Please Critique Personal Statement Forum

[bobbyflayed]

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[CanadianWolf]

After a quick read, my opinion is that you should delete the final (7th) paragraph.

[Yukos]

I like it overall, nice juxtaposition between your abstract experience (MUN) and your real-world epiphanies. A propos of nothing, it's possible we went against each other in MUN (I went to Mira Costa).

One problem I found was some sentences were unnecessarily long. E.g.:

A rickety Jeepney dropped us in front of the Manila Red Cross, a large gated building with formerly white walls stained brown by tropical rains

Edit it to:

A rickety Jeepney dropped us in front of the Manila Red Cross, a large gated building with walls stained brown by tropical rains

Another example:

When we arrived we were led through the rain-soaked tarmac to several hangars that housed the supplies unloaded from an Air Emirates cargo plane

Also, watch your comma usage:

me as reprehensible and, I realized

Growing up in Huntington Beach, does little

Finally, I don't think it's exceptional at all that normal people did all the work while the pols just looked for a photo op. That seems pretty normal. Instead of exceptional, use unfortunate or lamentable, or reorganize the sentence so you can describe the entire event as reprehensible.

PM or respond to this thread if you want me to delete my quotes.

[bobbyflayed]

I like it overall, nice juxtaposition between your abstract experience (MUN) and your real-world epiphanies. A propos of nothing, it's possible we went against each other in MUN (I went to Mira Costa).

One problem I found was some sentences were unnecessarily long. E.g.:

A rickety Jeepney dropped us in front of the Manila Red Cross, a large gated building with formerly white walls stained brown by tropical rains

Edit it to:

A rickety Jeepney dropped us in front of the Manila Red Cross, a large gated building with walls stained brown by tropical rains

Another example:

When we arrived we were led through the rain-soaked tarmac to several hangars that housed the supplies unloaded from an Air Emirates cargo plane

Also, watch your comma usage:

me as reprehensible and, I realized

Growing up in Huntington Beach, does little

Finally, I don't think it's exceptional at all that normal people did all the work while the pols just looked for a photo op. That seems pretty normal. Instead of exceptional, use unfortunate or lamentable, or reorganize the sentence so you can describe the entire event as reprehensible.

PM or respond to this thread if you want me to delete my quotes.

Thanks for the pointers, I'll go over it again. I went to Huntington High, we definitely competed at some point haha.

[russp20]

I grew up in a small town of Cordova, on the outskirts of Orangeburg, South Carolina, in a lower income neighborhood that was riddled with crime. My brother and I took care of ourselves as my mother, who dropped out of high school and suffers from alcoholism and addiction to prescription pills, slept her life away while my dad, also suffering from alcoholism and substance abuse, spent his days working at a machine shop just to make ends meet for our family of four. When my mother was awake she was physically and verbally abusive toward me and my brother so we would just walk the neighborhood until our father got home. While walking through the neighborhood with the other local kids we saw countless fights, burglaries, lynching, and even a carjacking.
We’re usually bystanders in these events until one day when I was about 16, I was walking home with a friend just as the sun was going down and a man ran up to us and asked what we were doing on “his” street. We told him we were going home and he said, “You might not today”, as he pulled out a pistol that shined in the streetlight. He told us to empty our pockets. We only had house keys and gum. He took our gum and my friend’s shoes and then put the cold barrel on my head. I watched as he squeezed the trigger for what looked like an eternity until it clicked. He didn’t have bullets in it and told us,” Run home unless you want me to load it.” I took the longest breath of my life and we started our run home. As soon as I could, I wanted to get out of this town. A couple of months after I turned 17, I finally convinced my parents to sign me over to the military.
I became the first person to join the military in my family and I completed Army Basic Training between my junior and senior year of high school. When I came home from basic training I found out that my parents separated not long after I left and were working on a divorce. It was no surprise for me and with my new found self-motivation and optimism; I tried to spark encouragement to my brother and dad before I left home again for my specialized training. I excelled rather quickly and was promoted to specialist at the age of 18. I received an expert marksmanship badge for every weapon they handed me, the expert badge for the physical fitness test, and received Army Achievement Medals for superior performance in various training exercises. About seven months after graduating from high school I was on the plane to Afghanistan.
I was stationed in Khwost, Afghanistan on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Not long after arriving, I was promoted to sergeant and was responsible for a two million dollar Humvee, three soldiers, and I had access to whatever weapon I wanted. Before I left for Afghanistan I did not even have my own car yet. I was only 19, making me one of the youngest sergeants that most people have ever seen. I was tasked with training the Afghan National police in hand-to-hand combat and marksmanship with their weapons. We trained with the police three days out the week and did missions with them the other four days. My time in Afghanistan was equally heartbreaking, as I would see some friends that I consider family lose their lives or limbs, and gratifying, such as helping the poor and feeding the hungry. After countless rounds of ammunition, two Humvees, losing the lives four of our original ten members of our team, two interpreters, and dozens of Afghan National Police it was finally time to come home after 15 months.
About three months after I returned from Afghanistan I fell ill and went to the emergency room. I was told I had a serious Staph infection called MRSA, pneumonia, and sepsis in my lungs. My breathing and heart stopped on two separate occasions and needed the defibrillator for resuscitation. Not long after being resuscitated I went into a coma that lasted for nine days. I awoke and spent 2 more weeks in the hospital. I have people say there is a light at the end of the tunnel and while I was in the hospital I received my acceptance letter to my dream school at the University of South Carolina.
When I took all my things up from my father’s house when I went off to college he also gave me my old school work. When I was in second grade I wanted to grow up to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. When I was in third grade I wanted to be a lawyer. I’m sure back then my desire to be a lawyer was due to my attribution to Lawyers and Money but my dream to get my Law Degree has gotten stronger and with different reasons as I have gotten older. As I take undergraduate law classes at USC and engage in debates it only fuel my passion to for law. I am ready for law school and I humbly hope to be considered for _____________ School of Law.

[CanadianWolf]

You witnessed a lynching in your neighborhood ?