Personal Statement critique--help me shorten Forum

[Anonymous User]

Hey guys, I'm about a paragraph over two pages right now and I'm having trouble deciding where to cut. Any opinions on portions of this that aren't necessary would be great. Thanks!

This is far from my final draft, by the way, so other critiques are more than welcome too.

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“Student government reporter wanted. Must be available for the Wednesday 4 p.m. Associated Students meeting. Should have strong writing skills and interest in government. Those interested may contact the news editor at XXXX@[newspaper].com.”
Likely written hastily the night before to fill a blank space in that day’s issue, that brief help-wanted advertisement would sharply reroute my college career.
I emailed the editor later that day, a Wednesday, warning her that I was a freshman English major with no published writing. I received a reply almost immediately.
“Can you attend the Associated Students meeting that starts in a few hours?”
As a tryout for the position, I was assigned to write a short news brief, 300 to 500 words. The meeting was expected to be routine and mundane, otherwise they would be sending a real reporter, one who would have something other than his cultural geography notebook to scribble quotes in.
The meeting was neither routine nor mundane. The board approved a previously unheard agenda item to raise the salary of its five executive board members by more than 20 percent. The full-time students would now be paid nearly $30,000 for what was mostly a part-time gig. This occurred in 2010, during the worst of the recession; no state was suffering worse than California. State schools like [school] were facing unprecedented budget cuts and fee hikes. A neighboring public university would soon forego student enrollment for an entire year.
My little audition brief ran in the newspaper’s next issue. Because of the subsequent campus outcry, the story’s importance outweighed my vast journalistic inexperience. My first front page article on the issue ran the following week.
I was immediately enthralled. I began devoting my free time not just to student government reporting, but any political news I could touch. Researching and parsing through information for that hidden nugget of a news lead became my pastime. My social life--and more importantly, my GPA--took a hit, but my intellectual curiosity flourished.
I was named the news section’s senior staff writer the following semester. Then, in each subsequent semester, its crime reporter, assistant news editor, and, by the second half of my junior year, its youngest news editor in years.
My senior year, I was hired as the newspaper’s managing editor, where I oversaw not just its 12 senior staff of editors, but the entire editorial arm of the newspaper, which was comprised of over 50 staff writers, copy editors, photographers and graphic designers.
Adjusting to the pressure was a challenge. I remember not being able to sleep the night before I had to fire an editor--a friend of mine--for too many careless errors. I remember the exhaust we all felt as we realized we had to cut our budget yet again to balance our falling print advertising revenues. To remind myself of my underlying ethos during the slog of late-night productions, I hung my favorite George Orwell quote on the back side of my office door (“Journalism is printing what someone else doesn’t want printed; everything else is public relations.”)
My plunge into the world of student government led me to several unexpected places. In high school, public speaking terrified me. I felt uneasy when I heard I would moderate the student government elections my junior year, but I found that immersing myself in the debate’s subject matter quelled my phobia. I would moderate five more campus debates over the next two years, most notably featuring state Sen. XXX and his challenger XXX.
I continued to devote time off the clock to reporting. During my final semester at [school], I was proud to report a final story on Associated Students: the executive board voted to take a voluntary pay cut as a show of solidarity with the financial troubles burdening the student body.
I wasn’t changing the world at [newspaper]. I wasn’t even changing [location], really. But on the eastern edge of the city, we inched our little corner of the world closer to the ideals embodied by the people residing there. The [newspaper], on an admittedly small scale, showed me that through hard work, action and the search for truth, we can indeed have a positive impact on whatever corner of the world we find ourselves in.

[CanadianWolf]

Try: "in which to scribble quotes."

Cutting out a paragraph or two should be easy since there is a lot of excess "wordage" in this piece. The easiest cuts are in the final three paragraphs, in my opinion.

[Anonymous User]

Try: "in which to scribble quotes."

Cutting out a paragraph or two should be easy since there is a lot of excess "wordage" in this piece. The easiest cuts are in the final three paragraphs, in my opinion.

Thanks. And I agree with your second point. I think I get a little too flowery in that last paragraph.

[CanadianWolf]

Actually, the final paragraph is fine. Consider cutting material from the three prior paragraphs.

(Also, "exhaustion", not "exhaust".)

"I continued to devote time off the clock to reporting." This sentence could be deleted.

"To remind myself..." is a sentence that could be cut. The George Orwell quote could be used elsewhere--maybe even as a title for your essay as, arguably, that is your theme.

[marmadukeishere]

Last three paragraphs can go IMO because they deviate from your main point. The beginning is very engaging! I enjoyed reading this.

[Anonymous User]

Last three paragraphs can go IMO because they deviate from your main point. The beginning is very engaging! I enjoyed reading this.

Thanks! Interesting idea--that would definitely give me some breathing room if I dumped those last three.