Hi, I just finished my SOP third draft (both a 1000 word and a 500 word limit prompt) and needed advice from a different perspective. I am from Taiwan not a native speaker so might have grammatical errors and would appreciate if someone could proofread for me. thanks in advance :)
SOP for Masters of Science in Business Analytics
"Farmers live at the mercy of the weather," Grandfather voice with a grave face as we were watching the news report on a major typhoon about to hit Taiwan. Growing up in an orange farmer's family, I witnessed how farmers were affected by the volatility of weather without reliable insurance system and the market price fluctuation. Since then I have developed deep care for the agriculture industry and have put finding the solution to help farmers to better adapt and communicate to the market as my top mission. During my 4 years as a Bio-Industry Communication major in college laying a focus on strategic marketing and digital communication for agri-businesses, along with my work experiences in Council of Agriculture and startup consulting company, I found that through becoming an expert in Business Analytics who could leverage the insights of abundance data is the solution that brings me closer to empower farmers both in smart farming operation and value-created marketing strategy.
I was enlightened to what data analysis can achieve in sorting complex issues during my Statistics and Social Science Quantitative Research class taught by Prof. Yu Hua Chen. It provided me with both statistical knowledge and SAS programming tool to reason with a scientific approach, and to sort the underlying rationale of the delayed marriage trend in Taiwan. I led 5 team members to conduct regression and coefficient correlation analysis to discover that "sacrificing personal time" was the factor of statistical significance. We later concluded life science major students were most willing to tie the knot by applying T-test and ANOVA test to compare college females' difference in major. I realized that data analytics lies in the heart of understanding the unknown and is the way to quench the thirst of my why-seeking nature as it provides an objective perspective that enables us to comb through the complexity of situations.
I competed for the opportunity to intern in Council of Agriculture that opened my eyes to an everlasting trend where analytics and agriculture meet. While reporting international agricultural development to assist APEC food and loss project and the bargain of Trans-Pacific Partnership, I explored how farming in the United States has progressed from a conventional industry with the help of big data. Startups leverage the historic weather data to generate detailed forecasts that help farmers optimize their operating decisions and set up crop insurance policies. I Discovered the practicality to apply data analytics not only in preparing Taiwanese small farmers to face weather condition changes, but also the use in establishing open data source on customer insights and pricing strategy that farmers could cooperate despite the small farmland limitations. Echoing my desire to contribute into the agriculture sector, it was then I envisioned myself to further my studies in the united states on business analytics, to build a career in multinational agribusiness, and eventually devote myself to the agriculture progress in my hometown.
The desire to see how analytics worked in a wider business sphere, I chose to join Backer-Founder, the largest crowdfunding consultant in Taiwan, helping startups whom lack of the resource to connect customers to fulfill their dreams. As a project specialist, I turned data into actionable insights that guided business decisions and performed a complete strategize-execute-measurement in project managing. Among the projects that I successfully managed on Kickstarter and domestic crowdfund platforms, the mooInk e-reader providing a holistic Chinese e-reading experience was most challenging and awarding. I acutely targeted audience by analyzing consumer demographics and reading habits to prioritize product features that led mooInk to reach twice as expected goal in the beginning month before we witnessed a decline. Spotted key metrics with Google Analytics and Facebook Ads manager, I had not only discover an exhaustion of original audiences with a peak in cost per ads click and frequency, but also inspected characteristic of backers to re-strategize on new audiences. In the end, we saw a comeback on performance with an ROI averaged 1:20 and fundraised over 460,000 USD. To win Chinese buyers over Kindle that Amazon has to offer was not easy, and I profoundly grasp that data analysis and problem-solving go hand in hand to navigate business strategy toward success. I also realized that landing limited resources where it's due, and avoiding risks in advance is crucial in developing profitable market more efficiently.
In the Masters of Science in Business Analytics, I yearn to learn beyond prescriptive analysis to further develop the understanding on consumer behaviors, and further set my eyes on predictive analysis and modeling, benefiting from uncovering data patterns of the past that points a hint to the future. I have envisioned myself to devote into the field of precision agriculture and smart farming, and the complete course covering predictive analysis and marketing analysis combined with a capstone project that the ______________ offers is the perfect combination of courses that would equip me with the technical skills to fulfill my career plan. To further prepare myself to dive in this exciting field, I have gained the certificate in R for data science, and D3.js for data visualization. I am looking forward to adding value to the class profile in_____________ and pave a new way for my professional advancement. I believe the passion and vision to make an impact, the business acumen nurtured within my professional experience, along with my academic training spanning from business, marketing and statistics make me the ideal candidate for your program and a presentable alumna post-graduation.Holt Educational Consultant - / 14,835 
4783 Yin, we have a one essay per thread policy here so I will have to advice you only on the first essay that you wrote. It would be best for you to delete the second essay as that is a policy violation that could lead to you getting a warning from the admin. Most newcomers tend to forget that ruling so I have to remind the person when needed because I hate seeing members getting suspended all because of a technicality. So, here is my advice regarding the first prompt.
You can actually use the same essay for both applications because the 1000 word maximum has a 500 word minimum. That is why you can use the same essay, with some slight variations in order to avoid being accused of self-plagiarism in the future. Now, this being an MS application essay, you need to start the presentation from your professional foundation. You should never begin from a childhood experience, Start it off from the point of your work experience instead. Show the reviewer the kind of work that you have been doing in this field for at least 2 years. That work experience has to relate with your interest in further studies within the field. Your current essay focuses too much on the college side of your background, which is not the main focus of a MS SOP. The college experience should only be a short introduction at the start. No more than 1 paragraph that also indicates any honors and recognition you might have had in a related class or internship. Focus more on the presentation of your professional career and accomplishments that will prove a foundation and preparation to undertake this course. This current essay is too wordy but not in an informative manner. So you need to make sure that you present a more relevant SOP. Basically, you need to make sure that you deliver the following points in an essay of up to 1000 words (again you can do it in 500-750 and be accurate in your presentation.)
1. Your college background in a summarized form. If your thesis was related to Data Analytics, then that means you have something in your previous academic experience that will provide you with a solid academic background for the MS course.
2. A description of your current work and the professional reason that pushed your need for higher academic learning. This will be the "purpose" part of the essay so be very specific about the reasons you have for a desire to enroll in this course.
3. Explain why you believe that this course will help you in the future. What career plans do you have that relate to the imperative need to complete this course?
4. Explain your decision to seek enrollment at this university. What were the major reasons (that have nothing to do with the website information, university ranking, or public knowledge) that ties in with your academic needs that the university can provide?
These are the more appropriate information to present in the SOP that the reviewer will appreciate reading. You need to make sure that you highlight your professional profile as best as you can. From what I have read in this version, you have the potential to create a proper and accurately informative revised essay. I am confident that you can provide it.
@Holt
Thanks for the reminder and your advice, outlining the points helps me get a clearer view on what I should include in the essay!
Could you provide an example on what way of describing would be considered as an informative format? I have realized my sentence being wordy and not right to the point, yet am also having quite a hard time making it looks more compact. ( the first draft was more than three pages lol)
@Holt
The start of my first draft is as follows. Would this be a better way to start off an SOP?
"Please find ways to reach at least 1:20 sales conversion rate " "We'd like to know the estimated fundraised amount" As a project specialist in a crowdfund consulting firm guiding startups to introduce innovative products into the competitive market, those are the questions I need to solve and answer for my clients on a daily base. As GPS plays a crucial role in navigation, data plays an important role when business needs guidance to make decision and actions. Having nurtured my business acumen by the extensive professional experience, I am seeking to become a business analyst who possesses the knowledge of leveraging the power of data to create business values. The Master of Business Analytics will complement my business potential by preparing me with technical skills, and experiential training will be the springboard for me to advance my career pathway.
Thank you!
