down for revising Forum

[swoozie]

Revising again.

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[Killingly]

I think you already touched on everything that needs to be fixed in this PS. Too much emphasis on engineering and a weak connection to law. You say that based on your background, you feel law is the best fit for you, but your essay didn't convince me of this. Expand on the projects that you mention in the final paragraph. Did these projects make you want to explore enviornmental law? You mention that applying your knowledge to something other than strictly engineeing would not be a waste. But why is this? You need to be more specific.

Also, I think it's somewhat dangerous to protray yourself as completely passionate about engineering only to abandon it to pursue a JD. How do we know you won't also change your mind duirng law school? To spin yourself in a more positive light you need to make a clearer and more seamless transition from engineering to law.

Just my opinions but I hope this helps.

[swoozie]

Yes, it helps, thank you.

Even if I've identified the bigger flaws, I think it really helps to get feedback on what route needs to be taken to correct them.

I'll leave my PS up for now (if anyone else could weigh in) but work on some revisions in the bg, maybe cut some of the descriptive stuff (fluff?) in the 3rd p and elaborate the 4th.

[CanadianWolf]

As written, your essay presents you as a confused person. Neither you nor the reader understands why law school is for you. A couple of sentences are too long. In short, this essay is neither well thought out nor well written & is unlikely to help your chances of being admitted to law school.

Try to develop a theme that convinces readers that law school is a reasonable path for you to pursue and that it is not just an escape route from chemical engineering.

[thederangedwang]

since the other posters have commented on the major flaws, i will pick a minor one (relatively speaking i guess...actually this is still kinda a big one)

...in general it is best to avoid ps that have an "eureka" moment....ad comms will groan and roll their eyes when they see another essay that says "and at that moment....i wanted to become a lawyer, doctor, president, vice president, public servant, transvestite, you get the idea..........these eureka essays are incredibly corny, generic, and artificial...even if they are true (which most often they are not)

[CanadianWolf]

Plus the "eureka moment" is supposed to occur while mountain climbing or while running your first marathon.

[swoozie]

Thank you for the critiques. CanadianWolf, you hit it the mark exactly. I was pretty confused while writing it. I think I know how to re-write some parts to better present why I am looking to move from engineering to law.

Also, I specifically wanted to avoid having a very "this point in time" eureka moment, but to show how the law school conclusion arose from my experiences. So if that's what my statement sounds like at the moment, I will do some heavy revising. I mean, it definitely wasn't an eureka moment for me, it took the better part of two years.

I think my problem is still too much specific detailing on engineering, it made the length limit hard to stay within and I ended up cramming too little into the last paragraph. Are the first two paragraphs ok as intros?

[swoozie]

First revision aka second draft is up! =)

Any feedback/critique greatly appreciated!!

[grimfan]

I too am trying to construct a PS that describes how I became interested in law through my interest in another field, so I can relate to the challenges you're facing.

I think you need to make it clearer why it's better for you to become a lawyer than an engineer. Answer this question clearly, and I think your essay vastly improves.

There's a sample essay in the TLS personal statement tutorial that is very similar to yours. It's about an IT guy who became interested in law after having to deal with sidestepping patent lawsuits in Silicon Valley. You could compare your essay with that one (which TLS creators ranked highly) and see how they compare.

Hope that helped!

[swoozie]

It does, thank you! After staring and editing for hours, all shortcomings kind of disappear when I look.

I did see that Silicon Valley sample but I don't have the concrete experience in a specific area of law like he did. I'll try to expand the last paragraph (again lol) and am thinking of severely chopping the middle.

Since you said you're working on a similar topic, let me know if you'd be up for doing some swapping. Though maybe that won't really be helpful since I haven't managed to figure out how to do it yet haha!

[anmar213]

Maybe this is a bit extreme, but I'd consider eliminating the third paragraph alltogether.

[swoozie]

Maybe this is a bit extreme, but I'd consider eliminating the third paragraph alltogether.

Read through again last night after not looking at it for a while and I agree with you. I will take this draft down again and work on it. Thanks for all the help!