As anyone who’s ever watched Game of Thrones knows, a bad ending can ruin everything. A decade of work, gone down the drain. Where once you were filled with hope and excitement, now you have a nasty taste in your mouth. Know that feeling? Well, so does every grad school admissions reader, because there’s little as disappointing as an SOP with an…awkward…conclusion. They’re just so much easier to reject. But you can avoid this problem. You can revel in stacks of hard-earned admissions letters as long as you follow the timeless rules of writing. Let’s learn how to end a statement of purpose properly, and so transform your Dream School into your biggest fan.
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An excellent statement of purpose conclusion will include 3 sentences (with an optional 4th if you’re super ambitious):
Each of these elements will connect, in some way, to your introduction. Thus, they’ll create a sense of circularity. The ending will actually feel like an ending, and the reader will walk away feeling excited and hopeful about your future.
Let’s examine these sentences one-by-one!
If you’ve wisely followed our free SOP Starter Kits (for Master’s and PhD applicants), then you already know that the most successful SOPs start with an open-ended story…and conclude that story in the final paragraph.
Consider this Public Health PhD statement of purpose (7 applications, 5 admits!). It begins with the story of a tragic news headline directly related to her proposed research:
“The headlines kept me awake late into a weekday night: six Asian women shot dead in Georgia…”
Then, in the conclusion, it reminds us of this story with a single sentence:
“It shouldn’t take a once-in-a-lifetime tragedy and temporary media buzz to spotlight these overlooked groups when my peers and I have been grappling with racism and acculturation for as long as we can remember.”
Likewise, when you’re contemplating how to end your statement of purpose, try to take us back to the beginning. Use some tiny bit of language to remind the reader how your intellectual journey started. Thus, you’ll give us a powerful sense of completion, of harmony, of circularity, as well as the feeling that you’re a great writer!
Learn the “4 Questions” every SOP must answer to earn admission at competitive schools. This guide will tell you what to write, and leave you feeling super confident and ready to hit “submit.”
Your essay has a thesis statement, right?
I sure hope so, because your thesis—your “sentence of purpose”—is the #1 most important sentence in your SOP. It explains your goals with boldness and clarity. Here’s a beautiful example:
“This is why I apply to Gotham University today: to learn to disentangle data, construct valid inferences, and design clinical trials which apply statistical methods for improved cancer-screening tests and treatments.”
Your conclusion should recycle and paraphrase this statement. These are your all-important goals, after all! When your reader reaches the end of your essay, you want those goals to be blazing in their mind. For example:
“For all these reasons, I feel certain that Gotham will be a vital step toward achieving my goal of designing clinical trials for improved cancer-screening tests and treatments”
Notice how easy it is to understand this applicant’s goals? We don’t even need to read the rest of the essay. We know exactly what she wants to achieve: to design clinical trials for improved cancer screening. By stating this with confidence, she, in turn, gives us confidence in her.
That’s a pretty powerful effect!
This part is easy. Tell them you’re going to work hard. Tell them you’d be honored to get admitted. Tell them you’re certain that this school will help you achieve you goals. Don’t splatter them with awkward flattery (read on below to find out why this is a bad idea). But do be honest and convey that you really really want to go to this school!
“If given the opportunity to enroll, I am confident I have the capability, tenacity, and enthusiasm to thrive in this program and unfold this new chapter in my life-long intellectual journey to understand the uniqueness of what it means to be human.”
Don’t feel like you have to write something so effusive, however. Simplicity and clarity are always welcome! An excellent statement of purpose could just as well end this way:
“If given the opportunity to enroll, I am confident that Stanford University will help me achieve these goals.”
In 1-2 sentences, explain your career goals after graduation. If you’re a PhD applicant, or have truly ambitious goals, you might write two sentences explaining both your short-term and long-term career aspirations. It could look something like this:
“Upon graduation, I hope to attain a _____ role in a company like _____ or _____, both of whom are currently developing fascinating new ______ solutions applicable to the _____ industry.”
This quick guide explains in detail how to craft these oh-so-important statements (you should always include one in your SOP somewhere). Once again, they ensure that your admissions reader remembers exactly which big goals you’re chasing in their graduate program. As long as those goals align with their goals, they won’t even have to wonder if you’re their ideal student. They’ll already know. You’ll already have made that clear.
Anywhere you like!
Honestly, as long as you include 3-4 of these elements, your statement of purpose conclusion will be strong. It’s really up to you and your own writing style. In the examples below, you’ll see how two insanely successful applicants structured the end of their SOPs. They both give you a great template to follow.
Statement of Purpose Conclusion:
Developing a blueberry-sensing AGV from idea to mass deployment has been a rewarding learning experience. 1 It has given me a taste of the excitement and fulfillment that comes from directing novel engineering investigations, and diving deeply into learning new techniques, frameworks, and tools. It has also opened my eyes to the fact that a PhD is the perfect environment for me to grow my research skills, help innovate the field of robotics, achieve my long-term goal of advancing automated manufacturing, and bring environmentally-friendly technology to the forefront of the industry. 2 After graduate study, I hope to start or join an early-stage start-up 3 and lead from a deeply technical point of view; the analytical research mindset, technical knowledge, and academic connections from a Mechanical Engineering PhD from Gotham will be invaluable towards this goal. 4
Statement of Purpose Conclusion:
Now, having broken free from the “troubled student” label and discovered my own academic passion, 1 I am determined to develop intellectual tools to help similar students in Chinese high schools through methodologies based on cognitive dissonance 2 . I aim to accomplish this goal through intensive study of developmental psychology and motivation, and hopefully by working closely with professors Edward Nygma, Selina Kyle, and Viktor Fries. My broad academic and research background in economics and psychology ensure my compatibility with the Human Development and Education program, and I believe that pursuing an Ed.M. at Gotham will fully prepare me to effect real change for students in China and beyond 3 .
There are two incredibly common mistakes applicants make when concluding their SOPs:
This problem is particularly annoying—it’s the problem that inspired the creation of WriteIvy! Every year, thousands of applicants submit boring SOPs that read like long autobiographies. Then, they add little awkward paragraphs—at the very end—that explain why they love Dream University.
In the olden days of the 80s and 90s, this was all you had to do to get admitted. There weren’t many applicants. It wasn’t nearly as competitive. Frankly, everyone submitted these trash essays, and as long as their credentials were solid, they’d got accepted. I call these “Boomer Essays.”
Today, graduate admissions is MUCH more competitive.
The best applicants don’t write this way anymore. The best applicants make a huge effort to write statements of purpose that follow the timeless lessons of rhetoric and the lost art of persuasion. They know good writing is the key to getting admitted.
In fact, many faculty consider this type of essay—with the “why us” portion tacked on at the end—worthy of immediate rejection:
“It’s a kiss of death when I read a personal essay that describes an applicant’s life-long goal of serving humankind and has a paragraph tacked on to the end that “personalizes” the essay for the particular school to which it was sent.”
Who would you accept? The smart young scientist who writes like a genius? Or the smart young scientist who writes like an impatient, thoughtless, disgruntled Boomer?
Luckily, fixing this is easy: follow the SOP Starter Kits! (Conveniently available here for Master’s and PhD applicants.)
Everybody loves flattery…as long as they respect the person giving it.
If an MIT professor tells you you’re brilliant, whoa, you’re flattered! That means you’re really smart! If a snot-nosed 6-year old tells you you’re brilliant, however…well it’s cute and it makes you smile, but you know it doesn’t really mean you’re smart. It just means you’re smarter than a 6-year old.
Much the same, universities don’t care when a snot-nosed bachelor’s graduate—one who’s never once set foot on their campus—tells them how wonderful they are. How would you know? What qualifications do you have to claim that they’re a “world-class institution”? Are you an authority on world-class universities? Or do you just blindly repeat everything you read in U.S. News and World Report?
Thus, never include any kind of general flattery or unfounded compliments in your statement of purpose conclusion. It only makes you look snot-nosed.
This prestigious program!
Internationally renowned professors!
…in fact, if you just stay away from the words “world-class,” “esteemed,” and “renowned,” you’ll probably be alright.
An essay is not a letter. Repeat that to yourself a few times: An essay is not a letter.
essay
[noun]
a short literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and generally analytic, speculative, or interpretative.
letter
[noun]
a written or printed communication addressed to a person or organization and usually transmitted by mail.
There are some schools (mostly in Europe) who refer to their application essays as “letters of intent.” For those guys, you can feel free to write a nice letter and sign it “Thank you so much and with all love and care from your desperate applicant, Bob.” For everyone else: write an essay.
Essays are not addressed to individual people. They’re carefully crafted arguments that are equally applicable to anyone who might read them. By saying “thank you” in a statement of purpose, you signal (even if subconsciously) that you don’t fully understand the nature of the document you’re writing.
Would you say “thank you for reading” at the end of a research paper?
No, of course not.
Keep that same professional attitude when you end your statement of purpose.
The end of your essay should never be awkward. It should never—like Game of Thrones—leave the audience scratching their chins and wondering, “Wait, is that really it?” Luckily, this is easy to avoid if just make sure to include 3-4 of these sentences:
Then, make sure NOT to do these 3 things:
Follow those rules, follow the SOP Starter Kits, and you’ll all but guarantee the admissions reader smiles when she reaches the end of your statement of purpose. She’ll walk away glowing and muttering to herself:
“Man, that essay was really great. Now THIS is a student I want to see in my class.”
Learn the “4 Questions” every SOP must answer to earn admission at competitive schools. This guide will tell you what to write, and leave you feeling super confident and ready to hit “submit.”
