We live in a digital world that is likely to evolve more and it has already created a revolution in human communication and how we create content. Among many such revolutions, AI-powered tools have appeared to be an important resource for students and professionals alike. A Statement of Purpose (SOP) is an essay that highlights your suitability for the Master’s program at the university. It will talk about your academic and professional background, motivation, and future goals, which will convince the admission committee of your chosen university about your worthiness to the program. Therefore, the answer to the question asked in this blog about whether to use ChatGPT to write SOP for Master’s is that it is a bad idea and can lead you to rejection instead of success. While using ChatGPT can save time and is convenient, the cons of this advanced tool is that writing an SOP for Master’s can lead to severe drawbacks. In this blog, we will explore how using ChatGPT for your Master’s SOP can do more harm than good and how it is better to take professional guidance instead, of working with experts like Contentholic who are one of the best SOP writing services in India.
Why You Cannot Use ChatGPT?
First, let’s clear some confusion in your mind. When we say use of ChatGPT, the range of that use can fall within brainstorming some ideas to completely let it write your SOP. Although the universities have clear rules about plagiarism, the use of AI is still not clearly defined in the university guidelines. But our advice is to beware, for the AI content can still come under plagiarised content.
Chances of Inaccurate Information
Although we do say that ChatGPT generates or creates content, it does nothing like that. It just picks up the information related to your given prompts, paraphrases them, and puts them together in a coherent manner. Now, you can argue that this is how even we humans go about our academic writing. Well, the difference between us humans and AI is that we fact-check our information and usually take up the latest data for our writings, and AI uses information that looks related without any confirmation about its truth or relevancy. ChatGPT can even produce false information sometimes.
So this could be bad news for you if you are going to rely heavily on ChatGPT for your Master’s SOP. Even asking for sample SOPs or winning SOPs from ChatGPT cannot guarantee that the samples are accurate enough for you to win admission to your desired university.
Give Rise to the Plagiarism Accusation
In a course SOP, you need to mention your motivations behind choosing the program, what attracted you to the university, and if you are an international student, then why that country. The purpose of all these statements is for the admissions committee to know that you have thought about it and not applying on a whim.
If ChatGPT were to write all these statements, then there is a very good chance that it will state the reasons that already many applicants have given or mentioned in forums like Reddit, Quora, etc. So don’t assume your SOP generated by ChatGPT which has reworded the existing texts around 100 times will pass the plagiarism test. Academics who will be reviewing your application, have years of experience in detecting plagiarism, and can easily tell apart that the SOP is not written by you.
Lack of Personal Voice in the SOP
The purpose behind a Graduate School asking for an SOP from you is to know your background, drive behind your choices, views regarding certain aspects of your life or the world, and professional aspirations. When you talk about these in the SOP, there are no standard answers, instead, it is how you express your thoughts. The admission committee already knows about your academic and professional past through your CV/resume, what they are seeking through the SOP is your personality and passion in life. So the one-shoe-fits-all approach of relying on other people’s work or AI is not going to work. If you renounce putting your voice in the SOP, then you are giving yourself a weak spot in your application.
The Use of ChatGPT is Considered Unethical
Most of the universities consider the use of AI as unethical. So you might be a red flag for the admission committee if AI content is detected in your SOP. While some universities might allow the use of AI for error detection like spellcheck, punctuation errors, or grammatical mistakes, most academics consider it as crossing the ethical integrity of academia. Therefore, if you are considering submitting AI-generated content as your own it can lead to rejection of your application and further chances of getting admission in that university.
Not Aligning with the University’s Requirements
Every institution has its preferences and guidelines for an SOP. Although ChatGPT is quite versatile, still it might fail to produce content that fits with the requirements of the program. This misalignment can be a negative point, as admission committees often look for certain themes, tones, or structures of the SOP for their programs.
Trust Yourself
One of the reasons somebody might choose ChatGPT to write their SOP might be that it is very intimidating to write and they are not able to gather the confidence in their writing skills. But an SOP written by you, in your voice, although imperfect is way better than an AI. Anyway, the Statement of Purpose is supposed to be personal. No one is going to be an expert about you other than yourself. Talk about your passion for computers or modern art. Research the program, and the university, so you can share how excited you are about any particular course, a faculty whose work you find very interesting, or a co-op or internship opportunity that can teach you valuable skills.
This goes for all those students out there who think their lives are not interesting enough to talk about. Well, you are a dreamer for the starters who aspires to have a higher education in your interest field, which not many people have. You have some goals, some places you see yourself in, some things you want to achieve, and have plans for them. Talk about all these things, connect them with your present choice of program and university, and describe how the said program/university will set you up for success. It would be icing on the cake if you could share how you would in return too contribute to the field of study or the university if selected.
Steps to Follow to Write an SOP for a Master’s Program
You have to give a brief introduction about yourself in the first paragraph.
In the second paragraph, you will outline your academic background and your academic achievements.
In the third paragraph, highlight your professional background if you have any. Talk about the skills and knowledge you gained or any recognition received during your working years. Professional experience can also include Co-ops or internships done previously.
In the fourth paragraph, you can mention any unique strength or extracurricular activities you are involved in.
In the subsequent paragraphs talk about how the program aligns with your area of interest, which coursework you are looking forward to, or which faculty you want to work with, what made you choose that particular university, and if you are an international student what made you choose that country.
There has to be a paragraph where you need to describe your future goals such as where you see yourself after this program, what kind of job opportunities you want, how will you contribute to the selected academic field in the future, etc.
Lastly, end the SOP with a good conclusion, summarizing key points covered, thanking the admission committee for their time and consideration, and hoping for a positive response.
Conclusion
While ChatGPT and other AI tools are efficient enough to give an SOP within a few seconds, they are not suitable for writing SOPs for the Master’s program. The content will lack in many aspects such as no personal touch, general narrative, inability to write personal stories, ethical doubts, and misaligning with specific requirements of programs. These shortcomings highlight that it is better to take guidance from professionals instead of a bot.
Choose the best SOP writing services , such as Contentholic , and ensure that your SOP is original, personal, and ethical. You can work with expert SOP writers, who can curate a compelling statement of purpose that will impress the admissions committee, ultimately increasing your chances of success in competitive graduate school admissions.
