Well, my word count is at 856, so I'd like to nix a few more. However, in all the editing, I feel I may have lost a feeling of personal touch and atmosphere here. So if anyone could give me advice on how to bring that back, I'd love to hear it. Also, my conclusion paragraph, while exactly honest, needs to be stronger.... Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance,

Jeannine
******Edited once for some silly grammar mistakes********************
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In the summer of 2008, I was on my way to Taiwan, with a patent pending.  Over the prior three years, I had developed a novel musical instrument, and paid my attorney to file for patent rights.  I had taught my little sister how to contribute to the care of my terminally ill father, and I was no longer required to help my family.  So I wound down my online book business, and I took a job as an English teacher in Sansia, a city of eighty thousand people just south of Taipei.

I had developed my invention as a labor of love.  I learned to play guitar when I was a teenager.  Years later, I discovered that I liked synthesizers.  I quickly came to understand that learning to play keyboards would essentially require starting my musical training again.  So I drew up plans for a new type of keyboard, one that would allow someone trained in guitar to use it.  I taught myself enough computer aided design to have a CNC milling company make the parts I needed to build my prototype.

My invention worked well and allowed me to play keyboards in a band.  As people saw my instrument, several wanted to buy one.  I sold a few as boutique pieces.  Then I decided to pursue a patent.  I was working at my university when I learned that I could increase my revenues buying books locally, and selling them online.  So, in my last year of college, I quit my job at the university. I became an entrepreneur, sellling books and keyboards.

During most of my academic career I had helped take care of my father.  In my first year of college he became terribly sick. Doctors at The Mayo Clinic determined he had a rare disease.  They gave him medicines for pain, and said that he would probably die within five years.  We lost our family home. He has been surviving on government assistance since then.

In one of my sociology classes, I learned that families often alienate disabled or chronically ill members.  In this way I saw my my father ostracized.  I determined that I would keep him included in family activities and provide him with my own help.  That task proved emotionally taxing and time consuming, but very rewarding.  Over time, he was able to reintegrate into our family.  Also, during the fall of 2007, I my sister began learning how to help take care of him.  By the winter of 2008, I had moved out of my role as a caretaker, and could fully pursue my own goals.

I made enough money selling books and custom electronics to pay my patent attorney.  Then I set out to make my business bigger.  I had thought that Taiwan would be a logical place to manufacture my electronic musical instrument.  My reasoning was twofold. Being an English teacher would pay me enough to invest in manufacturing. I would also have access to nearby production facilities. 

However, Taiwan was not what I expected. I was not prepared for the difference in business culture that I found in Taiwan.  The Chinese concept of "Keeping Face" may have originally been to help relationships flow smoothly.  However, in my experience, it often results in an ambiguous confrontational style.  If my manager did not like what I was doing, I would usually find out from other people.  And when I did find out that something was wrong, I had to guess what actions my manager desired of me.  After living in Taiwan, I have come to cherish American directness.

Shortly after I arrived, the poor economy in America flooded Taiwan with English teachers seeking jobs.  Wages dropped and I, along with most foreign teachers, went from having a surplus to merely subsisting.  With little available cash, I could not refile my patent application when the examiner denied it.  Moreover, as I queried about electronics manufacturing in Taiwan, I discovered problems.  Quality control in Taiwan can be very bad. Being bilked outright is also common due to inadequate government regulation.  I decided that I would prefer to manufacture things in a Western country.

On the other hand, my experience teaching was wonderful. Over time, I learned ways to find out what I needed to know from my managers, and to present issues so that everyone involved could save face.  I enjoyed contributing something meaningful to my students.  Also teaching in a small town outside Taipei, I felt like I was part of the community.

I believe everyone should be able to live happily and pursue their ambitions. I have discovered, in pursuing a patent, as well as my observation of my father's disability claims, that attorneys are in a unique position to contribute to their clients' goals or needs. I have enjoyed the opportunities I have had to contribute to my students, and to the community I have been part of. I look forward to the opportunity to help empower my own clients in the indispensible ways that a good attorney can, so they can pursue their own plans and live as well as possible.

It's a very interesting story, but right now that's what it is, a story. For a strong personal statement you need to maintain a singular focus throughout the entire piece. In the middle of your PS you switch from talking about your musical instrument (very cool I might add), and business, to discussing the death of your father. I don't mean to be harsh but right off the bat you should cut this:



It's interesting and it says that you have a strong character but it's a topic all by itself. You could write a PS about this and how it impacted and changed your outlook on life, but I don't think you can add it here. So I would leave this topic behind and stick with your entrepreneurial endeavors.

Another thing I would mention is to cut down on your "wordiness". Go through the statement line by line and ask for each sentence, "do I need this?" or "how can I say this better?"

Also, all of this:



...needs to go. Most of this is extraneous information. Extraneous information kills a strong PS. All of this can be boiled down to one 4-5 sentence paragraph - if that.

A strong personal statement IMHO should allow the reader to completely understand where you're coming from and your focus should be unwavering throughout the piece. I learned more about Taiwan in your article than I did about you, that needs to change.

I like the entrepreneurial angle, it really works. I would run with that and stay focused on only that topic. Also, my belief is that a PS has no business being longer than 2 pages. There's no excuse for a long PS, no matter how interesting your story is.

The best advice I received for writing a PS came from an admissions officer:

"This is our only opportunity to hear about you in your own words - the floor is yours."

1. Take out all the stuff about your father. Move that to an addendum.
2. Focus your PS on your experience as a business woman.
3. You seem bitter about your experience in Taiwan. Do you plan on studying chinese law or international trade law or patent law? If so use your experience to boost your credentials. Otherwise try to put a more positive spin on this.
4. Drop the part about low wages. Everyone knows ESL teacher don't get paid well. People assume that you do it for the opportunity to travel.

Agree with above posters, and agree that it's overall fairly good. Grammatically, you need to vary your sentence structure. Right now it reads like "I did this. Then I did that. Then this happened. It was bad." Try to bring some fluidity and momentum to your writing. It's good so far, will be much better with some tweaking.

I think umich's point is what concerns me the most. A lot of the other points are also valid, but can be fixed with less difficulty than changing your style. This PS gives me the surface of your identity but it does not tell me what is inside that person. I get the vague, but obvious conception of a dedicated and intelligent person who has an entreprenurial edge...but it's too nebulous.

You are telling us one of the many stories that defines your life experience in this PS. What you need to do is show us who the person is in that story. One of the key issues is tha tyou write in a somewhat distant manner. Well, more precisely, it follows a very specific pattern. umich's post pretty much encapsulates it.

I don't care about Taiwan's economy - I care about how this affected you. So you got lower wages...what did that teach you? What's the utility of having that part of the story here? Does it give me more insight into who you are? No? Then kill your darlings and let it go.