. Forum

[abcab103]

.

[malleus discentium]

It is my humble opinion that usage of the term "control freak" in describing my personality To describe me as a "control freak" is both unnecessary and unflattering, albeit though not far from the truth. Backin grade school, I would drive myself mad rehearsing conversations in my head for fear that I might misplace an idiom or commit a social faux pas. Growing up as an immigrant in a Caucasian Unless it was actually a country in the Caucasus, don't call it that. If you mean "white," say so. If you mean "American," say that community was a wrestling match to pin down conventions that seemedself-evident to everyone, yet imperceptible to me. Attempting to cope with a new and confusing world, I found comfort in the obsessive prediction and planning of every facet of my life.

I grew into my own as an understanding of "American-ness" came with time. Unclear Yet, while emotional maturity displaced social anxiety, my fixation persisted in the form of color-coded flow charts, detailed budgets, and five-year plans. I found myself instinctively drawn to the study of probability and statistics as an academic outlet for this need to tame the unknown, as every bout with Big Data Is this an allusion to biglaw? If not, or even if so, I'd just call it "data" revealed a little more about the world around me.

Stars aligned post-graduation when I was recruited as an actuary for a large health care consultancy. Turbulent waters awaited in the wake of the Affordable Care Act, but I seized the opportunity to translate my obsessive quirks into something that created value. I buried myself in my work with vigor and quickly proved to have an intuitive proficiency that belied my tenure. Thesaurus salad Consisting of financial forecasts, risk mitigation, and compliance testing, our work in the health care arena was a natural extension of the prediction and planning I had been doing my entire life. During my time at the consultancy, I gained exposure to the entire gamut Unlikely of current legislative issues and helped develop adaptive strategies integral for employee welfare. I was blown away by the positive impact from our predictive models as we aligned benefits and hospital networks to provide employees with the care they needed. Never did I imagine that a childhood compulsion could lead me to make a quantifiable impact on the lives of thousands.

By all means, I should have been thrilled to be utilizing my talents on the forefront of such exciting endeavors. Despite my appreciation for the experience the role had afforded me, I became increasingly frustrated with how constrained consultants were by actions beyond of our control. We could work for weeks on a groundbreaking strategy to incentivize I myself love verbification, but know that some people will not healthy behavior while reducing medical spending, only to be stonewalled by new legislation or politics. Too often, the attitude was one of dissatisfaction and defeat surrounding how much more was left on the table and how much more we could have done. No matter how predictive the model or how clever the strategy, it became apparent that those who predict and adapt will always come up second to those who actually dictate change.

To-do lists and tidy schedules will always a guilty pleasure, but I believe something more fundamental in me has evolved. Through During these turbulent Already used this word. Needs moar elegant variation times, I have intimately experienced the positive impact and change that legislation can have on a nation; it is through that lens that I am drawn to the practice of law. While predicting and planning for the future will always be in vogue, In vogue refers to a societal trend, not your personal predilections, which I suspect is how you are using it here my time in consulting has taught me that making a real impact on a significant scale requires having a hand in the process itself. Today, I want nothing more than to be a part of that process.

Some content thoughts:
*This reads like a PS for someone trying to be a senator. Lawyers deal with law as written, they don't make law. In fact, being a lawyer is structurally the same as being the consultant you mentioned: you have to adapt to rules other people set. I don't think this disconnect will be lost on adcoms. You should retool and expand the conclusion.
*I don't think "control freak" is quite the right epithet. I don't have an alternative, but I would look for something else.
*Based on the first two grafs, we expect that this is going to be about your being an immigrant. Since it's not, I would reduce that element and only mention it insofar as is necessary for context of why you practiced things ahead of time.

[abcab103]

Thank you This was exactly the kind of feedback I needed.
I did feel that there might be some confusion when I brought up the immigrant aspect, but I was having a hard time introducing the idea of planning and prediction. I'll work on that.

Any other takers?