一些文书构思上的反思，写给大家，也是提醒自己

Examples of essay requirements from some programs

• NYU Tandon

        As part of your application, you are expected to provide a response, in written form, to two prompts. A response to both prompts is required. This is an opportunity for you to give us a stronger sense of who you are, as a person. Your essay should be as unique as you and should be written using your own voice. Include each prompt as the header for each of your two responses.
When finished, combine your response to both prompts into one, single PDF and upload it below. Your total essay upload should be 12pt Arial font and no more than two pages, double-spaced, in length.
Prompt 1: Drawing from your previous academic, professional and personal experiences, tell us what has attracted you to the program of study you have noted in your application. Be very specific about your past experiences and how they shaped your interests. 
Prompt 2: Students often have a wide range of ideas and plans for what they hope to achieve after they receive their graduate degree. Tell us what your 5-year plan is after completing a degree from NYU Tandon.

• UT-Austin

Statement of purpose - Approximately 2 pages describing your reasons for pursuing graduate study and academic and professional interests and goals. This may include events/experiences that prepared you for CS graduate study and how your interests complement the department's faculty and research.

• UIUC

SOP:
        This statement should include your goals and background as it relates to the field of computer science. It is good to include any past work history, your interests, and reasons for pursuing a graduate degree in computer science.
Your statement will be evaluated for your conciseness, reasons for pursuing a graduate degree, leadership skills, and eloquence.  Applicants to our M.S. or Ph.D. program will also be evaluated according to their scientific research interests.
Generally, the Academic Statement of Purpose is between one to two pages.
PS:
The Personal Statement is required for Computer Science admissions purposes.
The Personal Statements must be within 250 words.

• USC

        PS: A Personal Statement is required for our program. The personal statement should describe succinctly your reasons for applying to the proposed program at the Viterbi School of Engineering, your preparation for this field of study, study interests, future career plans, and other aspects of your background and interests which may aid the admissions committee in evaluating your aptitude and motivation for graduate study. There is no required/recommended format or length for the personal statement.

• Requirements Summary

Write a short essay with native expressions that can hook the readers’ interest. There are 3 critical questions to answer, and the answers should be logically mutual-related. Inside these 3 main questions, there are also multiple sub-questions to answer:

• Who I am?
• • I am exactly the student that this program wants to admit.
  • • What kind of student does the program want?
  • I am a qualified, and strong candidate for this program.
  • • What are the advantages I have?
    • • Are the advantages related to the program?
    • What are the experiences I had that can tell my advantages?
• Where do I come from (why do I come here)?
• • Why do I want to study further in this certain area?
  • Why do I want to join in this specific program?
  • • What have I done in the past related to this program?
    • Which part of this program attracts me the most?
• Where am I going (plan in the future)?
• • Who do I want to become? It can’t just be a “better me”.
  • • The final goal should be “do something” but not a “character”.
  • How do I reach the final goal?
  • • The answer should be a plan of “what to do” step by step. But not a series of “what I will become”.
  • Make sure to outline how the program can help me finish the plan.

•  Despite those questions, there are also some traps, or “tricks” to notice:

• Do not write topics too broad

Machine learning or artificial intelligence are terms that every freshman knows. You can have a “general CS” major in your bachelor's degree, but it is definitely awful to say you have a keen interest in “general AI/ML”. Please specify the specific topic which you spend your time with or have a plan to study.

• Do not spend too many words on unimportant technical details

Do not say you use TF-IDF or Bag of Words in an NLP project and explain what are they. Also, even if you feel that you are doing something important things in the program, think twice. Are you really exploring something fancy? Or you are just using some fancy library? Please make sure you outline why what you did is important, unique, and valuable. You can’t expect the one reading your sentences to have the same background that you have. Use numbers, not subjective adjuncts.

• Find the “Hypernym”

When you want to write something very specific, think about the hypernym. One thing that needs to be clear is that every word you use should illustrate some of your strengths. For example, you have experience writing a survey paper as a course project and giving an impressive presentation to the class. Maybe you want to use this experience to show that you have the ability to collect papers, and write papers. But wait a second, maybe there is a better way to describe what you did: the ability to explore academic research and digest academic resources individually. Consider yourself as someone who has already read thousands of essays. You must be looking for some high-level quality from the the candidates: self-driven study, individual research, disciplined time management; but not keywords like read&write paper, or use some specific tools. Although giving the details with keywords is great, you also need to make sure your details are properly connected to the corresponding “Hypernym”. A high-level personal quality usually needs details to support it. But details that live without logical structure, which points to nowhere or an ambiguous argument, are also not good. Find the “Hypernym” and regulate your details in a more logical way. Emphasize the high-level point but don’t waste too many words in the details itself.

编辑器很辣鸡阿，发上来编号就乱了