Physics GRE Discussion Forums

Why am I interested in xx university

I decided to join graduate program at xx University because Department of Physics at this university provide better equipments and advanced research facilities. I read some of the publications from this department and research interests of faculty members. Faculty members at this department are doing high quality research on high temperature superconductors and are expertise in organic electronics, semiconductor science, organic transistors, photovoltaic, organic sensors and so on. These factors intrigued me to be part of ongoing research in this department.

Hello,

First, I would suggest copy and pasting your statement into word, so you can more easily fix grammar and spelling errors. Second, instead of saying "Faculty members", provide the specific name of a professor who's work intrigued you and exactly what part of it you find interesting. For example, something like "I am particularly interested in Professor XXX's research on "insert specific research"." The couple sentences:

I read some of the publications from this department and research interests of faculty members. Faculty members at this department are doing high quality research...

are too general and doesn't actually show that you've done your research. I think fixing this will strengthen your statement!

But, I want every professor in condensed matter field to consider my application. Therefore I do not want to mention only one name. any other way to write in this situation

AHipp wrote:Hello,

First, I would suggest copy and pasting your statement into word, so you can more easily fix grammar and spelling errors. Second, instead of saying "Faculty members", provide the specific name of a professor who's work intrigued you and exactly what part of it you find interesting. For example, something like "I am particularly interested in Professor XXX's research on "insert specific research"." The couple sentences:

I read some of the publications from this department and research interests of faculty members. Faculty members at this department are doing high quality research...

are too general and doesn't actually show that you've done your research. I think fixing this will strengthen your statement!

I agree with AHipp.

Admission committee will do what they want, it can be few professors will do the review as representatives of their field’s faculty members or all of them reviewing together. It won’t depend on how you write your SoP.

Also, writing in this overly general manner is definitely bad. Professors need to know whether you have done your research and know what you want to do. The phrases like, “some of the publications” or spamming buzzwords ending with “and so on” are just asking for rejection. The admission committees are experienced professionals who have read hundreds of applications every year, they can differentiate serious applications from the non-serious ones very easily.