as a physicist.

The SoP is a great place to tell the applications committee things that they might not know from your application. For example, maybe you are interested in Quantum Gravity and want to pursue it as a graduate student, but your undergraduate program had no research opportunities in Quantum Gravity, so you are studying Lattice Gauge Theory for your Honors Thesis instead. It is important for the applications committee to know that you are interested in Quantum Gravity and why you didn't pursue it as an undergrad, so this information should go in your SoP.

There is a wealth of information on the SoP online. In addition to the resources at the end of this page, check out GoGrad's excellent overview on the SoP.

Personal Statement

In addition to the SoP, some graduate programs require a Personal Statement (sometimes called a Diversity Statement) that should focus on your personal history and any disadvantages that you have faced in pursuing APS/Physics, as well as your commitment to outreach and inclusion programs. 

If you belong to an underrepresented group, you should discuss how this has affected your experience in APS/Physics and how you might support students from your group/community (and other underrepresented students) during and after grad school.

Everyone (underrepresented and not underrepresented) should discuss any outreach and inclusion programs that they have participated in (ex. community physics lectures, societies for underrepresented groups). You should also mention if you plan to participate in these programs in graduate school. You can also bring up ways in which you hope to serve underrepresented communities through your PhD. For example, if you hope to be a college-level educator, you can talk about how you might implement equitable norms in the classroom.

UCSD has published some example Diversity Statements. Note that these are from faculty applications, so the authors have much more academic/career experience than you are expected to, but they can still give you a sense of what schools are looking for.

Writing Resources

Presentations

Here is a great presentation about writing a Statement of Purpose by CU writing instructor Neal McConomy.

CU Writing Center

It is important that your essays be well-written and polished. Make appointments with the CU Writing Center for assistance. This is a great resource - use it! But be sure to plan ahead. A student reports:

"The manager there said that the program doesn't have very much funding and so they don't have many consultants and their schedules fill up very quickly.  Because they were previously getting completely booked up weeks in advance they had to restrict the scheduling so that you can only schedule one week in advance (this is ongoing).  A new day is added at midnight.  For example,  if today is Thursday, I can see the schedule through the end of next Thursday, and Friday's schedule for next week will be available at midnight. The bottom line: if students want to use the writing center, they need to plan ahead and know that it may be difficult to get an appointment.  If it's all booked, you can always try to drop in and see if there were any no-shows.

Statement of purpose advice from the Female Science Professor blog

The statement that accompanies a student's application to graduate school in Science can be an amazing thing to read. I know that these statements are very difficult to write, and I surmise that some students are not given much guidance about the content and tone of the statements. Furthermore, some students do not yet have their research interests very well focused. These are not fatal errors if the overall application is strong.

I am always impressed when I read a well-written, focused statement that has interesting content. These students are at an advantage not only for admission but also for recruiting scholarships. An applicant can be admitted to graduate school with an unsophisticated statement, but obviously it's preferable to have a good statement. I'm sure that the requirements for a good statement vary from place to place, but here are a few basic things that I like to see (or not see) in an application statement, especially for a Ph.D. program:

1. What do you want to do in graduate school? You do not have to be intensely focused on a narrow topic at the time of application. There is time to figure that out once you start your graduate program. Even so, if your statement gives faculty the impression that you are applying because you don't really know what else to do and maybe you'll give grad school a try.. that's not good. Present yourself as a serious student with sincere interest in the general field of study for which you are applying. This part of your statement should have content based on your experiences thus far.

2. Do not discuss your childhood. Most faculty don't care about your childhood chemistry set or your shell collection or even the telescope your great-aunt set out in a field one summer night to show you the immensity of the universe. Do not describe a walk on the beach with your dad when you were 5. Do not mention your favorite teacher in 4th grade, not even if she let you watch a cocoon being built. Do not talk about how awesome it was the first time you read Isaac Asimov or Carl Sagan or even Richard Feynman.

3. What are some significant academic or work experiences you have had that are relevant to your application for graduate school in Science? Relevant items here would be research experiences and rigorous classes.

4. Make some effort to tailor your statement to the department to which you are applying, but don't go overboard about it. Just show that you have a realistic reason for applying to a particular department. Be sure to check over your statements carefully before submitting them so that you don't send a statement to University Y that says that your dream is to study at University X.

I am not going to take a stand on the issue of whether one should start the essay with a quotation. I personally prefer quotationless statements, but certainly wouldn't hold it against a student, unless they quote Emily Dickinson.