First Time Poster Needs PS Help Forum

[Excited_To_Apply]

Hi all. I really need to cut about 6 lines from my personal statement, and I'd love to hear any feedback you might have for me. Thanks so much!

My mother, a third generation Mexican-American, grew up on a subsistence farm, while my father was raised in an orphanage before joining the Navy at the young age of 17. Each coming from a blue-collar background, my parents were unfamiliar with scholastic excellence. Neither graduated from a four-year university and both would be content if I merely graduated from high school and never went to college, much less law school. But because of how the law saved the life of my father and stopped my family from taking on crippling debt, I’ve seen how the law can change lives and feel a profound responsibility to use the law to help others in need.

When I was just 12 years old, a doctor found a small brown dot on the bottom of my father’s foot and diagnosed him with malignant melanoma, giving him less than a one percent chance to live. Shortly after hearing that my dad was all but guaranteed to die, I learned my grandmother required emergency back surgery. Thanks to the never-failing idiom “when it rains, it pours,” I was simultaneously diagnosed with a rare ankle disease that similarly required an operation.

My middle school experience consisted of going to class, worrying about my father for seven hours, and racing home on crutches to pray that he was still alive and that my grandmother was recovering. My father, grandmother, mother (who took care of us all while working full-time), and I could not have made it through this trying time without help.

Because of laws that provide healthcare to veterans and their families, my father, grandmother, and I had access to some of the best doctors in the country at an extremely low cost. The law was my hero in a fight for normalcy and a healthy family. Twenty-four months later, my father survived in through what can only be described as a miracle, my grandmother was once again self-sufficient, and I could walk and run as well as ever. While our lives returned to normal, I was forever changed – I had built up a passion to help others, just as my family and I had been helped, through the law.

After Graduating from xxxxxxxx, I worked for the House of Representatives to give back to the American people who supported my family in our time of need. But my ambition to help my fellow Americans through the legal system didn’t end there; it drove me to found a congressional staff association, xxxxxxxx that has brought together over 300 congressional staff and policy experts to craft better-informed laws. For instance, over 50 staff attended a xxxxxxx luncheon with senior policy experts from the Eno Center for Transportation to discuss how Congress could amend the DRIVE Act ahead of a major vote. I find this type of work rewarding because of my first-hand experience with how the law can help people in need. Being a part of the process that can satisfy those needs is immensely gratifying.

I now work for xxxxxxxx to deregulate a new technology that will create hundreds of thousands of jobs while saving lives: drones. These innovative devices will eventually be used by Facebook to provide inexpensive internet connections worldwide and by a host of non-profits to deliver medication to rural areas among other uses. By working for xxxxxxx, I am able to advance regulatory acceptance of drones in the U.S., particularly in agriculture where these flying robots monitor crops and alert farmers to apply more or less fertilizer, water, or pesticides. This allows farmers to use fewer inputs, which is good for the environment and the consumer’s pocketbook.

Further exemplifying my dedication to the American people, I work for xxxxxxxx in my free time as their Manager of Capitol Hill Programs to help congressional staff improve their professional skills. As I write this on a Sunday, I’m on a plane back to D.C. from Dallas where I attended seminars to learn how to improve my public speaking skills. Next week, I will use the skills I’ve learned to host a Q&A event in Congress with former Senator xxxxxxxx.

Because of how the law helped my family just one decade ago, I sacrifice hours of sleep and time with friends in an attempt to improve Congress, our nation’s laws, and (hopefully) the standard of living for all Americans. Through your law school, I know I can do even more.

By attending your law school, I’ll add to my knowledge of lawmaking by better understanding the judicial branch and the foundations of law to be an agent of change for others less fortunate than myself. This will help me to impact our legal system, and to use the law to aid people in a variety of ways: through litigation, by working in the courts, or by continuing my work in Congress. While I’m not yet sure which path I will choose, I know that studying law will assist me in my quest to help others and, hopefully, aid my future decisions as an elected official.

[dietcoke1]

While I’m not yet sure which path I will choose, I know that studying law will assist me in my quest to help others and, hopefully, aid my future decisions as an elected official.

only skimmed it, but I can't imagine that schools will be fond of the idea that your going to law school to be a politician, and not, you know, a lawyer.

[Excited_To_Apply]

Thank you! You could be right -- I know a lot of my friends in Congress came from T-14 law schools but maybe that's not what schools want to hear....thanks!

[Mr. Archer]

You could shave down the second half, because that's a lot of resume' description. That's particularly true of the paragraph starting with "Further exemplifying . . .." Instead of going into so much depth about the particular work you've done, try providing a more general overview and then speaking about how those experiences as a whole have impacted you.