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Everyone here has been SO helpful with your critiques! I'm hoping that this is close to the final draft. Any thoughts are welcome! Also, please don't worry about length. This is 2.5 pages double spaced and I'll have no problem cutting it down to 2 pages. Also, the school I reaaaaally want to get into (UC Berkeley) asks for an up to 4 page personal statement.

Thanks everyone!

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My stomach still flips every time I walk into a library. There is just something exciting about the mere presence of so many stories and ideas waiting for me to discover them.
It’s partly nostalgia now; books were the flavor of my childhood and their presence in a library reminds me of the days when I clung to them as a source of knowledge and freedom. I had a very sheltered childhood; my parents are deeply religious and homeschooled both my brother and myself. But from a young age, they encouraged us to read - and I took that message to heart. Reading opened my world up to ideas I had not known in my sheltered upbringing. From The Canterbury Tales and Doctor Faustus to The Grapes of Wrath and The Sound and the Fury, I had devoured many of the books in the Western canon by the time I graduated high school - reading anywhere from 15 to 20 thousand pages per year. Through books I came to know a world I could not see; from the haunting depths of depraved passion in Moby Dick to the exalted, other-worldly sacrifice of Sydney Carton, I found the world - and it spurred a desire to learn more.
This desire manifested itself in several different ways. I became fascinated with Christianity, and not just the Christianity I was taught on Sunday. I wanted to know everything. I read the Bible multiple times and attended Bible Studies at our Church where I was the youngest person by at least ten years. I read book after book of theology. And, although I loved the life of the mind, I also grew into the world around me. I became curious about people: specifically, how we learn, how we process information, and how we make decisions. I started teaching horseback riding lessons when I was sixteen and it was then that I first began to explore various teaching methods (although I didn’t know it at the time). Each new student became a puzzle to me: how could I help them learn best? If I had a student who was scared to canter, would it help them to visualize a successful ride? I found that each successful lesson brought a smile to my face as I shared my love of horses with yet another person.
These two loves, teaching and knowledge, followed me to college. My love of classic literature helped me make the decision to attend the [program], a “Great Books” program with a Christian flair which emphasized the reading of primary texts. From these works, my ideas grew and changed. Augustine and Calvin validated my questioning of the foundational, seemingly immovable principles of the churches I used to attend. Hobbes and Locke introduced me to fundamental political theory. Through it all, however, I continued to teach: first horseback riding lessons, then tutoring English my senior year. And, although I love horses, it was tutoring English where I really found my niche; it was here I could combine my passion of both books and teaching to help every student improve their essay in just fifteen minutes.
Leaving college, I didn’t quite know what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew that I wanted to continue growing and learning while also helping others. I decided to explore tutoring English. I was hired at [company] and it was great fun attempting to impart my love of Shakespeare to high school students (with varying degrees of success). During the first six months, there was a steep learning curve as I grappled with the various learning styles of students who were autistic, had ADHD, or were just unmotivated to do well in school. And, although I enjoyed teaching, I found it was not what made me smile in satisfaction as I walked across the parking lot late at night. As I continued to work, my boss began to assign me more behind-the-scenes projects. I was tasked with developing the English summer curriculum and streamlining our hiring and training process. As I drifted, almost unintentionally, into the management side of the company, I found myself enjoying immensely the puzzle of each new project. I spent countless hours researching, collaborating, collating, and finally creating systems that worked. And this is what I enjoyed.
Growing up, I had had ample exposure to law due to the fact that both my Mom and my Grandpa were lawyers. But I had never seriously considered the career for myself. One day, however, when I was knee deep researching how best to develop a training program to ensure our tutors were properly adapting their teaching methods to the new common core standards in California, I realized that it wasn’t the material I was researching I found interesting, but rather the process itself. It wasn’t teaching I found intriguing, but rather the puzzle of how best to adapt my teaching methods to each individual student. This was my old love of reading, and although it was changed and transformed, it was at its core the same. I loved reading because I enjoyed discovering the puzzles of the characters. With teaching, though, the characters were real. A career in law would enable me to have such intellectually stimulating work every day while also giving me the opportunity to help others, and I don’t think I could come up with a better career option.

It's a little tough to comment on your new version because you'll either be expanding for Berkley or cutting it down for everywhere else. For each version, I think there's still some wordiness issues. The last paragraph needs work. It doesn't quite tie things together in a way that makes for a strong ending. I'm not sure you need to mention your mom and grandpa being lawyers, plus that transition isn't smooth by bringing them up at that point. The second-to-last sentence of the second-to-last paragraph is confusing to me. I don't know what you mean by collaborating and collating systems, but that just might be me not knowing something common. You second paragraph could use some work. It's a little disjointed. The parts more focused on learning about Christianity, instead of just reading, don't exactly fit the theme of your PS. That paragraph really just needs to pivot from reading to learning about people/teaching quickly.

Try to use the active voice instead of the passive voice. (It demands more urgency -- you are telling a story, you want whoever's reading it to be as engaged as possible.) Try not to use the past tense!

Mr. Archer wrote:It's a little tough to comment on your new version because you'll either be expanding for Berkley or cutting it down for everywhere else. For each version, I think there's still some wordiness issues. The last paragraph needs work. It doesn't quite tie things together in a way that makes for a strong ending. I'm not sure you need to mention your mom and grandpa being lawyers, plus that transition isn't smooth by bringing them up at that point. The second-to-last sentence of the second-to-last paragraph is confusing to me. I don't know what you mean by collaborating and collating systems, but that just might be me not knowing something common. You second paragraph could use some work. It's a little disjointed. The parts more focused on learning about Christianity, instead of just reading, don't exactly fit the theme of your PS. That paragraph really just needs to pivot from reading to learning about people/teaching quickly.

Agreed, particularly that the last paragraph could be stronger and that there's some extraneous detail in getting there.

My stomach still flips every time I walk into a library. There is just something exciting about the mere presence of so many stories and ideas waiting for me to discover them.

This start doesn't really match what comes next.

It’s partly nostalgia now; books were the flavor of my childhood and their presence in a library reminds me of the days when I clung to them as a source of knowledge and freedom. I had a very sheltered childhood; my parents are deeply religious and homeschooled both my brother and myself.

First, try to reduce your usage of semicolons (and something that is trying to be an em dash) in linking sentences. If you have two sentences, write two sentences. Use the semicolon sparingly (when there is a logical reason to write your sentences like that; e.g., to direct the reader's way of reading to match your tone, or to emphasize the connection between things). Secondly, be more tactful when discussing your childhood. Avoid clichés ("flavor of my childhood;" "clung to them;" etc.) and watch out for loaded language ("sheltered"). The latter can send the wrong idea to the reader.

This desire manifested itself in several different ways.

One of a few examples where you seem to be writing to sound smart, rather than writing smartly. "Manifested itself" is unnecessarily fancy language. A personal statement should be personal, and that means conversational (still formal, mind you, but you're basically talking to the reader). When you write the way you think the reader expects (e.g., "in my mind, a lawyer would write this way"), it can accomplish the opposite of impressing them.

And, although I loved the life of the mind, I also grew into the world around me.

On the flip side, I mentioned that it is still formal above because of the sentences that start with "And" or "But."

or were just unmotivated to do well in school.

Reword this. It comes across as a little judgmental and not something someone who actually has a passion for helping others learn would say (I'd know; I taught).

Growing up, I had had ample exposure to law due to the fact that both my Mom and my Grandpa were lawyers.

Bang! Out of nowhere, we have law. The biggest critique I can make is that you start with what looked like a theme, then just walk us through your life story with very, very loose ties to that theme. I have no sense of why you want to go to law school, and I have no sense of what your personal experiences are going to bring to law school and the legal profession.

With teaching, though, the characters were real. A career in law would enable me to have such intellectually stimulating work every day while also giving me the opportunity to help others, and I don’t think I could come up with a better career option.

Similarly, as soon as you establish law, you just state that law would be the best career option. Yet, you give no justifications specific to law for that. In fact, the immediately preceding sentence gives a specific justification for why being a teacher—not a lawyer—tied into the love of reading that was supposed to unify this.

I hope this helps. Good luck!