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any and all advice welcomed (trying to submit apps this weekend)

It becomes a lot harder to ignore stories of injustice and intolerance when you are sitting with a victim, listening to their words, than when you skim over a story printed in a newspaper. David is an African American gentleman who was brave enough to share his personal struggles with me. A story that I could tell still shook him to his core. As I sat listening to his account of what transpired with him, I noticed his facial expressions and body language change from sorrow to fury then to a combination of both. I couldn’t believe what the words I was hearing. As David was leaving a friend’s house at night, which was in a very upscale, predominately Caucasian neighborhood, he was stopped by the police. After being questioned by the police officer, he was told that he did not belong here. David was subsequently removed from his vehicle by the police officer and was beaten, so badly in fact it caused him to have to spend over two weeks in the hospital. This was not a viral internet video or a paragraph below the fold in the Fort Worth Star Telegram, this was immediate and personal for David; it was his story.

Maria was another victim of intolerance who has shared her story with others. Maria belonged to the LGBT community and she revealed to me that from the first day that she became open with her lifestyle, she was harassed and tormented. She even became a victim of cyber bullying and at one point it got so bad, that she contemplated suicide. Maria still showed signs of being wounded by her battles. While Maria was sharing with me, I could see her face and hands tense up and physically start to shake a little as she tried to recount her story.

As a part of Leaders Educating About Diversity (LEAD) at [University], I had received advanced training that helped facilitate diversity-related dialogues among students and faculty. The aim of LEAD was to a foster respect and collaboration amongst groups, but also to empower them to be servant leaders in a diverse community. Along with the activities and group discussions at LEAD meetings, some students, like David and Maria, were inspired to relate their own personal experiences to the group. These particular anecdotes were like any other, and I found I could no longer ignore injustices like the ones my peers in LEAD had experienced.

From that point forward, I committed to working towards positively impacting the lives of other people. Armed with the desire to help individuals like these and my already burning passion for the legal field, I decided that this is what I wanted to use my passion for law for. I wanted to use the tools of the justice system to fulfill a purpose, this purpose. The intriguing idea of this career path would go on to shape my undergraduate work, including different courses in diversity and diversity law. I received an internship opportunity at a law firm that deals with these issues, where I truly got a grasp of what the field entailed. I poured myself into my work, using any time absent of schoolwork to further my research. For one of the first times I found two things that I was passionate about, and the way they flawlessly came together seemed synergistic. The skills of empathy, commitment, leadership, teamwork, and a fervent desire for learning that I had instilled in me through LEAD helped arm me with the resources I needed to become a positive impact in this firm even at an intern level. Meeting with lawyers and clients, hearing about their struggles and triumphs, I was confident and excited about what direction I undoubtedly wanted to take.

Law school and becoming a lawyer has always held a place in my long-term life plan. Through my recent experiences, I have gained an immense amount of pride in steadily searching for ways to increase the opportunities that people have and have tried to become an advocate to serve those whose voices are rarely heard. Working closely with the finest professors, students and researchers will not only enable me to be at the forefront of this journey, but also be a reason for encouraging the change.

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No love?

Get rid of everything until hearing, it's actually really annoying to describe everything without giving any details (i.e. it was really harrowing/sad .......3 sentences later, ok here's what happened).

The way this is structured is poor, you basically speak extremely briefly about two other people (in the beginning of your essay no less) and then say that you have a burning passion for law and did some stuff in LEAD.

This essay is supposed to be about you, not david and maria. I would start with a quote from david about his experience and then say that this was a young man in your LEAD group blah blha go into that.


Another issue is that you say instead of showing. You say you have a "burning passion" for law, and have sills of leadership teawork empahy etc.... but nowhere do you really give evidence of this.

"From that point forward, I committed to working towards positively impacting the lives of other people."

ok where? who? when? 0 examples of this.

you speak extremely briefly of you work at a law firm ... I would highlight this and relate it to your main point (which I'm also unclear on)

You should speak about your OWN experiences and let them speak for themselves, or provide minor commentary on them. There is not one place here where you talk about what you did specifically, or give an example. Every example given is someone else's story, not yours. The focus should be on how they impacted you.

also ... These particular anecdotes were like any other, and I found I could no longer ignore injustices like the ones my peers in LEAD had experienced.

so they were like any other anecdote? Why were they special then? Why did you choose them?

It needs improvement, but you do have much more to work with here than with the first PS you posted, which you thankfully disposed of almost entirely. I'm only guessing here, but given what appears to be your target school (Howard, right?), you're probably not too far from a PS that will get the job done, given your numbers.

Follow the previous poster's advice.