Personal Statement Wizards: Please critique mine! I'll PM Forum

[monamirar]

Hello all--

I've gone through about 3 drafts of my personal statement and need a few fresh pairs of eyes to check out what I have now. Here are my top worries:

1) The introduction. After looking around, I feel like this format of being mysterious and throwing the reader into an unexplained situation for the first paragraph is a pretty common practice in the PS world. I like it a lot how it is, but I don't know if I should change it just due to the fact that if I read 50 applications that all started like this I would get sick of it real quick.
2) Tone. I have a semi-irresponsible habit of being too colloquial in my writing, especially when writing about myself because I want to sound like myself instead of some pompous thesaurus queen. That said, I still want to sound sane and at least somewhat professional.
3) Clarity. I did my best to describe to the reader my entire situation in 2 pages... which is nearly impossible without cutting a few details out here and there. I need to make sure that what I wrote is coherent to somebody who doesn't know me and my life story personally.

I'm not worried about getting my feelings hurt, I just need someone to be honest about what is wrong with my PS! I'd be happy to swap as well if anyone wants to! Just lmk.

[calmike]

sure! pm me

[Platopus]

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[cannonballer]

Happy to read if you PM