My statement seems different... Forum

[dsosah]

I would cut this sentence in half, and make it into two sentences:
"When I was hired at Morgan Stanley in 2008 I was filled with pride and within months I felt like a total loser"

It would give better structure and style to the intro, maybe something like:
"When I was hired at Morgan Stanley in 2008 I was filled with pride for what I had accomplished (or whatever reason you felt pride). Within months, I found my self esteem drag down the same hole that the US economy (or some similar, maybe more original metaphor). It would make the story more colorful.
I would stay away from slang (since that's a PS "no no" as a general rule). Find better ways to say: "felt like a total loser". And definitely get rid of the "And can you guess what happened next? " no we can't, but you are about to tell us, so there is no need for this cliche.

On the other hand: “I hear we are getting bought out by Goldman”, “Oh thank god, I heard we were being bought out by Wachovia!” this is great, colorful language, and places the reader in the situation. Love it, and I think is a great way to end the intro paragraph.

This: "I volunteer and am on the board of a local non-profit" is an awkward sentence, try: I am on the board of a local non-profit, where I volunteer.

This: "When he asked why I replied honestly again that I was not charging my clients enough on municipal bonds I was selling and I grumbled that brokers marked up the bonds they sold reducing the yields clients realized on the bonds and the client never saw the markup on the purchase confirmations." is an awfully long sentence, and you make it worse by not using ANY commas. Pay attention to punctuation overall, you tend to make really long sentences when talking about your job, and you use very few commas. Try to simplify them by making shorter sentences or splitting them.

Other than that I really enjoyed your new statement. You came light years better than with the 1st one. I was really interested in reading about your experiences and your personality came out better. Stay away of self-praising, let your actions speak about your qualities rather than saying how great you are.

[jesspaletsky]

I have taken all suggestions:

[jesspaletsky]

I took all suggestions.

[CanadianWolf]

This is a substantial improvement compared to your earlier drafts. Strong ending, solid theme & readers should like you.

[jesspaletsky]

thank you dsosah!

[jesspaletsky]

thank you canadianwolf, i really appreciate your time

[sold123]

I enjoyed the story/narrative.

You can immediately improve the last draft you posted by cleaning up the language and reducing the conversational nature of a few of your paragraphs.

Also, consider moving the first few sentences of the penultimate paragraph to the introductory paragraph, as it frames the story fairly well.

[jesspaletsky]

Will do that too, but for the moment my head aches, all I have done all day is write and re-write this and watch the market crash. Now I am studying for my Oct LSAT retake.