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PS draft- brutal honesty appreciated

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 2:31 am
by Anonymous User
Removed for now. Thanks for comments; I'll put up a revised one soon.

Re: PS draft- brutal honesty appreciated

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 11:00 am
by Anonymous User
Some views, but no comments. CanadianWolf, where are you?

Re: PS draft- brutal honesty appreciated

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 12:27 pm
by ht2988
I like this a lot, but I think you need to make your statement about why you want to attend law school much sooner.

Re: PS draft- brutal honesty appreciated

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 12:39 pm
by CanadianWolf
Great structure. Great content. Convincing & sincere. Needs to be proofread as I noticed at least two missing words. My preference is to avoid using the word "unique" because it tends to be overused & misused. Otherwise, you don't need to change much.

Overall this is an excellent law school personal statement, in my opinion.

Re: PS draft- brutal honesty appreciated

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 12:45 pm
by semigloss
Your personality shines through in this statement, esp as the narrator. Great work.

Re: PS draft- brutal honesty appreciated

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 12:53 pm
by Anonymous User
Thanks, guys. Glad to hear positive feedback, though any suggestions are greatly appreciated as well.

Some concerns I have:
1. I feel I do more "telling" rather than "showing" when I talked about my students and my value-add, though unfortunately felt that I had to make that trade-off to avoid going over 2 double-spaced pages.
2. I'm a little concerned about the the flow of the introductory paragraph. I know I discuss some education policy unique to Louisiana, and am wondering if it is confusing at all. I had someone tell me that the jump between discussing fourth grade and third grade seems bizarre and I edited it slightly, because I think it's important to discuss that my students had been written off at early ages and before they even entered my class.
3. Do I talk about myself enough? For the law school PS, discussing your strengths as they are relevant to law school without being self-promoting seems to be a tough balancing act.

Re: PS draft- brutal honesty appreciated

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 1:03 pm
by DougieFresh
Read through your personal statement. Here are my following comments:

Great insight into who you are and why you want to go to law school. Your personality shines.

I would include more specific information on Georgetown. Most schools talk about their emphasis on public service, and several schools are close to Washington D.C. or place well in that region. There is an interview on TLS (cant remember which off the top of my head) where a law school dean encourages applicants to make their, "Why?" sections unique enough that they pass the copy/paste test. Could your "Why Georgetown" copy/paste into another school?

Another thing that I like about your personal statement is that it conveys a sense of persistence in the face of adversity, a trait that I assume adcoms are looking for.