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I mean, the writing is... free of grammatical errors, I guess. A little flowery and pretentious, especially for someone who's supposed to have a semester of legal writing under their belt, but...

This is a flame, right? No one in their right mind is going to transfer from Vanderbilt to GW. You'd have to be an idiot of monumental proportions to transfer to an objectively worse school just because it's in DC.

I'd go with "extremely flowery and pretentious."

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Anonymous User wrote:I believe my grades do not reflect my true ability

Are you saying you don't have good grades? If so, I wouldn't go with this "beauty" PS.

I personally wouldn't go with it anyway. It is pretentious, and the whole concept seems forced. You waste a ton of space trying to sound creative without presenting a strong argument for transferring.

Alright I'll bite because it seems like OP is serious. The fact that at least two people in this thread think you are flame should probably raise a red flag for you. I think you should really rethink your writing style. The word 'pretentious' has been used to describe your style. I think it might be worse then that.

English major to blame for the flowery, but that's my style so that's okay.

No. This isn't just flowery. You open by citing not 1 but 2 quotes from literary works. You build a personal statement on the theme of 'beauty' to no concrete end and dare to discuss the cringe-inducing cliche that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' and then making an argument that it extends further than the eye (really?). Hungerford is cited both in the beginning and the end paragraph but has no function in the essay except as a form of name-dropping. Ultimately, you end this essay with this compelling line for the adcom to ponder:

With that said, I believe my grades do not reflect my true ability in light of this difficult time and the prospect of transferring to GW Law means success in beauty beyond the eye going forward.

I strongly suggest you throw away the first paragraph altogether and re-write this without any use of the words "eye", "beholder", and "beauty". You have some strong experience and an apparent interest in D.C. that you should write more about.

mandychristine wrote:English major to blame for the flowery, but that's my style so that's okay. Would you mind elaborating on pretentious? As for Vandy --> GW rank-wise, GW is my transfer safety, but I'm not interested in being in Nashville for 2 more years. Thanks for the feedback.

I mean, it opens with a Shakespeare quote and reads as a discourse on the meaning of "beauty" as much as (perhaps more than) a transfer statement.

mandychristine wrote:English major to blame for the flowery, but that's my style so that's okay. Would you mind elaborating on pretentious? As for Vandy --> GW rank-wise, GW is my transfer safety, but I'm not interested in being in Nashville for 2 more years. Thanks for the feedback.

Don't you dare blame your English major for that. You're giving us all bad names. You wrote a transfer statement that was about 10% law school and 90% bloated prose about the nature of beauty. An English major knows how to flex their writing style to fit a theme, not just how to wax poetic about any abstract subject. Incidentally, "that's my style" is the biggest writing cop-out known to man. You've had a semester and a half of training in legal writing; if you haven't figured out how to write concise, focused sentences, that's a failing, not a stylistic choice.

And again, your reasoning here is baffling. It sounds like you don't have the grades to transfer up, so you're trying to transfer down. And you want to do this because you don't like being in Nashville. Those are the worst reasons in the world to transfer. Your grades won't go away when you transfer, but they will guarantee a lower chance at employment in any legal field.

Stop focusing on where you're studying and start focusing on where you want to work. Vanderbilt will not tie you to Nashville for life, and your reasons for wanting to transfer out are idiotic. Regardless, this essay will not convince anyone that you're a good candidate for a transfer, though I'm sure GW would jump at the chance to charge you sticker for transferring out of a better school.

Do I sense hurt feelings on the internet?