Start of essay:
Need someone to critique my personal statement Forum
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Anonymous User
- Posts: 432823
- Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:32 am
Need someone to critique my personal statement
Any feedback is appreciated!
Start of essay:
Start of essay:
Last edited by Anonymous User on Sat Jan 28, 2017 7:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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JazzyMac
- Posts: 191
- Joined: Wed Jun 19, 2013 5:30 pm
Re: Need someone to critique my personal statement
Random feedback while I'm multi-tasking (or task-switching as it were).
Championing for Human Rights is not "odd-ball"...I'd suggest deleting it.
"while I was an undergraduate in college" <------assuming this stray phrase got lost in the shuffle
The rape story can be shortened. The information about how the nurse contacted you...combine the two sentences into half a sentence.
"the report was later dismiss-ED" past tense.
"criminal institution HAS"...institution is singular (even if it's overall plural since it has many things inside an institution)
Overall, this is a great story, with a humanistic touch. However, the poor grammar and spelling take away greatly from the impact. Also, I honestly forgot that the Afghanistan story was part of the same essay...find a better way to merge the transition. Perhaps delving more into Women's Rights and Educating Girls and Women: Fight for girls to go to school, and also fighting to make sure that women are educated in the law concerning their rights, be it Title IX or other.
Championing for Human Rights is not "odd-ball"...I'd suggest deleting it.
"while I was an undergraduate in college" <------assuming this stray phrase got lost in the shuffle
The rape story can be shortened. The information about how the nurse contacted you...combine the two sentences into half a sentence.
"the report was later dismiss-ED" past tense.
"criminal institution HAS"...institution is singular (even if it's overall plural since it has many things inside an institution)
Overall, this is a great story, with a humanistic touch. However, the poor grammar and spelling take away greatly from the impact. Also, I honestly forgot that the Afghanistan story was part of the same essay...find a better way to merge the transition. Perhaps delving more into Women's Rights and Educating Girls and Women: Fight for girls to go to school, and also fighting to make sure that women are educated in the law concerning their rights, be it Title IX or other.
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totesTheGoat
- Posts: 947
- Joined: Fri Aug 01, 2014 1:32 pm
Re: Need someone to critique my personal statement
I would say that it's rather informal for a PS. You need to give it a good grammar/spelling proofread, and you need to remove the informalities.
I would also caution you on openness. There's a difference between being comfortable sharing about hard parts of your life, and being too "matter of fact" or flippant about those hard parts. I think some parts cross that line into flippancy. In essence, some parts read like "I had a bad day once, my dad killed my mom in a drunken rage. I thought he was going to kill me, but he didn't. I later realized that he was just mad at my mom, and that their relationship had been based on mutual guilt and a healthy dose of affairs with co-workers. This really motivated me to learn more about domestic abuse."
I write that not to make light of things, but to show that your writing comes off as a bit flippant. You're talking about rape, LGBT issues, Islam/feminist intersection, etc. These are all very weighty things, and I don't think your writing gives justice to the weightiness of each of those issues.
I also think that there are too many things going on. Focus on one or two things, not on telling your life's story. I'd probably avoid the rape narrative unless that is going to be your only one. It doesn't really work in combination with other stories... too weighty to be put in an "oh, and also this happened to me, too" position.
I would also caution you on openness. There's a difference between being comfortable sharing about hard parts of your life, and being too "matter of fact" or flippant about those hard parts. I think some parts cross that line into flippancy. In essence, some parts read like "I had a bad day once, my dad killed my mom in a drunken rage. I thought he was going to kill me, but he didn't. I later realized that he was just mad at my mom, and that their relationship had been based on mutual guilt and a healthy dose of affairs with co-workers. This really motivated me to learn more about domestic abuse."
I write that not to make light of things, but to show that your writing comes off as a bit flippant. You're talking about rape, LGBT issues, Islam/feminist intersection, etc. These are all very weighty things, and I don't think your writing gives justice to the weightiness of each of those issues.
I also think that there are too many things going on. Focus on one or two things, not on telling your life's story. I'd probably avoid the rape narrative unless that is going to be your only one. It doesn't really work in combination with other stories... too weighty to be put in an "oh, and also this happened to me, too" position.
