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rebooting.

thanks for all the advice thus far.

It's good, but you need to touch up the grammar a bit.

Except if you're applying to Brigham Young. Then it's an unmitigated disaster

You've filled six paragraphs with one paragraph's worth of material. Your writing suffers from repetition & superficiality. This writing, at best, constitutes a rough draft. You need to learn to develop a theme through logical progression & to write succinctly in crisp, clear sentences. If you truly believe that you are your own harshest critic, then you should not have shared this piece in its current form.

The easiest way to organize a law school personal statement is to use the standard five (5) paragraph format in which the introductory paragraph shares your theme & lets the reader know what you're going to write. Essentially: My theme & I'm going to write A,B & C. Then the second paragraph expands on "A", the third paragraph on point "B", and the fourth paragraph covers point "C". The concluding paragraph then rephrases (sums up) your theme & the three supporting points. In more common vernacular: Tell'em what you're going to tell 'em, then tell 'em, then tell them what you just told them. This is the first step toward creating an organized & persuasive writing.

P.S. If you're still at Ball State, you should have access to a writing center. Consider using this resource as your writing is not college level writing.

P.P.S. Reread your first paragraph. Is it clear or confusing ? The introductory paragraph should be clear & unambiguous.

Dingbat & CanadianWolf,

Thank you both for your feedback. I'll wait a bit to see if anyone else responds before giving it another go.

I definitely know that grammar wise it needs work, I just wrote this out for something to start with because I've really had a hard time knowing what to write about.

As I stated, it is a rough first draft so while I appreciate the writing center advice, and my school does have one, it was more content wise that I was looking for advice on. The mechanisms of my writing I will fix as I edit because while the first draft may not show it, I am capable of writing at a college level. I do appreciate the advice on the 5 paragraph essay (although I am familiar with how it works), because many of the PS samples I've read elsewhere have not been in that format, thus I did not begin writing in that style for this rough draft.

Dingbat okay if I PM you to find out what you did like about the PS since I don't want to scrap it all if there is some potential?

CandianWolf, I may PM you with a same theme, but 5 paragraph essay styled PS. I'd appreciate any comments you have on that revision as well before I restart.

What I like is that you convey having a crappy background and overcoming it, as well as showing your reason for choosing law and your long-term goals. It's not just "woe is me" and it's not just "this is my ambition", but a combination of the two. Basically, you explain the past while looking forward to the future, which is ideal.