Extremely rough rough draft! Any comments appreciated! Forum

[Anonymous User]

sub 3.0 167 slight splitter 30yr non-traditional
I think it's a bit long but how many words would be maximum? A lot of schools just specify page length but I'm not sure how long is too long. Thanks!
Oh and please be realistic and harsh. I've got thick skin.

edit: because I have a low uGPA my theme was maturity and growth after college


Professionalism was not a word that I was familiar with for the first 25 years of my life. I had neither the maturity nor the responsibility that was required for me to fully comprehend the idea of the word. Throughout high school and college I was unconcerned with achieving my academic potential and so I slacked in my studies and was more involved in the social aspect of life. Initially, I thought this was because I was simply uninterested in achieving academic success but as time passed by and started my first career I came to realize that it was actually my immaturity that held me back.

My first full time job was a personal godsend in disguise. In 2008 my family was having a financial crisis and I was forced to go back home to South Korea and help out financially before I was able to graduate from college. My premature departure from school initially made me angry but ultimately I was more confused than anything else. My family had always been well off and never had to worry about basic necessities. However, as my dad’s business began to deteriorate he no longer had the ability to support our family alone and so I was forced to help out in whatever way I could.

Fortunately, my family was from a country where English, although a foreign language, was in high demand. Because of this demand English education was immensely popular and teachers were needed in all corners of the country. I applied to numerous schools and academies and eventually landed a job teaching English to elementary students and so began my first career as an ESL teacher.

To this day I am not perfectly sure why I changed; maybe it was the responsibility of getting paid for my work or maybe it was the desperate situation that my family and I were in. Either way, I grew up fast. What was once a disinterest in personal success transformed into a desire to work harder than ever. Although I was only required to work 55 hours a week I ended up voluntarily working an average of 70~80 hours a week. Whereas before “good enough” was good enough, now, “perfection” was not enough.

My hard work and maturity did not go unnoticed and eventually I was promoted to positions with greater responsibilities. I was given the opportunity to manage 20, 30, and eventually 40 employees and each day I was given real life lessons on what a professional is. All of this culminated into a greater desire to create something of my own and eventually I had the opportunity to start and operate my own English language school. I spent countless nights working on everything from creating curriculum to devising marketing strategies. And though my hard work and passion had made the school an initial success, I was soon on the outside looking in on the past 5 years of my life.

I was at an impasse with my business partners about the direction of the school and we spent what seemed like months arguing the future of the school. On July 11, 2011 my business partners had squeezed me out of the business and my shares had somehow been bought out. I had no idea what had happened and though I hired a lawyer to get back what was mine the situation did not change and I was left with almost no compensation for my hard work.

Although I had always had an interest in law and practicing it, this provided the motivation that caused me to want to pursue law school and become a lawyer. 5 years before I would not have had the necessary maturity and motivation to pursue an endeavor as demanding as law school but I had grown immensely within that time period and I was confident that I would succeed. However, I did not want to go in blind and figured that experience in business would be a logical first step and eventually landed at a top local consulting firm in Korea. My time in the consulting industry proved to be the second stage of my professional growth and it was also a time where I had to perfect my time management skills. Because I was an entry level hire I was required to learn various management consulting concepts through mock project proposals while working as a full time analyst on real projects. Evidently, this demanded much of my “after-hour” time and forced me to learn how to prioritize; something that law school students and lawyers must deal with on a daily basis.

I admit that professional work and academics can be very different and thus the reason I wanted to show that my growth as a professional can translate into academic success. Studying for the LSAT was the perfect way for me to prove that it indeed can translate into academic success. The LSAT did not come naturally for me and I spent over a thousand hours studying and preparing for the test. And although my score does show how much I worked on it I believe that the process of studying for the LSAT proved that I in fact did approach studying the same way I did on a job. I realized that studying whether for a test or for a class took persistence and responsibility and that in that manner was no different from a full time job. Being responsible and keeping promises no matter how hard it is was the key to success but more importantly that no matter how hard I tried the results were ultimately all that mattered. Whereas in college I made excuses for not applying myself or for subpar outcomes I realized that in order to succeed I had to be a professional and take responsibility for everything I did regardless of the reasons.

A lack of professionalism and maturity was what prevented me from achieving academic success earlier in my life. However, my experiences over the past 5 years have given me the opportunity to grow and mature as a person and ultimately gave me the mindset and skill sets to succeed as a law school student and as a lawyer.

[malleus discentium]

Some textual notes:
Professionalism was not a word that I was familiar with for the first 25 years of my life. I had neither the maturity nor the responsibility that was required for me to fully comprehend the idea of the word. Throughout high school and college I was unconcerned with achieving my academic potential and so I slacked in my studies and was more involved in the social aspect of life. Initially,I thought told myself this was because I was simply uninterested in achieving academic success, but as time passed by and I started my first career, I came to realize that it was actually my immaturity that held me back.

My first full-time job was a personal godsend in disguise. In 2008, my family was having a financial crisis and I was forced to go back home to South Korea and help out financiallybefore I was able to graduate from college. [My premature departure from school initially made me angry but, ultimately, I was more confused than anything else angry. My family had always been well off and never had to worry about basic necessities. However, as But when my dad’s business began to deteriorate, he no longer had the ability to support our family alone and so I was forced to help out in whatever way I could.] The detail here is mostly irrelevant. I would eliminate the bracketed.

Fortunately, my family was from a country where English, although a foreign language, was in high demand. Because of this demand, English education was immensely popular and teachers were needed in all corners of the country.I applied to numerous schools and academies and eventually landed a job teaching English to elementary students So began my first career— as an ESL teacher.

To this day I am not perfectly sure why I changed; Since this PS is about the fact that these experiences changed you, I'm not sure this is a good thing to say maybe it was the responsibility of getting paid for my work or maybe it was the desperate situation that my family and I were in. Either way, I grew up fast. What was once a dis uninterest in personal success transformed into a desire to work harder than ever. Although I was only required to work 55 hours a per week, I ended up voluntarily working an average of 70~ 80 hours a week. Whereas before “good enough” was good enough, now, “perfection” was not enough. You give your transformation short shrift here. The structure of your PS is "look here's how I changed" and all you say about that is "I don't actually know what made me change"

My hard work and maturity did not go unnoticed and eventually I was promoted to positions with greater responsibilities. I was given the opportunity to manage 20, 30, and eventually 40 employees and each day I was given real-life lessons on what a professional is. All of this culminated into a greater desire to create something of my own, and eventually I had the opportunity to start and operate my own English language school. I spent countless nights working on everything from creating curriculum to devising marketing strategies. And though my hard work and passion had made the school an initial success, I was soon on the outside looking in on the past previous 5 five years of my life. This last sentence logically belongs in the next paragraph, not this one. I thought at first you meant you were on the outside of your previous immature self looking in.

I was at came to an impasse with my business partners about the direction of the school and we spent what seemed like months arguing the future of the school. On July 11, 2011 my business partners had squeezed me out of the business and my shares had somehow been bought out. I had no idea what had happened and though I hired a lawyer to get back what was mine, the situation did not change and I was left with almost no compensation nothing for my hard work.

Although I had always had an interest in lawand practicing it, this provided the motivation that caused me to want to pursue law school and become a lawyer. 5 Three You're referring to when you were still in college in the US, right? That's three years: 2008-2011 years before I would not have had the necessary maturity and motivation to pursue an endeavor as demanding as law school. But I had grown immensely within during that time period and I was confident that I would succeed.
¶
However, I did not want to go in blind and figured that experience in business would be a logical first step. Is this genuinely what you thought? Experience in business isn't really a logical "first step" to law school. It sounds like a contrived reason to explain why you didn't go to law school right away after the school thing fell apart and eventually landed at To that end I sought and acquired a position at a top local consulting firm in Korea. My time in the consulting industry proved to be the second stage of my professional growth and it was also a time where I had to perfected my time management skills. Because I was an entry-level hire, I was required to learn various management consulting concepts through mock project proposals while working as a full-time analyst on real projects. Evidently, this demanded much of my “after-hour” time and forced me to learn how to prioritize; something that law school students and lawyers must deal with on a daily basis.

[I admit that professional work and academics can be very different and thus the reason I wanted to show that my growth as a professional can translate into academic success. Studying for the LSAT was the perfect way for me to prove that it indeed can translate into academic success. The LSAT did not come naturally for me and I spent over a thousand hours studying and preparing for the test. And although my score does show how much I worked on it I believe that the process of studying for the LSAT proved that I in fact did approach studying the same way I did on a job. I realized that studying whether for a test or for a class took persistence and responsibility and that in that manner was no different from a full time job. ] Unimportant. Reduce the bracketed to something to the effect of "I had changed since HS/C and my dedication to studying for the LSAT proved this to myself," because that's the point you're trying to convey Being responsible and keeping promises no matter how hard it is was the key to success but more importantly that no matter how hard I tried the results were ultimately all that mattered. This is way cynical and I don't like it Whereas in college I made excuses for not applying myself or for subpar outcomes I realized that in order to succeed I had to be a professional and take responsibility for everything I did regardless of the reasons. I genuinely don't know what you're trying to say here.

A lack of professionalism and maturity was what prevented me from achieving academic success earlier in my life. However, my experiences over the past 5 five years have given me the opportunity to grow and mature as a person and ultimately gave me the mindset and skill sets to succeed as a law school student and as a lawyer.

Some content thoughts:
*The first graf suggests that professionalism is going to be the theme of your PS, but you don't really ever make it clear why the experiences you had in Korea translated to professionalism itself. The narrative points toward growing maturity, sure, but it more clearly shows your obtaining a drive to succeed. This is probably not a bad thing, though: I don't think professionalism is very good theme for a PS. It's a good quality to have, I suppose, but is that really the overarching characteristic you want to convey to adcoms? That you can act appropriately in the workplace? If you're going to keep that theme, you need to make more explicit why what you learned added to your professionalism.

[Anonymous User]

thank you very much!