Personal Statement (Near final draft) Forum

[Anonymous User]

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[HRomanus]

Any thoughts? I would love your blunt and honest critiques before I send this off within the week.

[js123]

I believe there is way too much focus on the situation with Darryl. To start off, I would delve a bit further into this class you mentioned in the second paragraph. A few more details on the role you played in this class and what exactly it entailed would be useful to your narrative. Perhaps even explain how your own situation enabled you to teach this class and help Darryl. Use specifics. In addition to this, I would try to edit the last paragraph. Explain how you helping these people can be related to law school and how it helped grow your desire to attend. The last paragraph seems a bit rushed, almost like you forgot you had to put something about law school and just stuck it in there. Again try to be as specific as possible when relating your experience to law school. Hope this helps!

[Cal Trask]

How do I say this... your personal statement reads very awkwardly. It reads like you were pulling from a thesaurus the entire time. There are a few issues here with the way you convey your thoughts too, but tone down the rhetoric first and foremost.

he asked me – his seemingly last resort – for help

Are you or aren't you his last resort?

The opportunity challenged the sum of my undergraduate experience, demanding a union of intellectual and interpersonal acumen with meaningful consequences. Leveraging both critical understanding and personal engagement, I empowered Darryl to advocate for his future.

Did it challenge your undergrad experience, or put to test the skills you developed during it? Second bolded is a bit ham-fisted. Built to your point, don't bludgeon the reader over the head with it.

sparked my curiosity in the consequential, yet enigmatic, system

You don't need to point out that this system is consequential. The kid's at risk of not graduating. Enigmatic here is probably not a great word either.

I sought a critical understanding of its procedures and mission

Stop saying "critical understanding". Say something like "I intended to fully decipher the impenetrable bureaucracy".

Without engaging Darryl, my understanding of the process could only futilely instruct him; therefore, I met frequently with Darryl to seek and consider his perspective.

Did you or did you not engage with Darryl? Isn't meeting with him engaging? How is your understanding futile? Reconsider phrasing, his is ambiguous.

Ignorant of the college conduct process and thus fearful of its control over him, Darryl squirmed against suspension with frustrated confrontation and false victimhood

Is it false victimhood if he's admitted guilt? This whole sentence is clunky. Revise or remove.

Driven by an educational mission, the conduct board would reward contrition and suspend his recalcitrance.

Uh... what? Suspend his recalcitrance? They're suspending his state of being stubborn?

In truth, Darryl seemingly had learned from his mistake, and I empowered him to exemplify that

Did he not actually learn from his mistake?

I sustained Darryl’s oft-wavering focus on his narrative and goal

Revise. This is clunky and your syntax here is all wrong. Try something more along the lines of "Darryl, whose focus had wavered frequently before, dedicated himself to this goal."

revealing his genuine, reserved nature

Reserved is redundant here. If he weren't reserved his nature wouldn't need to be revealed.

The experience exhibits the character and skills I leverage to achieve and to impact others.

"This experience exhibited". Also, leverage, which you're using again, is a strange word. Using "leverage" on somebody can convey coercion. Reconsider.

The drive to understand and the desire to serve through understanding played complementary roles in Darryl’s success.

There are a couple things wrong with this sentence but the main one is this word usage. Play up your influence, don't dismiss it as complementary. You're trying to impress readers, not give the impression that you happened to be around.

The interplay of intellectual and interpersonal skills undergirded my collegiate leadership; for, as demonstrated with Darryl, each makes the other efficacious

Don't say interplay, emphasize a synthesis of your skills and the effective wielding thereof. Toss the bolded words, they're way too much here.

As a non-profit field executive,

This is coming out of left field. Introduce it earlier (is this the class you were referring to?) or toss it, as it appears extraneous to the narrative.

I daily apply these lessons

Nitpicky, but move daily after lessons.

Therefore, I seek entrance to law school to develop my knowledge and skills so that through the legal system I may empower others to achieve their goals.

Therefore? You haven't explained why law school is necessary to further hone these skills. If we're to take your anecdote to heart, you're already an effective advocate. You need to tie this in with the narrative, not tack it on to the end.



I hope these help. It's not a bad start, but it does need some work. Build into your conclusion, make it apparent that you not only seek to assist, but have a demonstrated ability to do so that you would like to translate into the legal field. Elaborate on yourself. You can't just be a passive observer here, providing moral support for a kid who got caught with a dimebag of pot. Make it compelling. Why were you important?

[Cal Trask]

Also, if you're going to post your PS anonymously, don't immediately out yourself by posting a follow-up non-anonymously.

[HRomanus]

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[HRomanus]

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[HRomanus]

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[JazzieShizzle]

Many of your sentences are packed with excessive details and too much information. Also, it's really obvious when you use a thesaurus as much as you did.

I don't think Darryl should be mentioned in your intro or conclusion because this is supposed to be about you. What inspired you to develop and teach a class on students' rights? What did you get out of that experience? How will this experience influence your future? I think that should be your emphasis. Include Darryl to a much lesser extent only as an anecdote of how you were able to help someone, not as your entire focus.

They say your PS should serve as your interview. Would you really spend your entire interview using a thesaurus to tell a story about someone else? Yes, you were instrumental in Darryl's success, but the story is really about him, not you. Tell a story about you, in your own words.

[HRomanus]

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[JazzieShizzle]

Great thoughts and I appreciate them. What words of phrases indicate use of a thesaurus?

I started to point each of them out, but there are so many and I really think you should completely rewrite this, so I stopped. Most of it isn't absurd or anything, but too many adjectives. Except "recalcitrant" and "efficacious." Maybe you didn't just discover those words, but it sounds like it in the essay.

This is a great example of too much info/detail in a single sentence:

The class revealed that students’ ignorance about the process hampered their ability to defend themselves and nurtured an adversarial atmosphere, eroding its educational impact.

By the end of the sentence, is it unclear what you are talking about.

Not a thesaurus issue, but one of your more awkward sentences:

Yet, more than formal procedures, I realized its vital role in the college’s educational mission and embraced its impact on students by guiding them through mistakes.