Please assist me with my personal statement
Posted: Sun Aug 01, 2010 5:51 pm
Dear fellow TLS members,
I would greatly appreciate any suggestions that would enable me to improve my personal statement.
I thank you all in advance for all of your assistance. I’m sure that it will prove invaluable as it has in the past.
Here is the first draft of my PS:
I still remember the nervousness, my breath heavy, my heart racing as I inched closer to the entrance door. It was a warm Texas day in a summer that seemed uncomfortably hot. I paused to wipe the sweat off my brow and placed my hand on the door’s handle. As I proceeded to make my way inside, the door jammed, leaving me to spend additional moments under the sun. Beyond the door awaited a class of thirty students: rash high-school teens, mostly immigrants, some without the ability to speak English, but all eager to change the circumstances that have plagued their adolescence; all with a story remarkably similar to mine.
I have spent my entire life as an immigrant. Along my journey, all passageways to opportunity have seemed at one point or another jammed, like this door with which I wrestled, blocked by circumstances that did not always appear as though they could be changed. I was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, the only son of highly educated Jews who were kept away from success by the institutional anti-Semitism that characterized all aspect of life in the U.S.S.R. In Uzbekistan, my parents and I lived in poverty, confined and unable to escape the soviet republic, immobilized by soviet authorities from pursuing an exit. All doors in the U.S.S.R were shut for us, but we did not despair. Over time, we created a pathway, and, as the soviet republic began to collapse we made our way to Israel. It was at that time that as a young boy I emigrated from my home for the first, but not the last time.
In Israel I tasted freedom. For the first time my parents and I lived as equals amongst the population. Though the refugee quarters we slept in were small, and though we were still surrounded by poverty, we knew that this time our circumstances were temporary, that in Israel more could be attained for us. Unfortunately, while all Jews grow to know freedom in Israel, they also grow to know war. The memories of my childhood in Israel are filled with the memories of war. I have known friends who boarded buses that never reached their destination. I have been in markets that were set ablaze by bombs. I have seen good people, innocent people, young and old taken by a senseless war, and I have prayed daily for it to end.
But the war goes on, and it is because of war that my parents decided to leave Israel with the start of the new millennium. It was thus at fifteen that I became an immigrant again, arriving this time in America, where thousands have traveled before me, and where thousands continue to travel in order to better the circumstances that plague their lives. I remember realizing, as a cab dropped us off in the small one bedroom apartment that would serve as our home for the next two years, that to obtain long-term opportunity we had fallen into poverty again. While we sold our home in Israel to arrive in the United-States, we could barely afford the monthly rent in New-York. We had no car, no furniture, but we knew that this poverty, as in Israel, could be temporary. That with hard work we could prosper here.
On my first day of high-school I could barely speak ten words of English. An inner city school is a challenging experience for any student to persevere through, but particularly for a scrawny, Jewish boy with no language skills. I took my beatings as they came, and I stayed away from the plethora of negative influences that surrounded me. While the streets of New-York were no easy place to spend my early teenage years, the war torn streets of Israel during the first and second Intifadas had made me well prepared. Over time, I studied hard and learned the English language. Success follows hard work, and, after two years I was able to obtain a transfer to a better school. I persevered and survived, through Uzbekistan, Israel, and the streets of New-York city, paving the way to attend a well respected university. There, I continued moving forward, and graduated as the valedictorian of my department. A life-long immigrant who arrived to the U.S at fifteen without any knowledge of English, I had finally found my home, and there, through hard work I also found success. All doors were now ready to be opened.
This is why I pushed the jammed door open on that hot Texas day, clearing a path for myself to enter. I walked through, into the classroom where my students awaited, and proceeded to teach them that the story they have thus far known, their story, can be rewritten with an alternate ending; that all doors can be opened in America for those who work hard.
I hope that the next door I open and pass through will lead me to the school of law at ( ). It is there that I wish to acquire the knowledge to practice immigration law so that I may continue to help immigrants establish themselves in the U.S. I believe that my life experience as a first generation immigrant to the United-States, as well as my fluency in Hebrew, Russian, and extensive knowledge of Spanish will make me a competent and marketable immigration attorney upon graduation.
The school of law at ( ) is the place where I desire to acquire my legal education not only because ( ) is my home, but also because the school of law at ( ) offers the opportunity to participate in an award winning immigration clinic through which I will be able to experience the breadth of immigration practice while still studying for my Juris Doctor. Additionally, because I desire to remain in ( ) permanently, obtaining a Juris Doctor from ( ) will allow me unparallel access to the ( ) legal market. If I am blessed with the opportunity, I am eager to walk through the doorway to the school of law at ( ) and continue paving a path of success for myself and other immigrants.
I would greatly appreciate any suggestions that would enable me to improve my personal statement.
I thank you all in advance for all of your assistance. I’m sure that it will prove invaluable as it has in the past.
Here is the first draft of my PS:
I still remember the nervousness, my breath heavy, my heart racing as I inched closer to the entrance door. It was a warm Texas day in a summer that seemed uncomfortably hot. I paused to wipe the sweat off my brow and placed my hand on the door’s handle. As I proceeded to make my way inside, the door jammed, leaving me to spend additional moments under the sun. Beyond the door awaited a class of thirty students: rash high-school teens, mostly immigrants, some without the ability to speak English, but all eager to change the circumstances that have plagued their adolescence; all with a story remarkably similar to mine.
I have spent my entire life as an immigrant. Along my journey, all passageways to opportunity have seemed at one point or another jammed, like this door with which I wrestled, blocked by circumstances that did not always appear as though they could be changed. I was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, the only son of highly educated Jews who were kept away from success by the institutional anti-Semitism that characterized all aspect of life in the U.S.S.R. In Uzbekistan, my parents and I lived in poverty, confined and unable to escape the soviet republic, immobilized by soviet authorities from pursuing an exit. All doors in the U.S.S.R were shut for us, but we did not despair. Over time, we created a pathway, and, as the soviet republic began to collapse we made our way to Israel. It was at that time that as a young boy I emigrated from my home for the first, but not the last time.
In Israel I tasted freedom. For the first time my parents and I lived as equals amongst the population. Though the refugee quarters we slept in were small, and though we were still surrounded by poverty, we knew that this time our circumstances were temporary, that in Israel more could be attained for us. Unfortunately, while all Jews grow to know freedom in Israel, they also grow to know war. The memories of my childhood in Israel are filled with the memories of war. I have known friends who boarded buses that never reached their destination. I have been in markets that were set ablaze by bombs. I have seen good people, innocent people, young and old taken by a senseless war, and I have prayed daily for it to end.
But the war goes on, and it is because of war that my parents decided to leave Israel with the start of the new millennium. It was thus at fifteen that I became an immigrant again, arriving this time in America, where thousands have traveled before me, and where thousands continue to travel in order to better the circumstances that plague their lives. I remember realizing, as a cab dropped us off in the small one bedroom apartment that would serve as our home for the next two years, that to obtain long-term opportunity we had fallen into poverty again. While we sold our home in Israel to arrive in the United-States, we could barely afford the monthly rent in New-York. We had no car, no furniture, but we knew that this poverty, as in Israel, could be temporary. That with hard work we could prosper here.
On my first day of high-school I could barely speak ten words of English. An inner city school is a challenging experience for any student to persevere through, but particularly for a scrawny, Jewish boy with no language skills. I took my beatings as they came, and I stayed away from the plethora of negative influences that surrounded me. While the streets of New-York were no easy place to spend my early teenage years, the war torn streets of Israel during the first and second Intifadas had made me well prepared. Over time, I studied hard and learned the English language. Success follows hard work, and, after two years I was able to obtain a transfer to a better school. I persevered and survived, through Uzbekistan, Israel, and the streets of New-York city, paving the way to attend a well respected university. There, I continued moving forward, and graduated as the valedictorian of my department. A life-long immigrant who arrived to the U.S at fifteen without any knowledge of English, I had finally found my home, and there, through hard work I also found success. All doors were now ready to be opened.
This is why I pushed the jammed door open on that hot Texas day, clearing a path for myself to enter. I walked through, into the classroom where my students awaited, and proceeded to teach them that the story they have thus far known, their story, can be rewritten with an alternate ending; that all doors can be opened in America for those who work hard.
I hope that the next door I open and pass through will lead me to the school of law at ( ). It is there that I wish to acquire the knowledge to practice immigration law so that I may continue to help immigrants establish themselves in the U.S. I believe that my life experience as a first generation immigrant to the United-States, as well as my fluency in Hebrew, Russian, and extensive knowledge of Spanish will make me a competent and marketable immigration attorney upon graduation.
The school of law at ( ) is the place where I desire to acquire my legal education not only because ( ) is my home, but also because the school of law at ( ) offers the opportunity to participate in an award winning immigration clinic through which I will be able to experience the breadth of immigration practice while still studying for my Juris Doctor. Additionally, because I desire to remain in ( ) permanently, obtaining a Juris Doctor from ( ) will allow me unparallel access to the ( ) legal market. If I am blessed with the opportunity, I am eager to walk through the doorway to the school of law at ( ) and continue paving a path of success for myself and other immigrants.