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[VasaVasori]

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[jared6180]

Concern #1 that you listed probably applies, but you seem to be coming from a good place.

[cutecarmel]

1) Everywhere that I have looked, they say to avoid a "save the world" or "I'm gonna do good for people" direction because it comes off as naive. Does my PS come off that way, particularly towards the end? I try to avoid it, even going so far as explicitly stating that I won't save the world. But I'm wondering if that actually exacerbates the problem.

It does a little bit. I think it wouldn't come off that way if you were to give a specific field that you are interested in. You can't help people all over the world. Are you interested in international law? A field of law involving technology. It comes off like you can help people around the world in whatever field of law that interests you, but you can't

2) I delve into quite a few aspects of my life during the PS. Is it confusing? And if there are disconnects, where do they occur?

I did notice that you started talking about high school, then started talking about when you were 10 or 12, then bounced back up to high school again. I would go in chronological order. I don't think you need to specify age (expect for maybe when you were 12, because that was impressive

3) Does it sound mature? This is perhaps my biggest concern, especially with the discussion of magic at the beginning and the ending which might come off as naive.

I think the bit in magic is a unique way to lead into your topic. You don't come off as immature or naive to me.

4) Is it interesting? It seems like, if it were someone else's personal statement and I were reading it, I would be interested. But it's my life, so of course I'm interested! Do you find it interesting?

Its interesting, but I see how it can become boring when you write for a while about what you did as a programmer. I would focus more on the role your work played on your personal development. What qualities did you develop that would make you a good fit for the practice of law.

Finally, if you are going to mention the school's name, don't do it the way that you did. It will be vary obvious that all you did was change the school's name for each application. I would either give more detailed information about how a particular school would help you in your career of law. What abilities will you acquire at school XYZ? What classes, programs, internships, clinics, etc. do they offer you that would make this a good fit for you career interest? If you keep the last few sentences as they are, I think you would be better of removing them.

I hope that helped.
Good luck!

[powder]

I would cut the paragraph about the person with the East Asia IP address; it's interesting but says nothing substantive about you.

I think you are trying to cover too much. Every paragraph tosses in another experience which you could structure your entire PS around: programming for the troubled youth program, belonging to a community of programmers, foreign travel experiences. Pick one and develop it further. Your PS gives an outline of personal experiences, but reveals little about you. You have a penchant for programming and a certain amount of idealism, that's all I know. I've traveled overseas and done some programming as well--not to the extent you have, in all likelihood--but a lot of people have the same sort of experiences. You chose to write about this and your parents think your topic fits you. I don't think you should write about something else, but make it more distinctively you.

I do think the PS comes across as somewhat immature. The magic isn't bad, it's a detail about a personal quirk and it segues into programming decently well, but the last couple of paragraphs were hard for me to read. The connections paragraph is...well...too bleeding heart for me to take seriously. A child dies in Africa, a mother weeps--the we-are-all-connected imagery is too much, especially since this reads like a hypothetical.

It's not bad for a second draft and I think you can make it interesting with some work. Good luck.

[VasaVasori]

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[collegebum1989]

My opinion is that your interest in law is underdeveloped and slightly unrelated to your programming experiences. Although this is ok, if you were to mesh the two together somehow and show that law school is naturally the next step given your career and personal aspirations, this would strengthen the statement overall.