Questions about SOP

[KaiRu]

Some time ago I've started to work on my application package to prepare myself for MFE and 2 questions have rised.
Perhaps someone has something to share.

1. Let say, I had personal problems in my last year in the university (disease of a family member) therefore my thesis was some kind of weak and GPA was affected as well. It took some time for me to bounce back and the problem lies herein. Should I mention it in SOP or not? Any recommendations? I can explain it on interview if I'm asked but in other cases I'm concerned that it may sound like excuse rather than explanation and I definitely don't have intention to excuse here.

2. I'm IT guy in BB. My analytical product is used directly by few desks and I'm exposed to some numerical techniques.
I want to express this in my SOP and show my practical experience especially if you consider my previous point about weak thesis.
However, I think there could be some conflict:
- If I write "I'm exposed to some numerical techniquest" - it says almost nothing.
- If I write "I worked on method A and I was able to apply methodoly B because of some qualities of product C to increase D" - it's good but it sounds like sensitive information. Perhaps I'm a bit cautios here ...

Any ideas about reasonable level of detalisation or what are other ways to demonstrate experience? I guess my boss can help here, but don't want to talk about it yet.

Thanks

 

[roni]

1) As far as I know, you should mention it, but you don't want to spend a lot of time on this part and you obviously don't want to stress it.

Wait for a response from more experienced people :\

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I started reading application last week and I'm going to be practical, blunt and insensitive.
1) If you think a short paragraph would help me understand your case better please do. Like every other applicant, you have 30 seconds to make a first impression and you better do it right.

If the lasting impression of your essay is how a personal loss affected your life, you are asking for another loss.

Weak thesis, low GPA are relative. Where did you go to school, which courses did you take, how did you do on them, what your professors said about you, etc.

These are the things I'm looking at before I make up my mind. Without these info, you can't expect me or anyone here to say anything remotely useful.

As an applicant, you have to keep in mind that I have several hundred applications to evaluate, most of them don't have a passing relative (or they don't mention it).

Wall Street is a man eat dog world and there is no place for an excuse. For every applicant's weakness, there are 10 other stronger applicants chomping at the bit for my attention.

You want to sound confident, matured, professional. After all, whatever you do later on will reflect on the program that admits you or the firm that employs you.

2) Use the essay to demonstrate your knowledge on the product, the field, the career you are getting into. There is no need to say "I wrote a stored procedure on SQL server and feed those into pricing Excel sheets through some VBA code. The data is refreshed every minute."
Many admission people are non technical so it will sound like gibberish to them. On the other hand, you want to provide enough detail so people like me can see if your experience is relevant. Tell me the kind of languages you use at work, the tools you built, how they are used, why whom, what mathematical methods were employed, so on.

 

[KaiRu]

As for p.1 it's quite helpful. I think I undestand what you mean, Andy.

Thanks for time to explain!