Yale 250 that got a kid in last year--critique it

[likewise]

I am not really on this board much anymore, so didn't see your posting of your 250 Redemption.

Personally, I feel as though you 250 is a paragon of what not to write.  It is grandoise in tone, implicit higher-than-thou judgment, and utterly poor/unneccessarily complex sentence construction.  The only thing it reflects about you is a cynical attitude towards the efforts of others; there is nothing constructive here.

Generally legal academics (the people who evaluate YLS application) heavily prefer clarity and simplicity when it comes to sentence construction.  The content of what you say is most important...the sentence should be structured such that it maximizes lucidity.

God, I may sound like an OXOXer here, but I'd say that post is a "paragon" of how not to write or provide feedback.  God musta blessed ya w/ a 4.0/172 if ya write like that.  We've got poor diction, misuse of words, lists without agreement, incorrect pronoun use, editorialization, misuse of punctuation, an unnecessary adverb, and (ugh) use of the phrase "such that."

[maximumtennis82]

 

Yes, my post is ugly.  It's an internet message board.  When I care about what I am writing, I obviously turn it up a few notches.

And I did not misuse paragon.

[likewise]

And I did not misuse paragon.

Ya did.  You could at least admit that much.   

[maximumtennis82]

Ya did.  You could at least admit that much.   

Hmm.  Because I'm always open to being proven wrong about things, I did a quick lexis search through the nytimes.  While the dominant usage of paragon is for objects of excellence/virtue, it is also used often simply to refer to a 'perfect instantiation' of a concept.  It has been used several times to refer to perfect examples of negative qualities such as evil or shoddy worksmanship.

So, at worst, I used the word in a modern connotation that is widely accepted.

[Yale College Inferno]

Grrr...booted midway through posting.  Briefer version:
1- Interesting that the most critical individuals haven't opened themselves to public criticism.  Typical, actually.

If it were truly typical, it wouldn't be so interesting. However, redemption has posted his 250. I plan to post mine, but only after I receive a decision, so that my 250 can't be used to link me to my real-life identity, as some of my essays for other schools touch on a few of the same points I make in the 250.

2- I have got to know many profs here already...the top on the list of what they hate to read?  Self-absorbed crap from kids fresh from college.  I guessed this was true when applying and explicitly decided to not make my 250 about "ME ME ME. My experiences are so interesting!"

This was out of the blue, because no one who read your 250 here has said that you should have made it sound like "self-absorbed crap from kids fresh from college" or that you should have covered "ME ME ME. My experiences are so interesting!"

3- 250s are hard to evaluate on their own.  Mine, on face value, doesn't seem all that special.  However, it worked as a substantiation of the type of thing I claimed to be dedicated to in my PS and as a very terse explanation of the issue that my thesis addressed.  Applications are about creating desirable holistic packages, not individually strong atoms.

If you truly believed that applications are about desirable holistic packages and NOT individually strong atoms, you would not have posted your 250 here. There would be no point in asking people to discuss its strength if applications are NOT about individually strong atoms.

Now, to give you credit where you it is due: I would say that you used "paragon" correctly.

[maximumtennis82]

Grrr...booted midway through posting.  Briefer version:
1- Interesting that the most critical individuals haven't opened themselves to public criticism.  Typical, actually.

If it were truly typical, it wouldn't be so interesting. However, redemption has posted his 250. I plan to post mine, but only after I receive a decision, so that my 250 can't be used to link me to my real-life identity, as some of my essays for other schools touch on a few of the same points I make in the 250.

3- 250s are hard to evaluate on their own.  Mine, on face value, doesn't seem all that special.  However, it worked as a substantiation of the type of thing I claimed to be dedicated to in my PS and as a very terse explanation of the issue that my thesis addressed.  Applications are about creating desirable holistic packages, not individually strong atoms.

If you truly believed that applications are about desirable holistic packages and NOT individually strong atoms, you would not have posted your 250 here. There would be no point in asking people to discuss its strength if applications are NOT about individually strong atoms.

Point 1...I've already acknowledged I didn't know about R's other post.  I understand why you wouldn't post prior to hearing a decision.  But I still stand by the observation.
Point 2 was not meant to be directed at anybody in particular.  It was simply to explain why my 250 was relatively non-personal.
Point 3...obviously you can't have obviously weak atoms in an application.  However, my point is that the most important part of evaluation is at the holistic/molecular level.  So yes, you can evaluate 250s on their own to a certain extent.  But, it is crucial to recognize the importance of connections between the individual parts.

[curly]

Max: check your PMs.

[Yale College Inferno]

Point 3...obviously you can't have obviously weak atoms in an application.  However, my point is that the most important part of evaluation is at the holistic/molecular level.  So yes, you can evaluate 250s on their own to a certain extent.  But, it is crucial to recognize the importance of connections between the individual parts.

Right, and I think that what redemption and I were saying was that, to the limited extent that we can evaluate your 250, it looks like a weak atom to us, so we think the other atoms in your application must have been quite strong, or that the way it connected to everything else in your application made a strong whole. But the particular piece that you showed us seemed weak to us.

[maximumtennis82]

Max: check your PMs.

Replied.

[redemption]

Point 3...obviously you can't have obviously weak atoms in an application.  However, my point is that the most important part of evaluation is at the holistic/molecular level.  So yes, you can evaluate 250s on their own to a certain extent.  But, it is crucial to recognize the importance of connections between the individual parts.

If crucial, why post it alone?