I’ve learned that when you get your SOP critique, people are very opinionated. I don’t mean this in a bad way; everyone means well when they critique your SOP. The problem though is that when you receive critiques from other people, you seem to loose sight of what you wanted to write.
For instance, I sent my SOP off to four people. Each came back with something different and all but one basically tried to rewrite my SOP into something they would have written. While the intentions are good, you’re stuck having to comb through all the critiques to pick what fits with your essay. Sometimes people want to be fluffy, sometimes people want to embellish on their work skills, and sometimes people want to write a story. I understand the term of cutting back fat, and its true that for the SOP you need to cut back on fat and get your point across, but you should also write knowing that this essay represents you and you alone.
The one person who critiqued my essay that I leaned on the most really took the time out to fix the kinks in what I wrote rather than trying to rewrite my essay into something they would have written. They helped me reword things, flip things, drop things, told me what I was missing and made it so it was my essay and not their essay. I appreciated that. They gave me what I needed in order to make it better than simply rewrite it.
I’m happy with my SOP now. Some told me to give it back to them so they can critique it some more but I’m afraid that if I keep bringing it back to them they’ll continue to slash and dice it until its not my essay anymore. The core message of my SOP is being conveyed and as long as they understand my intentions in JET are good then it doesn’t matter if I wrote skills instead of tool or experience over ethics.
So, a word to all those potentials reading this entry, it doesn’t hurt to have people read your essay and get their opinion. Just make sure that at the end of the day its you that’s writing it, not them.