Noobie- Need help with PS please-any feedback will help Forum

[Epitome]

.....

[Epitome]

bump

[BaberhamLincoln]

I like it.
BUT...
I get confused. A lot going on. The home mortgage stuff, then the sexual abuse stuff, then the teacher stuff.

Try to focus it more? Or get one common theme?

[DEO3029]

I would agree that one theme/story might make it more consistent/coherent. How did you end up in the role of hosting the mortgage seminars…that could be an interesting component.

The way it seems like to me is that…when your parents had their mortgage issue, it was no ones job to help educate them so you assumed that role. Now the mechanisms for advocacy exist and you played a role in that at your firm. It seemed like you were trying to indicate that the skills picked up along the way will permit you to be an effective attorney

[kublaikahn]

Less is more.

When you call your parents "high school educated" you seem to be implying that they did not have the skills to handle the matter themselves. But you use a condescending expression to convey an idea that requires too far a logical leap. I get what you are doing, but a good writer will find a succinct way to expressly make the point. At any rate, the story seems a bit embellished. Like there are missing pieces.

The molestation part should stand alone in a DS, or consume the entirety of the piece.

It is just a stylistic choice, but I find that the narrative start in the typical PS is a red flag to weak writing. In your example, "I was 15 when..." A strong writer will typically not ease into a three page paper like the beginning of a novel. For what it is worth, I have read lots of these, and the weaker ones tend to have this descriptive narration at the beginning. I would bet an adcom tunes out like Pavlov's dog when reading it.

About a month later while my high school educated parents sat at the closing table in the small conference room at our local credit union, trying to appear calm as they signed their documents for a 15 year mortgage, with an APR of 2.75%, I couldn’t help but beam with pride.

One last thing. This sentence is a good example of how not to write a punchy piece. The subject predicate are buried ("I could not help"). Break the sentence up. Use powerful verbs. "I found a better solution. I convinced my parents to believe. And I cannot express the pride I felt in seeing my parents sign the note that lifted that heavy burden from them. We sat in the room stifling our excitement, as my parents signed a new mortage fixed at just 2.75%. Until that moment, I do not know if I truly believed."

[Epitome]

Thanks guys for the great feedback...I was trying to tie in two stories together without getting too bogged down by the details.

I will re-work over the weekend and definitely split the stories up so I can give them each a better treatment.