Personal Statement Feedback

[dmoconnell]

Hi this is in response to your twitter post. This is my finished personal statement, I'm curious what your thoughts are.

My life began in a less than ideal way. My father left my mother when I was still a baby, and as such I was raised by a single mother who was struggling financially and emotionally. I grew up in a rough area and as a child I roamed my neighborhood, learning the ways of the streets. I learned quickly how to be independent, avoid trouble, and make friends in difficult situations. My circumstance did not give me a good outlook for future success. However, a combination of my own tenacity and the intervention of kind people has allowed me to come as far as I have today.
I moved to a better school district before I started high school. At my new high school, my success indicators were not promising; I had a 1.9 GPA and was frequently getting into trouble at school. It was during my junior year that I met my goofy best-friend Dan. Dan, by all accounts, was a character but what surprised me the most about him was not his quirky nature, but his sincere kindness. He genuinely cared about people and it was evident in the way he treated everyone around him. His behavior was in stark contrast to what I had learned to expect from my peers. Most people I knew saw others mainly as a means to an end, Dan did not. Meeting a genuinely kind person may not be all that spectacular, but it did have a profound impact on my life.
Dan and I became close friends and he invited me to his church's youth group. As I attended youth group, I started noticing that many of the people I met were as genuine and kind as Dan was. So, I started frequenting this church, I began to get to know the members of the congregation, and they started to invest their time in my life. My friends and mentors at this church saw potential in me and I started seeing potential in myself. As a result my grades improved, I took a leading role in church events, and I started volunteering at the junior high youth group.
After graduating high school I began attending community college. During my sophomore year of college I was presented with an opportunity to go on a summer mission trip to Anse à Galets, Haiti. I was young and optimistic and it seemed like a great opportunity for me to save the world. Additionally, the narrative I was told about Haiti was one I could empathize with. So I began fund-raising so that I could experience Haiti for myself.
Once I arrived in Haiti I felt as if I were in a scene from a movie. I saw houses of scrap metal and sticks that were fastened together with twine or rope. Children playing in the streets would either run and surround our group or shout “blan” (white) and point at us whenever we walked by. I felt like a celebrity on an exotic vacation. That feeling vanished once I saw children with the trademark sign of undernourishment in Haitians, yellowed hair. Seeing kids who were most likely starving was upsetting to say the least. In that moment my exotic vacation transformed into a journey of understanding. I began to see the challenges faced by Haitians on a daily basis; I worried about things like car payments or my grades at school while these people worried about providing health care and food for their families. This stark contrast gave me a sense of purpose on this trip. This trip became about connecting with a people that had been left alone and hopeless. Going to Haiti opened my eyes to a world I could never truly know and hardships I have never experienced. This realization taught me to be grateful for all of the advantages that I have and has endowed me with a sense of responsibility to help those less fortunate than myself.
Toward the end of my two years at community college my already unstable family situation began to deteriorate. All in sequence, my mother was rendered disabled by a car accident, my brother encountered legal trouble, and my absentee father reappeared in my life. As a result of these compounding factors, my home life became a source of great stress for me. The most significant stressor was trying to take care of my mother when she could no longer support herself. It was particularly challenging because I had to put my college career on standby as I was forced to move back in with my mom or else allow her to become homeless. Naturally, I chose the former and I got a delivery job to help the pay the rent and put food on the table. However, no matter how hard I worked there was never enough money to both pay rent and to buy food. One thing that gave me the strength to keep going in the face of difficulty was the memory of the people in Haiti and the resilience they showed in the face of hardship. It took about a year, but because of hard work, local charity, and an accident settlement I was able to return to school, albeit with the occasional responsibility of financially supporting my mother.
As time went on I continued to attend summer trips to Haiti. The January before the fourth trip began, the previous leader of the trip approached me about the possibility of leading the fourth trip with two other students. I was excited for the opportunity to lead and grow so I accepted the responsibility. I was the most experienced member of the Haiti team and as such everyone was looking to me for guidance and leadership. I was responsible for the planning, safety, logistics, and team training of 12 people for an international service trip to a developing country. This task was challenging, but it was also an invaluable learning and leadership experience.
All of these experiences have made me who I am today. I have learned just how difficult life can be and I have overcome a great deal. I believe that my variety of experiences and skills will enable me to serve my future clients and succeed in law school. I would be very honored to enter into the profession of law.

[Robert Carroll]

dm,

I think the stories about your progression are good, and just need to be compressed. Whatever point you want to make with each situation, explain the situation you started in, explain the experience itself, and then explain how you grew as a result of it.

Robert Carroll

[Dave Killoran]

Hi D,

Thanks for posting this! I've fallen a bit behind due to all the essays being posted, but I or another PowerScore staff member will make a comment in the next several days.

Thanks for your patience!

[Nikki Siclunov]

My life began in a less than ideal way. My father left my mother when I was still a baby, and as such I was raised by a single mother who was struggling financially and emotionally. I grew up in a rough area and as a child I roamed my neighborhood, learning the ways of the streets. I learned quickly how to be independent, avoid trouble, and make friends in difficult situations. My circumstance did not give me a good outlook for future success. However, a combination of my own tenacity and the intervention of kind people has allowed me to come as far as I have today.
I moved to a better school district before I started high school. At my new high school, my success indicators were not promising; I had a 1.9 GPA and was frequently getting into trouble at school. It was during my junior year that I met my goofy best-friend Dan. Dan, by all accounts, was a character but what surprised me the most about him was not his quirky nature, but his sincere kindness. He genuinely cared about people and it was evident in the way he treated everyone around him. His behavior was in stark contrast to what I had learned to expect from my peers. Most people I knew saw others mainly as a means to an end, Dan did not. Meeting a genuinely kind person may not be all that spectacular, but it did have a profound impact on my life.
Dan and I became close friends and he invited me to his church's youth group. As I attended youth group, I started noticing that many of the people I met were as genuine and kind as Dan was. So, I started frequenting this church, I began to get to know the members of the congregation, and they started to invest their time in my life. My friends and mentors at this church saw potential in me and I started seeing potential in myself. As a result my grades improved, I took a leading role in church events, and I started volunteering at the junior high youth group.
After graduating high school I began attending community college. During my sophomore year of college I was presented with an opportunity to go on a summer mission trip to Anse à Galets, Haiti. I was young and optimistic and it seemed like a great opportunity for me to save the world. Additionally, the narrative I was told about Haiti was one I could empathize with. So I began fund-raising so that I could experience Haiti for myself.
Once I arrived in Haiti I felt as if I were in a scene from a movie. I saw houses of scrap metal and sticks that were fastened together with twine or rope. Children playing in the streets would either run and surround our group or shout “blan” (white) and point at us whenever we walked by. I felt like a celebrity on an exotic vacation. That feeling vanished once I saw children with the trademark sign of undernourishment in Haitians, yellowed hair. Seeing kids who were most likely starving was upsetting to say the least. In that moment my exotic vacation transformed into a journey of understanding. I began to see the challenges faced by Haitians on a daily basis; I worried about things like car payments or my grades at school while these people worried about providing health care and food for their families. This stark contrast gave me a sense of purpose on this trip. This trip became about connecting with a people that had been left alone and hopeless. Going to Haiti opened my eyes to a world I could never truly know and hardships I have never experienced. This realization taught me to be grateful for all of the advantages that I have and has endowed me with a sense of responsibility to help those less fortunate than myself.
Toward the end of my two years at community college my already unstable family situation began to deteriorate. All in sequence, my mother was rendered disabled by a car accident, my brother encountered legal trouble, and my absentee father reappeared in my life. As a result of these compounding factors, my home life became a source of great stress for me. The most significant stressor was trying to take care of my mother when she could no longer support herself. It was particularly challenging because I had to put my college career on standby as I was forced to move back in with my mom or else allow her to become homeless. Naturally, I chose the former and I got a delivery job to help the pay the rent and put food on the table. However, no matter how hard I worked there was never enough money to both pay rent and to buy food. One thing that gave me the strength to keep going in the face of difficulty was the memory of the people in Haiti and the resilience they showed in the face of hardship. It took about a year, but because of hard work, local charity, and an accident settlement I was able to return to school, albeit with the occasional responsibility of financially supporting my mother.
As time went on I continued to attend summer trips to Haiti. The January before the fourth trip began, the previous leader of the trip approached me about the possibility of leading the fourth trip with two other students. I was excited for the opportunity to lead and grow so I accepted the responsibility. I was the most experienced member of the Haiti team and as such everyone was looking to me for guidance and leadership. I was responsible for the planning, safety, logistics, and team training of 12 people for an international service trip to a developing country. This task was challenging, but it was also an invaluable learning and leadership experience.
All of these experiences have made me who I am today. I have learned just how difficult life can be and I have overcome a great deal. I believe that my variety of experiences and skills will enable me to serve my future clients and succeed in law school. I would be very honored to enter into the profession of law.

Hi D,

Thanks for posting your statement! There is a very good story in there, but your narrative structure needs to be tweaked. Currently, you tell your story in a chronological order: here's how my life began, here's what my childhood was like, then on to high school, community college, the trips to Haiti, etc. Not before long, your personal statement begins to sound like a resume of your life, in prose instead of bullet points.

That's not how a good story is usually told.

First, you need a "hook" - something to grab my attention and give me a reason to read on. The hook can be a conflict - something your story will try to resolve - or it can be an obstacle that you'll try to overcome. You also need a resolution of that conflict, illustrating important personal qualities you need to convey. Your personal statement has the potential of a great story, particularly given the circumstances of your upbringing and your exposure to abject poverty in Haiti. However, what is the interweaving narrative here, the leit motif of your essay, if you will? Why did you bring up your experiences in Haiti? Precisely how did they help you face the hardship in your own life? They were deeply troubling but also inspirational. Why?

I was also puzzled by your mention of Dan in the second paragraph. That story went nowhere, and should either be deleted or made somehow relevant to the rest of your essay.

If I were you, I would begin with a story about Haiti. Focus on a particular experience there: you describe the hardship people there have to face, but that tells me little about what your involvement is. What did you learn from it? How did that change you or help you mature? If you can come up with a particular obstacle in Haiti that you helped overcome, or a leadership position you held in the face of adversity, that would be ideal. You can follow up on that discussion by saying something along the lines of:

[SECOND PARAGRAPH]: In many ways, the lessons I learned in Haiti I already knew, but they had been such an indelible part of my own life that I didn't know that I knew them. They were, as it were, an unknown known. No, I did not grow up starving like many of the Haitian children did, but we barely made ends meet. I was raised by a single mother who was struggling financially as well as emotionally. The street I grew up in was not literally wrecked, like half the roads in Haiti had been, but it wasn't safe either: we lived in a rough neighborhood, where street smarts trumped book smarts. And while I didn't rely on humanitarian intervention for food and shelter, I did rely on the intervention of kind people, such as teachers, friends, and members of my church's youth group, to help me succeed. Without them, I would never have even considered college.

It was not until I went to Haiti that I realized why I wanted to help others. Admittedly, it was not an entirely selfless pursuit in the end. By helping those in need, I could build the strength and courage to help myself. I knew what they were going through, the hopelessness, the anger, the despair that seems to lead nowhere. And in the midst of it all, I saw an opportunity for redemption: if I could help a starving 4-year old boy survive, I could surely put myself through college and law school. Haiti gave me the perspective I needed to discover myself, and find a path forward.

You see, by framing the story that way, you give the reader a new and unique perspective through which to examine your own life and experience. It also shows that you've spent the time to reflect on it, instead of merely recounting your life in chronological order. It makes for a far more persuasive writing style, and increases the reader's empathy and engagement with your narrative.

Before writing your second draft, check out a number of really awesome resources that we have available that elaborate on the personal statement process and would likely prove useful for you, and anyone else reading this, to consider:

1. A ten-part blog series about all things personal statement.

2. Another blog post about Personal Statements.

3. Some essay examples for potential inspiration.

4. And finally, some advice from Dave Killoran himself on personal statements.

Good luck!