MY PS - All kinds of critique are welcome - THanks Forum

[DamnLSAT]

here we go. It's been through a bunch of changes and if you're read it before, I encourage you to give it a read again and see where I've gone with it. Would love to read yours too... sorry to those I promised yesterday, I was buried in my own statement for the day. I have the day off on Sunday and I will get to them then. Please PM me if you'd like me to have a look. Thanks again!
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As I stared back at Big Bird in the bathroom mirror, I confirmed the fact that my bright yellow costume looked just as ridiculous as it felt. After one final glance in the mirror, I waddled from my campus room to the quad to inspect the final details of the event. The cheap yellow feathers that covered my entire body left a scattered trail behind me as the wind tested my novice sewing abilities, and the oily yellow face paint continued to run down my neck in the crisp fall air as I welcomed relieved parents and energetic children soon thereafter. I spent weeks planning and developing the details for Project Pumpkin, an annual event on Halloween designed to provide local children with a safe place for trick-or-treating at the university. With Batman in my right hand and a giant green M&M in my left hand, I guided a tiny troupe of fictional characters around the decorated quad to accumulate as many handfuls of candy as their plastic pumpkins would hold. Two nights before, I won a campus-wide accounting competition—the proudest moment of my academic career—yet I found more satisfaction that night sweating in my conspicuous yellow costume than I did debating in my pressed business suit.

Two and a half years later, when the housing market crashed and my yellow costume was forgotten in the darkest corner of my closet, the land development business faced mounting economic concerns: hyper-inflated prices, saturated supply, and soiled lending practices. The phone on my desk never stopped ringing. Loan officers, rather than potential buyers, consistently jammed the lines. The workload exponentially increased despite my dwindling commission revenue, and I lost touch with my connection with children’s interests. The tattered yellow costume remained hidden in my closet, and I pushed what it represented to the far corner of my priorities.

When the markets fully deteriorated, I started work as an assistant general manager of a relatively new restaurant. I soon developed a strong relationship with the employees from a childcare near the restaurant after their frequent visits, and I negotiated a deal: I delivered their lunch to them, and they let me watch and interact with the kids while they ate. The short walk to the childcare served as a nice break from a full day of managerial work, and I thrived every time I heard my name sung by dozens of little voices in unison. I had my favorite regulars—in the restaurant, and at the day care—and I enjoyed keeping up with them all. My passion was officially in full swing as Halloween approached that year, and I retrieved the frail yellow costume for inspiration as I began construction on a new costume.

A few days before the end of October, I discovered a massive accounting error at my restaurant that inappropriately distributed thousands of dollars to employees who knew they were being overpaid. The scheme was pervasive, and I alerted the owners that evening, and they implemented swift changes under my recommendation. I knew the employees were cognizant of their behavior, but most went unscathed when the owners failed to pursue the complicated situation. I was furious as the complete lack of accountability and the palpable indifference from the staff. On Halloween night, as I sat in my car parked between the restaurant and the daycare, I decided to finally pursue the opportunity to both invest in the welfare of children and ensure the application of justice.

I have a strong desire to pursue family law and social justice because this academic concentration will allow me to focus purely on positively affecting children’s interests. I believe my business skills and my experience interacting with kids demonstrates a commitment to working to effectively protect and mentor children. My leadership abilities have been tested through the experience working in difficult markets and managing complicated ethical situations, and I am firmly confident that my persistent character and rigorous integrity provides a sound foundation for the skills required for law school.
(I plan to fill in rest of paragraph with 3-4 lines for the particular school, and end with something about yellow costume to bring it all full circle perhaps.

[DamnLSAT]

bump

[cubswin]

here we go. It's been through a bunch of changes and if you're read it before, I encourage you to give it a read again and see where I've gone with it. Would love to read yours too... sorry to those I promised yesterday, I was buried in my own statement for the day. I have the day off on Sunday and I will get to them then. Please PM me if you'd like me to have a look. Thanks again!
-----------

As I stared back at Big Bird in the bathroom mirror, I confirmed the fact that my bright yellow costume looked just as ridiculous as it felt [If you're going to open with this, there has to be a funnier way to express this. You're in a fucking big bird costume, and this sentence is totally mirthless. Have a sense of humor about it, this sentence makes it sound like you wanted to kill yourself. . After one final glance in the mirror, I waddled from my campus room to the quad to inspect the final details of the event. The cheap yellow feathers that covered my entire body left a scattered trail [scattered seems like a puff word. would the reader expect a neat, orderly trail?] behind me as the wind tested my novice sewing abilities, and the oily yellow face paint continued to run down my neck in the crisp fall air as I welcomed relieved parents and energetic children soon thereafter. I spent weeks planning and developing the details [what does developing the details add that planning already hasn't?] for Project Pumpkin, an annual event on Halloween designed to provide local children with a safe place for trick-or-treating at the university. With Batman in my right hand and a giant green M&M in my left hand, I guided a tiny troupe of fictional characters around the decorated quad to accumulate as many handfuls of candy as their plastic pumpkins would hold. Two nights before, I won a campus-wide accounting competition—the proudest moment of my academic career—yet I found more satisfaction that night sweating in my conspicuous yellow costume than I did debating in my pressed business suit.

Two and a half years later, when the housing market crashed and my yellow costume was forgotten in the darkest corner of my closet, the land development business faced mounting economic concerns: hyper-inflated prices, saturated supply, and soiled lending practices. The phone on my desk never stopped ringing. Loan officers, rather than potential buyers, consistently jammed the lines. The workload exponentially increased despite my dwindling commission revenue, and I lost touch with my connection with children’s interests. The tattered yellow costume remained hidden in my closet, and I pushed what it represented to the far corner of my priorities. [You might want to experiment with different ways of starting your sentences here, rather than starting with "the" every time]

When the markets fully deteriorated, I started work as an assistant general manager of a relatively new restaurant. I soon developed a strong relationship with the employees from a childcare [daycare?] near the restaurant after [sounds off to me] their frequent visits, and I negotiated a deal: I delivered their lunch to them, and they let me watch and interact with the kids while they ate. [DUDE. This sounds CREEPY. Like, I am laughing out loud right now. Say this in your best pedophile voice, and tell me it wouldn't make any parent hide their children from you.] The short walk to the childcare served as a nice break from a full day of managerial work, and I thrived [Look the word "thrive" up and tell me if this makes sense. Hint: it doesn't.] every time I heard my name sung by dozens of little voices in unison. I had my favorite regulars—in the restaurant, and at the day care—and I enjoyed keeping up with them all. My passion was officially in full swing [Surely, there must be a more felicitous way to say this.] as Halloween approached that year, and I retrieved the frail yellow costume for inspiration as I began construction on [awful. consider revising.] a new costume.

A few days before the end of October, I discovered a massive accounting error at my restaurant that inappropriately distributed thousands of dollars to employees who knew they were being overpaid. The scheme was pervasive, and I alerted the owners that evening, and they implemented swift changes under my recommendation. I knew the employees were cognizant of their behavior, but most went unscathed when the owners failed to pursue the complicated situation. I was furious as [presumably, this is a typo and you meant "at", but I think it would be better to switch this to the active voice and make it "infuriated by"] the complete lack of accountability and the palpable indifference from the staff. On Halloween night, as I sat in my car parked between the restaurant and the daycare, I decided to finally pursue the opportunity to both invest in the welfare of children and ensure the application of justice [I read this as: I want to pursue law so I can devote my life to punishing unscrupulous proletarian scum, but that's just me..

I have a strong desire to pursue family law and social justice because this academic concentration will allow me to focus purely on positively affecting children’s interests. I believe my business skills and my experience interacting with kids demonstrates a commitment to working to effectively protect and mentor children. My leadership abilities have been tested through the experience working in difficult markets and managing complicated ethical situations, and I am firmly confident that my persistent character and rigorous integrity [this phrase sounds bullshitty. integrity already implies you live by an unbroken moral code. come to think of it, i hate both of these adjective-noun combinations, and the adverb-adjective combination before them. Business English at its finest.] provides a sound foundation for the skills required for law school.
(I plan to fill in rest of paragraph with 3-4 lines for the particular school, and end with something about yellow costume to bring it all full circle perhaps.

Sorry if I sound like a dick, but you'd rather me say these things than have ad-comms think them, right?

[4for44]

I negotiated a deal: I delivered their lunch to them, and they let me watch and interact with the kids while they ate. [DUDE. This sounds CREEPY. Like, I am laughing out loud right now. Say this in your best pedophile voice, and tell me it wouldn't make any parent hide their children from you.]

+1

[cubswin]

I negotiated a deal: I delivered their lunch to them, and they let me watch and interact with the kids while they ate. [DUDE. This sounds CREEPY. Like, I am laughing out loud right now. Say this in your best pedophile voice, and tell me it wouldn't make any parent hide their children from you.]

+1

I think "watch" is the word that really pushes this sentence over the pedophilia cliff.

[_cHRIS]

If you do not value the Big Bird Costume as much as you imply, then this is not a genuine personal statement. If you do, then it is not the costume that should recur as your theme, but rather the costume's value to you that propels the initial electricity of your hook, which consequently does not exist to begin with.

[tgir]

You write quite well, but this statement lacks focus and depth. You spend too much time telling a somewhat disorganized collection of stories that you imply have great important in your life, but you don't spend enough time explaining *why* they are important, how they are connected, or how you have reflected on them. I would edit down the narrative bits and spend time filling in the gaps. It may seem to you that the stories flow naturally from one thought to the next without much explanation, but as somebody who knows nothing about your life, I can tell you that that is not really the case. A narrative hook is very very important, but you can't just expect the story to do all the speaking for you. If you do, then it'll come across as, "Hey, look at these cool stories that obviously demonstrate how great my moral compass is!"