[Re]presenting the self in graduate school application essays: Research into the process behind high-stakes writing

The genre of statements of purpose (SOP) for graduate school entrance has been scantily researched. While there are a few studies on the rhetoric of the genre and investigations into what makes certain essays successful, no studies consider the process of writing these statements and how students are socially situated inside and outside of academia. Since graduate school admissions are a method of academic gate keeping, this study looks at how students are able to situate themselves so they are deemed worthy of entrance. In particular for groups that are traditionally underrepresented in the academy, how do students gain the cultural capital necessary to rationalize their placement in the world of graduate studies that have traditionally shunned them?;Rather than focus solely on the completed product, as the existing studies do, this study follows students through the process of writing statements of purpose for graduate school admissions, investigating aspects of the practice from the student's point of view including: the students understandings and assumptions about the genre, the discoursal and rhetorical choices they make, the negotiation of their multiple identities, and their visions of their past, present, and future selves. Given the traditionally independent nature of statement of purpose writing, this research is unique in that it studies the process a group of senior undergraduate students go through when composing graduate school essays. The findings focus on two case studies of college seniors (who come from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in graduate education) and how they negotiate their discoursal and social identities while (and for the purpose of) writing their SOPs for graduate school admission. Using transcripts of an SOP writing workshop and personal interviews and the drafts and final statements of purpose written by the students, the researcher uses discourse analysis to investigate the ways students balance and represent their multiple identities in the high-stakes genre of admissions essays.