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Personal Statement / Re: Please review personal statement and recommendation letter
« on: March 01, 2012, 01:18:16 PM »
Hi fmanjili,
I'm only going to comment on your PS, but first off I want to caution you in regards to the open nature of your post. You may notice, on most other posts, most people do not use their real names and blank out the names of schools/organizations/persons. The reasons for this are to 1) protect their privacy and 2) protect against potential schools/employers, etc searching out this information in the future. When I was applying to law school (I'm an alum now), we didn't even post our PS online--it was all done through PM! It's up to you, but that is my opinion.
On to your PS...I'm going to make a couple of English grammar/vocab points as I understand from your PS that you are not a native English speaker. 1) Try to avoid the passive voice as much as possible--it makes your sentences longer, slows down your narrative, and weakens the phrasing; 2) Your PS is probably too long in its current format for most PS requirements (I'm not sure of course, but this is my suspicion). One way to make your language more concise is to remove a lot of the "ambiguous" words such as "somewhat of an heir" and "chose to engage" (change to just "engaged"). You will also find that this will speed your narrative along; 3) In some cases, I would reconsider your word choice. You are praising your parents' independent stance, but "incessant" has a negative connotation (read: annoying) and "vague" does as well. Also further on you use the word "kid," which is too informal here. Use "child."
Structurally, I think your PS makes sense. You add on each new stage clearly and tie the story together well. I also think your story is interesting and compelling. If I were you, I would just make sure to trim as much as I can to keep the thread of your narrative moving along.
I'm only going to comment on your PS, but first off I want to caution you in regards to the open nature of your post. You may notice, on most other posts, most people do not use their real names and blank out the names of schools/organizations/persons. The reasons for this are to 1) protect their privacy and 2) protect against potential schools/employers, etc searching out this information in the future. When I was applying to law school (I'm an alum now), we didn't even post our PS online--it was all done through PM! It's up to you, but that is my opinion.
On to your PS...I'm going to make a couple of English grammar/vocab points as I understand from your PS that you are not a native English speaker. 1) Try to avoid the passive voice as much as possible--it makes your sentences longer, slows down your narrative, and weakens the phrasing; 2) Your PS is probably too long in its current format for most PS requirements (I'm not sure of course, but this is my suspicion). One way to make your language more concise is to remove a lot of the "ambiguous" words such as "
Structurally, I think your PS makes sense. You add on each new stage clearly and tie the story together well. I also think your story is interesting and compelling. If I were you, I would just make sure to trim as much as I can to keep the thread of your narrative moving along.