First Draft: Tear it to Pieces Please [still need input] Forum

[Anonymous User]

Hey guys. I really want a good critique of this. I didn't center it around some single narrative because I don't really have one. So I tried to just make it as much about me as I could. My struggle to overcome is that I grew up extremely poor and I tried to show how I benefited from it and why it led me to law school. I had a bit of trouble with transitioning between my childhood and college experience. So help me with fluidity. Shred it, be sarcastic, and humiliate me. Do it. I'll be applying to some T14 schools and after I read your comments, I want to feel like I couldn't get off the waitlist at a tier-three school. Thanks!

deleted for now

[zoomzoom88]

you still have to address WHY you want to be a lawyer

[zoomzoom88]

i think that you can turn this into a strong ps statement but it needs a lot of work. You should pick a single experience, explain it and extrapolate that as to why you chose a career in law and why you will be a good asset to a law school. this needs focus. Give the adcom a reason to say "damn- this kid is special. we want him". Your writing needs to be engaging and persuasive. put up another draft that is more focused and ill give you a paragraph by paragraph critique.

[NoodleyOne]

You know, I've been looking around a lot of the university websites, and many of them explicitly say you don't have to answer the "Why Law?" question, but rather that the PS is something that allows you to be more than just an LSAT score and GPA. I think the "Why Law" question should only be answered if it will make a compelling story. Then again, I've never gone through a cycle, so I may be full of shit.

[Anonymous User]

you still have to address WHY you want to be a lawyer

Not all people going to law school will be or plan to be lawyers. The real question is why law school. I attempted to answer that in a way that was relevant to the rest of the PS. If you think that this has shortcomings, please elaborate.

i think that you can turn this into a strong ps statement but it needs a lot of work. You should pick a single experience, explain it and extrapolate that as to why you chose a career in law and why you will be a good asset to a law school. this needs focus. Give the adcom a reason to say "damn- this kid is special. we want him". Your writing needs to be engaging and persuasive. put up another draft that is more focused and ill give you a paragraph by paragraph critique.

That is one way to do a PS. It's a good way to do a PS. However, it's not the way I did it. As I explained in my preface, I don't have one single experience that I can do this with without being disingenuous. Thus, I would appreciate a critique of what I actually attempted to do and suggestions for for improving it, not explaining to me your preferred method of writing a PS.


Still need more comments, guys. Thanks!

[NoodleyOne]

I do agree that it is way to general. It's just a chronology of your life, with nothing to really let the reader get to know you. By going into detail with a handful of experiences with yourself featured prominently, it would go a long way in creating a personal connection.

[Anonymous User]

I do agree that it is way to general. It's just a chronology of your life, with nothing to really let the reader get to know you. By going into detail with a handful of experiences with yourself featured prominently, it would go a long way in creating a personal connection.

The only experience that I think I could build a good narrative around would be the time when I was around three years old and my mother was trying to explain to me that my father wouldn't be coming home because he had to away. He'd "broken the law." I could write on how that phrase sounded to me back then, me not being able to comprehend what she meant. I could extrapolate that into how I fell in love with the law, although by all accounts I should resent it because it's the reason that I don't have either of my parents. Any thoughts on that?

[NoodleyOne]

I do agree that it is way to general. It's just a chronology of your life, with nothing to really let the reader get to know you. By going into detail with a handful of experiences with yourself featured prominently, it would go a long way in creating a personal connection.

The only experience that I think I could build a good narrative around would be the time when I was around three years old and my mother was trying to explain to me that my father wouldn't be coming home because he had to away. He'd "broken the law." I could write on how that phrase sounded to me back then, me not being able to comprehend what she meant. I could extrapolate that into how I fell in love with the law, although by all accounts I should resent it because it's the reason that I don't have either of my parents. Any thoughts on that?

That's definitely something that could work (I'd skip the resentment part), but I'd have to see it in action.