Preparing The Application Guidelines For Applying The Competitive Application Tips On Structuring The Research Statement Tips For Approaching Columbia Faculty Financing Graduate Education Fee Waiver

Your personal/research statement should be brief, concise and specific. Observe word or page limits. Submitting a long-winded or general statement may reduce your chance of admission. Make an appointment to discuss your statement with multiple faculty members at your undergraduate or post-baccalaureate institution. Ask each for comments and revise as necessary. Before finalizing, have your statement checked by a grammar expert and edit thoroughly.

The following is a personal/research statement format that has proven useful for many students.

Introduction

What is your motivation for applying to this program?

You can approach this question in a variety of ways. Perhaps it was a life experience or a particular class that inspired your path toward graduate school in this particular discipline? This is probably the only context in which you are encouraged to use autobiographical information, because you are doing so within the context of your research interests.

Discuss Previous Research:

• Issue/question you examined and what makes it important.

• Methodology you used to explore your question.

• What you found and the significance of your findings.

Transition

Create a bridge between your previous research and current research interests. What did you learn from the projects you worked on? Did you come to a certain realization in terms of the development of your current research interests?

Proposed area of research

• Issue/question you would like to examine and what makes it important.

• Methodology you intend to use, including both tools you already posses and those you look forward to learning in the course of graduate study.

• Findings you expect or do not expect and why.

Fit with Columbia

Identify faculty in your prospective department whose research interests match up with yours, drawing on specific connections between your work and theirs. We recommend you indicate approximately three professors here. Be sure to relate the faculty members’ work to your own in a substantive way. Simply listing the names of faculty members and stating a connection without showing one could have a negative effect.

Indicate Future Plans

How do you plan to use your Ph.D?

CAUTION: Please pay close attention to the above warnings about including too much personal or autobiographical information. Likewise, try to create a balance in talking about what Columbia can do for you vs. what you will bring to Columbia (it should be a reciprocal fit). And finally, stay away from general statements that lend no supporting evidence (eg. "Columbia is an excellent institution and would be a great place for me to pursue graduate study").