The Ultimate Guide To Writing An Effective Statement Of Purpose(SOP) For Study Abroad

SOP referred to as a Statement of purpose is a long description of yourself that foreign universities ask for during your enrollment. It is a reflection for your personality trail that the admission committee wants to assess beyond the document.

Most students ignore the importance of an effective SOP and they miss the chance. Your SOP is a deciding factor whether you will get the admission or not.

Let's learn how to make an effective SOP in a simple way.

Skeleton of SOP

An effective SOP consists of 6 steps which are connected in a thread. The structure of these steps is named the skeleton of SOP.

1. A Philosophical Paragraph
2. Introduction
3. Why This Course?
4. Why Abroad & Why This Country?
5. Why This University?
6. Future Goal

Let's break it and understand all steps in detail.

1. A philosophical paragraph

It is your first impression, make it count. Most of the students avoid this paragraph while you can earn a few brownie points by drafting it. In our case, you have to mention the importance of IT & Management studies in a "creative way". Along with that, you need to demonstrate the alignment of your thought process with the course you have chosen.

2. Introduction

Here you need to distinguish yourself from others. Apart from the traditional introduction, mention your personal & professional achievements. Tell about your skills, it will make your profile strong. Also, connect your background achievements with your future interest. E.g. If you are from the IT background then you can mention your interest towards math and show your expertise in Java, C++, Python and more what were your likeable subjects during the engineering. To give it a personal touch, tell about your family, parents and the people who have a prominent role in your life.

3. Why this course?

This part is the heart of your SOP. So make sure you connect all your dots. Connect your past education, current experience, the reason for choosing the course and your future goal in a sequence. Make it more convincing and establish the authenticity in this connection.

Let's understand this with a simple example. Suppose a student has done his bachelor's degree in computer science and working in an IT company as a developer since 2015. And over the time he wants to make a shift towards the project management team and wants to be a team manager. Here is where the need for studying masters in project management comes in. This is how you should connect your past education to current experience, and course to a future goal.

4. Why abroad & why this country?

Instead of mentioning, the beauty of the country, their political environment and climate, write all the benefits you might get during the study. Don't go for random answers. Be precise, be accurate.

E.g. If you get an internship in France, for more than two months, then you will be paid by the company. French government covers all your social security which means you will get discounts on your housing, travelling and medical.

So these are the real benefits that you should mention in this paragraph.

5. Why this university?

Don't mistake to talk about the campus, laborites and infrastructure. Instead, mention the ranking of the university, alumni network and placement opportunities. Here you need to gather all the information about the university and on that basis, explain why it is best suitable for you.

6. Future goal

Here a student makes a mistake by mentioning that he wants to come back to India and start to work for MNC. These are the traditional answers and it doesn't create a significant impact.

Just show a strong road map. E.g. Student should mention that he wants to continue with the same IT company with the project management team or he can mention that he wants to work as a project manager across the globe wherever he finds the opportunity in any of the IT companies. Be specific to your job plan.

That's not all

After writing all the paragraph descriptive and well-structured make sure it should be grammatically correct. Read it at least 3 times before submitting.

Just finish your SOP by requesting a line to consider your profile to your selected university.

The best is

Hope you, now, have a great insight into how to make effective SOP easily. Still, if you have any query watch this YouTube video.