Undergraduate / What aspects of Northwestern appeal most to you? My Why Northwestern? essay sounds so generic [5]

The best paragraph in your essay is the one about the residential college. It's very focused, specific, concrete about a how a very specific feature of the school will benefit you in a very specific, big picture way --- your long-term career goals, and your desire to optimize your learning by being immersed in a rich intellectual environment that is specific to your chosen field of study.

My suggestion is to strive to find other examples that are equally as powerful.

Graduate / Purpose statement for data science- past achievement, current and future plans. [3]

I bump into Holt again, and find that I disagree.

The structure you bring to this essay is very good, and very well-executed. You indeed present your past achievements, and your current and future plans. I would maintain this structure.

You do not restrict your narrative to purely "professional" objectives --- you also reveal your personal intellectual motives, and how you have used your jobs to grow PERSONALLY --- to pursue intellectual interests. You're showing yourself to be a more whole person by doing this, and this makes the essay more powerful.

HOWEVER, I think you have to do A LOT of work cleaning up this essay. I'd retain the current structure, but there is a lot of fat you can cut out of the essay --- especially in the earlier paragraphs. And you can add more meat to the later paragraphs -- -more specific detail and example.