PS advice needed. Forum

[Anonymous User]

Thanks

[barley]

Congrats on your improved LSAT! With that said, sorry, but I think this is a pretty weak essay. A few points to consider, in no particular order:

- There doesn't seem to be a unifying theme. At first it reads as a "why law" statement, which is fine, but the paragraph at the end doesn't fit in at all and felt really out of place.
- Regarding that paragraph - "injustice of life-threatening illnesses in children" is talking about a different type of injustice entirely and, to be honest, made me cringe a bit. It made me think of one of those find-the-flaw LSAT question in which the answer would be "uses two different meanings of the word 'injustice.'" Certainly, many health conditions and outcomes do have roots in social injustice/inequity, but it seems like you're talking more about the biological misfortune of having an illness - not the same thing at all. If you hope to work in a field of law that will specifically help seriously ill children, I think that warrants a lot deeper explanation and may even be a great topic for your entire statement to revolve around!
- The first few paragraphs about finding your calling seem unnecessary to me. Most people go through a few stages of career interests in their high school and college years and your story isn't particularly compelling, so it doesn't seem like the best use of space to talk about it (unless you feel that it's necessary to explain parts of your transcript adcomms may be curious about).
- You use a lot of unnecessary contractions that make the writing sound too informal. I think there are some instances where not using contractions can make language sound stilted, and avoiding that is fine in my book, but that's usually not the case and most contractions can generally be removed.

I know this all sounds very critical, but I sincerely hope that it helps you! Like I said, great job on your LSAT improvement, and I hope you make the same kind of progress on your PS.

[Scalvert]

It does sound a bit all over the place. I think it's ok to mention that you changed you major to something that suits you, but I don't think it's necessary to spend that much time talking about it. You might cut all the details except for the stuff that relates to criminal justice (the other subjects had no bearing on why you decided on law).

Maybe focus on something about CJ - maybe something in the news or you learned in class that affected you and made you get involved? Could you find something to say about your CJ major that was similar to what you said about architecture? It sounded from reading that, that you felt more strongly about architecture. I thought that the Dance Marathon paragraph was effective in showing how you're currently involved in a cause. The problem is that it doesn't seem related to any of the previous information. It needs to be more cohesive. I also don't think the formal "in conclusion" statement is necessary.

I think you can make something interesting from this by narrowing your focus.

[Anonymous User]

.

[Scalvert]

I think that is an improvement. I have heard some caution against using quotes in a PS, but I'm not sure what the "rules" are on that, you might check that out. Also along the same lines, you might rethink the explanation of the justice system. It takes up space and is information that they already know.

These do's and dont's might be helpful:

https://career.berkeley.edu/Law/LawStatement