Top Law Schools

removed by poster

You've got great raw material. The stories are unique and interesting, it really shows your human side.

The main problem is lack of conciseness. Your paragraphs are long and wordy. There's so much detail that I lose track of your main narrative. Shorten the paragraphs, cut unnecessary details. For example, this sentence adds little-to-nothing: "Night or day scheduling could call to give me a flight assignment and I was expected to be at the airport ready to go in less than two hours."

Also, try to unify your PS under a single theme. The first paragraph paints you as compassionate, the second explains why you became an American, but the connection between those and your desire to be an attorney "to best act in defense of our freedoms" is unclear. Try to tie your paragraphs together by showing how each contributes to the reason why you want to study law, i.e. your desire to defend freedom, or some other reason that ties your stories together.

I'd say pick one of these stories and focus on it. The statement goes into too many directions and doesn't make it particularly easy for the reader to figure out what you're actually trying to say.

Agreed on having great material but needing to cull down the statement -- I'd suggest a central thesis that binds everything together ("I've always wanted to help others" or something). You also want to grab the reader. Maybe start with:

"When my ringing phone roused me from sleep on the morning of September the 11th, I picked up alert and ready for my next assignment. As an American Airlines junior reserve flight attendant stationed in New York City I was at the beck and call of our crew scheduling department. Night or day scheduling could call to give me a flight assignment; I was expected to be at the airport ready to go in less than two hours.

To my surprise, the terrified voice on the other end of the phone was my mother's, and within minutes my entire life and career would change..." etc etc

And then you could talk about how being a flight attendant had been about helping people (Ethiopian orphans) and now you wanted to help in a different way (Red Cross, now being a lawyer?)

Also, you're going to want to go through the grammar very carefully. For instance, this sentence:

"To my surprise it was my Mother calling from California."

Should be written:

"To my surprise, it was my mother calling from California."

Capitalization and punctuation might not seem significant, but law school admissions folks assure applicants that they are.