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Started very strong, lost interest after the third paragraph. You need a more relevant connector for that second/third paragraph shift in story. What does volunteering have to to do w/you feeling content (even though it's obvious that those you care about around you have had a hard life)? You need to work harder on one general theme for this paper.

edit: Plz don't totally scrap the first paragraph..I liked it lots.

octneedy wrote:Started very strong, lost interest after the third paragraph. You need a more relevant connector for that second/third paragraph shift in story. What does volunteering have to to do w/you feeling content (even though it's obvious that those you care about around you have had a hard life)? You need to work harder on one general theme for this paper.

edit: Plz don't totally scrap the first paragraph..I liked it lots.

Thanks for the comments! I agree that I need to try and have a more centered message (as well as better shifts - my current ones are poorly written) - I've been trying to work on that, but my results have been pretty "meh." Also, do you have an idea of what would've held your interest around the point you lost it? That's kind of a big question, but I'll definitely try and keep the statement interesting throughout in future revisions!

Anyone else? The more feedback, the better!

Day bump. Sorry!

I'll try and offer feedback in return if desired - though I can't promise much because I've always found my criticism of people's writing to be lacking.

One last bump - any help would be appreciated before I head into my first set of revisions!

I thought it was pretty good overall. I think the biggest problem for me is that the transition between the first and second paragraphs seems a bit weak. I think you could definitely do a better job there. Also you could probably trim down your story about the tutoring a bit. I'm not saying its bad, there's a lot of good there and the story ends strong, but there are some things there that could be cut.

GoldenIL wrote:I thought it was pretty good overall. I think the biggest problem for me is that the transition between the first and second paragraphs seems a bit weak. I think you could definitely do a better job there. Also you could probably trim down your story about the tutoring a bit. I'm not saying its bad, there's a lot of good there and the story ends strong, but there are some things there that could be cut.

Thank you! I completely agree about the transition, and I even think you're kind for saying that there is one, haha. I basically stole that paragraph from when I was brainstorming earlier and liked the direction, but like you said, I kinda just plopped it in there.

And I'll definitely try to tidy up when I do some cuts/trimming. If you have an example for me to look out for, let me know, though your input as-is is more than enough

Since I am posting anyway, (obligatory asking for more feedback goes here yadayada)

decentalias wrote:

octneedy wrote:Started very strong, lost interest after the third paragraph. You need a more relevant connector for that second/third paragraph shift in story. What does volunteering have to to do w/you feeling content (even though it's obvious that those you care about around you have had a hard life)? You need to work harder on one general theme for this paper.

edit: Plz don't totally scrap the first paragraph..I liked it lots.

Thanks for the comments! I agree that I need to try and have a more centered message (as well as better shifts - my current ones are poorly written) - I've been trying to work on that, but my results have been pretty "meh." Also, do you have an idea of what would've held your interest around the point you lost it? That's kind of a big question, but I'll definitely try and keep the statement interesting throughout in future revisions!

Anyone else? The more feedback, the better!

Look at the bolded comment. That is why I lost interest after the third paragraph... I realized that the PS was wholly unrelated to the first paragraph that I was reading. I can tell that you have the writing abilities to punch out a great PS, but there isn't an over arching theme that is connecting one paragraph to the next. I just read a sad story and then like a part of ur resume. You need to pick an angle and then stick to it. You're trying to write two different types of personal statements and it's not working.

octneedy wrote:

decentalias wrote:

octneedy wrote:Started very strong, lost interest after the third paragraph. You need a more relevant connector for that second/third paragraph shift in story. What does volunteering have to to do w/you feeling content (even though it's obvious that those you care about around you have had a hard life)? You need to work harder on one general theme for this paper.

edit: Plz don't totally scrap the first paragraph..I liked it lots.

Thanks for the comments! I agree that I need to try and have a more centered message (as well as better shifts - my current ones are poorly written) - I've been trying to work on that, but my results have been pretty "meh." Also, do you have an idea of what would've held your interest around the point you lost it? That's kind of a big question, but I'll definitely try and keep the statement interesting throughout in future revisions!

Anyone else? The more feedback, the better!

Look at the bolded comment. That is why I lost interest after the third paragraph... I realized that the PS was wholly unrelated to the first paragraph that I was reading. I can tell that you have the writing abilities to punch out a great PS, but there isn't an over arching theme that is connecting one paragraph to the next. I just read a sad story and then like a part of ur resume. You need to pick an angle and then stick to it. You're trying to write two different types of personal statements and it's not working.

Whoops. I should have caught on that that was the reason you lost interest - for some reason I didn't connect the two sentences as pertaining to the same thing. Reading fail.

Thanks for the clarification and I'll try hammering out a more solid angle. I'm not looking at my PS for a bit so that way when I go to work on it again I can approach it more objectively but I'll definitely go at it with your guys' comments in mind!

Poorly organized & lacks clarity of thought.