Standard Operating Procedures

I like to procrastinate as much as the next person: for example, I have this daily compulsion that involves looking through my list of potential schools, which brings me great comfort, and manages to feel like I'm doing work, without ever having done anything. But as the days go by, and as the month of December and January edge incrementally closer, I find the solace I used to get from list-looking is growing less and less, replaced by... well, panic. The culprit? Statements of Purpose.

On paper, the SOP seems easy enough. Let's take University of Indiana's blurb on what they want from your SOP: " There is no single formula for personal statements. Your personal statement is how you introduce yourself to us-not only as a writer but also as a human being. We want to hear an honest voice, and one that shares our commitment to writing and learning about writing. We want to discern whether the applicant will be a productive and valuable member of our MFA program." Simple, right? But in that seemingly innocuous statement, there lies a maddeningly open requirement: there are no requirements. Talk about whatever you want; tell us about yourself. Well, that's great. There are about a hundred things I could say, a hundred reasons why your program should take me. This represents the most intimidating kind of SOP requirement, in my opinion -- the one that asks you to simply "impress us." Do I talk about my background and how it has informed my writing? What about the writing community and how important it is to me? What about my education, my major, my time in college? Or how about the time spent away from school, how I've take creative writing classes and have been part of the same writing group for the past two years? Or should I just smoosh it all together? I've written and rewritten probably four or five drafts this kind of SOP, each one vastly different from another, and I currently still have no idea where I'm going to go.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there's the school that will ask you, very specifically, what they want from the SOP. Consider the University of Illinois' blurb: "This statement should be a precise and powerfully written intellectual biography. What writers or authors, courses, literary works, critical texts have influenced you? What critical questions, historical or national issues, disciplinary or interdisciplinary interests do you hope to pursue in graduate school and beyond? Why? Why at Illinois in particular?" Very specific, and in many ways, much easier to write. But an issue rears its head when dealing with this kind of SOP: it becomes much more difficult to slot in a SOP from one school to another. The questions you answer and the specific praise that you lavish on the University of Illinois does not easily translate to Syracuse's SOP or Ohio State's SOP. Depending on the specificity of what those schools ask of your SOP, you will find yourself tooling and retooling that 500-600 word essay over and over and over again.

All part of the job, I know. Schools expect this, and quite frankly the moment you decide to apply to grad school, you should expect this. But the sheer number of different SOPs carefully tailored for over a dozen different schools is incredibly intimidating and brings chills down my spine. A month and half until the first application is due? Procrastination. I'm good at that.