the story of my personal statement is too long. suggestions?
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 2:40 am
edited
Alright. So, I know that writing a PS can be incredibly daunting. For me, I went through six different topics and nearly thirty drafts (Okay, I'm a bit more OCD than most) before getting it to the point where I was willing to submit it. You've obviously taken a great deal of time to craft this piece, and you should be proud of that.
With that said, there are a few things that you need to consider:
-What do you want the adcomm to remember about you? For me, this piece is far too bland. It doesn't stand out and I don't feel that it's overly personal. You spend too much time discussing what you've done rather than who you are. If all the adcomm wanted to know were your activities, they'd look at your resume. Try to really develop your PS to frame who you are as a person.
-Don't include the entire story. There are ways to make some of these entire paragraphs only one sentence. Pick a single moment and elaborate on it. Give us every detail about it. Bring your reader in so that they don't want to stop reading until the story is over. Right now, there's too much and tbh, after the first paragraph, I don't care to read it anymore. It doesn't catch my attention and many of your sentences are so general that they're obvious.
-Be sure to run over your ps with a fine-toothed comb. You have many grammar mistakes as well as a variety of syntactical errors. This renders your PS less effective than you want it to be.
Best of luck on your next draft!