First draft of PS. Need some honest critiquing! Forum

[kkrunner]

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[barkgarry]

I think you should reflect a bit more on what your PS is really about. Is it about you running? Or how you had to confront the fact that you couldn't do cross country anymore because of an injury and so poured your efforts into school and volunteering instead? If it's the latter, you should really consider cutting the amount of time dedicated to your running career. Out of nine total paragraphs, the first five are solely about running.

I think you should cut this down to two, maybe three paragraphs. Sure, you loved running and it was a huge part of your life. But it seems to me that the real thrust of your PS is having to give that all up and finding new things. That's pretty powerful, and you can definitely show the reader how important running was to you in much less time. Also, in general, your descriptions seem pretty hyperbolic. Compare the way paragraphs 6-8 are written to the first five and I think you'll see what I mean.

Some specific editing/suggestions:

In P3, "overtime" should be split into two words. "Overtime" exclusively refers to sports games that get extended because no one won yet.
The first sentence in P5 is pretty awkward. I'd work on that transition.
Your conclusion needs a lot of work. "I know that I have what it takes to win the daily battles it will take to win the war" I think you're missing some words in there or something, this sentence really doesn't make sense to me and is a bit over the top anyway. "I know that I am meant to be a lawyer," is also too extreme. It's good enough to just say that you want to be a lawyer, admissions folks will probably find that statement to be cheesy.

[kkrunner]

Thank you for the critique! You made a lot of excellent points. I've always had a problem with being a long-winded writer, and I agree I need to cut down on the running paragraphs. Back to work.