PS First Draft--help please!!! Forum

[ronmione22]

Thanks for all the feedback...i realize i gotta do some serious fixing..will definitely post again after reworking everything..thanks again=))

[CanadianWolf]

DELETE: Delete the reference to Atticus Finch & Harper Lee. Better to write that "I respect the inherent...".
This personal statement is interesting but poorly written. Hopefully some other posters can suggest some line-by-line revisions.

[Tanicius]

Shorten and sweeten the first paragraph. Don't care about cherry on top. The place where you go to get your hands chopped off is much more powerful of an opening. (By the way, unless you always knew at the time that your parents were joking, I wouldn't waste time talking about how it isn't exactly true. You were either scared stiff by this building or you weren't.)

The second paragraph is good because it tells a unique and believable tail of struggling in a life of diversity within a culture that does not allow it. That's a good conflict, and the sheer extent to which this conflict was a reality for you is truly exceptional. So, all well and good.

But then you have this paragraph that is like a page long. And honestly I don't feel your experiences in "law" specifically are all that interesting. You go from someone who literally lived oppression to the stereotypical "lol I didn't know people in third world regions had it so bad!" college student. I would advise against making this personal statement a treatise on how an experience opened your eyes to wrongs in the world and made you want to fix them. That's such an over-hashed personal statement plot, and as honest as it may be from you I think it actually detracts from the appearance of sincerity you just spent the former half of the essay building up.

Remember, you don't have to make this about "Law! Law! Law!". Schools want to know who you are as a person. Things relevant to law can be a big part of your personal statement, but you don't have to make this a 9th grade 5 Paragraph Essay about how your experiences converged to law school, and quite frankly I don't think you should, either, because you already have such a rich pool of material borne out of the first half. Especially, especially do not have conclusionary statements like "Thus as you can see my experience led me to law." If adcomms can't figure that part out by then (specifically with your personal statement), they haven't been reading the rest of the essay.

[12AngryMen]

I don't like it. No sir, I don't like it at all. Much to superfluous.

[GoodToBeTheKing]

I don't like it. No sir, I don't like it at all. Much to superfluous.

I agree. The first paragraph is where you lost me. Less about the building and more about YOU.