personal statement for stanford Forum

[manifresh]

...

[WayBryson]

Solid. You will probably get a few "reads like a resume" comments, but the introduction helps to establish a strong ethos, which provides a context for understanding the motivation that led to these accomplishments. I found the last paragraph to be a little weak. Instead of listing your personality traits, perhaps try to tie back into your introduction. The whole thing could be a bit tighter. In any event, it sounds like you have plenty to draw on and a lot of strong experiences. Good luck to you.

[manifresh]

Solid. You will probably get a few "reads like a resume" comments, but the introduction helps to establish a strong ethos, which provides a context for understanding the motivation that led to these accomplishments. I found the last paragraph to be a little weak. Instead of listing your personality traits, perhaps try to tie back into your introduction. The whole thing could be a bit tighter. In any event, it sounds like you have plenty to draw on and a lot of strong experiences. Good luck to you.

thanks for the feedback, appreciate it. I agree that it could be tighter, I'll try to do that once i finalize the content.
Do you think there is a too large of a gap between the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs? I tried adding a transition paragraph but i didnt like it

[s0ph1e2007]

Do not pay someone to check the grammar and spelling.
Here on TLS, there are plenty of editors, who you can find to do that.

[chup]

This reads way too much like a resume, and your paragraphs read like short-answer personal statements that have nothing to do with one another. We go from Iran-Canada move, to Bloomberg, to technologies without any sort of transition.

Also, lines like this:

Though an unenviable situation, it was valuable to my personal and later professional development.

say absolutely nothing and fall under the showing-vs.-telling maxim. If it was really that valuable to your personal and professional development, show us how. Tell a story. Hell, you could write your entire personal statement about that.

[manifresh]

I updated the second paragraph to add a transition to the third.

also, I used to have this as my final line:
"I’m ready to take off again, and I hope Stanford will help me begin the next leg of my journey."

but i took it out cause i thought it was too corny, was I right or should I leave it in?

thanks for the feedback

[Saltqjibo]

pay for someone to check the grammer and spelling, if you dont have a qualified friend. When a couple typos can sink you at a t-14 you really want to leave it up to a bunch of anonymous TLSers?

[crumpetsandtea]

The 2/3 paragraph transition is a little bit rough, but I think it could be easily altered with a comment paralleling your move to canada (to a foreign country) with your job at bloomberg (to a foreign industry). I do like your intro though.

[CanadianWolf]

As posted above by others, your transitions are weak. The first paragraph is the best while each following paragraph gets progressively weaker. This is a good outline or adequate rough first draft of a personal statement, but this essay is not ready for submission.

[_cHRIS]

I like this a lot. If you wrap up the conclusion less abruptly, and revise the paper so that it will be a bit less verbose, then this can be a very nice statement. Good job.

[Anomaly]

The intro is very strong. You had my attention immediately.

I think you might want to try shaping some of your sentences to be bit more narrative-like (similar to your intro). We go from this really awesome, exciting, action filled intro, to....

"my first year was ___. I was ____. But also, I was ____. Then, I was __".

"The first year in Canada was challenging. I struggled to become acclimated to the new country, and pretty soon some major family issues surfaced."

Then talk about the issues and how they molded who you are.

Another example is in your first paragraph where you said "I had taken ___". ---> I would just say "I took".

I'm not a personal statement expert by any means, so do take this advice with a grain of salt. Good luck with Stanford!!

[Anomaly]

Also I agree that the last paragraph needs more. You have 2 ideas so far.

I became interested in Stanford because ____. I will bring Stanford a unique perspective because (insert examples) ___.

I'm sure you have many more reasons that you want Stanford (and why they should want you), so don't hold back.