Would appreciate some thoughts on this rough draft Forum

[DWinter18]

See my new essay in my latest post.

[holden147]

DWinters,

Overall I think you have a very solid PS.

I think the beginning of it is too...militaristic? It made it sound like you were going into a war zone. Threatening, tsunami, surrounded, army, enemy, assaulted, bombarded are all within the first paragraph. I understand that you were trying to convey a sense of anxiety, but I think it may be a bit overkill.

I had decided quite early on that one semester is simply not enough time to immerse oneself in another language and culture.
The bold indicates a change in where you switch from talking in the past tense to the present tense. I believe it should be had and was. That's just a minor thing though.

At the end of your statement, I would go more into detail about why law school specifically is the right choice for you as opposed to any other career path.

Overall, I like it, hope my criticisms helped.

[DWinter18]

Thanks for the comments Holden, I am going to cut a bit of that stuff out in the beginning to save some space and make it less militaristic. Like you said, I think I need to add more about why law school is right for me so I need to think about that and add that in. Thanks for the comments, any others would be appreciated.

[CanadianWolf]

The final paragraph is awkward & unconvincing. Despite a few grammatical errors, this essay should get you into the college or university of your choice.

P.S. The first paragraph is easily the best.

[DWinter18]

Yea, I kinda just threw it together and posted it here to get some feedback, I know it needs some work. Would you say just trash the entire last paragraph and come up with something better?

[No13baby]

I think this needs some pretty serious content revisions. The "studying abroad made me want to practice 'international law'" essay is one I'm sure adcomms have seen innumerable times. If you're going to bring in law, be more specific about why law, out of all the different fields that could expose you to international work. Also keep in mind that there's really no such thing as "international law" - what exactly is it you want to do? Litigation? Business transactions? NGO work?

I also raised an eyebrow at the way you presented French and Spanish as insurmountably different languages. I studied both for a few years and they really aren't THAT different.

On the other hand, your writing style is great - you hit the sweet spot where your grammar, punctuation, word choice, etc. are all correct but your prose isn't unnecessarily fancy or florid. You sound like you have a fascinating background which would be very interesting to read about in the right context, but I don't think this topic is a great fit for you.

[DWinter18]

I think this needs some pretty serious content revisions. The "studying abroad made me want to practice 'international law'" essay is one I'm sure adcomms have seen innumerable times. If you're going to bring in law, be more specific about why law, out of all the different fields that could expose you to international work. Also keep in mind that there's really no such thing as "international law" - what exactly is it you want to do? Litigation? Business transactions? NGO work?

I also raised an eyebrow at the way you presented French and Spanish as insurmountably different languages. I studied both for a few years and they really aren't THAT different.

On the other hand, your writing style is great - you hit the sweet spot where your grammar, punctuation, word choice, etc. are all correct but your prose isn't unnecessarily fancy or florid. You sound like you have a fascinating background which would be very interesting to read about in the right context, but I don't think this topic is a great fit for you.

Thanks for the feedback. I know what you mean with French and Spanish not being that different as far as grammar goes - written French and written Spanish are similar, no doubt. But spoken? The French accent is extremely difficult to get down for a non-native speaker, and in my opinion, a lot moreso than the Spanish accent. Being able to speak French fluently with a good accent is a lot more difficult than most romance languages, in my experience.

And this topic was just my go-to obvious one to choose. This only took 20 minutes to write, so I didn't labor over it for a long time. I really want to make my statement as perfect as possible though, so I appreciate the comments.

[CanadianWolf]

OP: You missed my point. This essay is suitable for a high school senior applying to college or university, but not for a college graduate applying to law school.

P.S. I often read similiar essays from high school freshmen applying to highly selective boarding schools.

[DWinter18]

Well thank you all for the comments, I am totally scrapping this essay and starting from scratch using all of the considerations. I will post my new essay here once I finish it and I hope all of you can provide new feedback on that. Thanks again!

[DWinter18]

Well guys I came up with something new, I hope this is somewhat better than that high school level essay I had before. Let me know what you think! Thanks in advance.

Edit -

[lawschool89]

In my opinion this is a very strong, well-written personal statement. Although I don't have any specific critiques, I think that this makes you come off as very interesting and intellectually curious candidate.