Personal Statement Essay for a Graduate Tax Program.

Please look over the personal statement and let me know the areas for improvement. What I should delete and what I should elaborate on maybe. Give me some good advice. I will be very thankful!

"In high school, I was faced with a dilemma. My close friends were all dropping out after their sophomore year and were going to work in construction. My parents were pushing me to go to college and obtain education. I tried doing both and worked as electrician while taking running start courses. Without a clear goal in mind, I failed most of my classes. After working for several months as electrician, I chose to go back and focus on education. As they say, the rest is history.

When it came time for me to take my required Tax Course, I felt that I just had to get through the class and never come back to the boring subject again. During the first half of the course I was very confused and didn't really understand many concepts and things I was hearing in class. I couldn't understand why, when I came home from school, I wasn't able to solve the problems that were explained to me in class. I spent more time than average of what I spent for any other of my classes and still didn't understand the material. The complex Tax Code was very difficult for me to comprehend, but the challenge I was facing was driving the desire in me to continue learning the subject. With time, after attempting various techniques of studying, I realized that my interest began to grow within the subject of taxation. I understood that the complex Tax Code was just a collection of laws that Congress enacted in order to achieve different economic and social objectives.

Many of my close friends would say that I am defined by my curiosity and always questioning everything. I found that the more I study taxation, the more questions I begin to have in my head. I go on Google, YouTube, or any other resource and try to find the answers.

After carefully examining the curriculum of the program, I was more than confident of the decision that I had to make in regards to my career plans. The choices for my profession have always been changing. From my experience, I found that if I work hard at provided tasks and obligations, my life leads me in the way where my personal skills are most congruent with my work. I take great pleasure in consultancy and advising. Tax career has many attractive opportunities to employ my core skills. Taxation degree will provide me with the needed expertise and knowledge that will give me credibility in my professional accounting career. I also realize that for the whole year I will be closely surrounded by people that enjoy the subject and want to pursue careers similar to my interest. Furthermore, I think that the Great Pacific Northwest has great business potential and will be in need of many skillful tax professionals. I want to be a part of its growth and development and ultimately share my knowledge and utilize my personal skills."

I do not think you should say you failed your classes, for example was there not a good balance or did you not have passion in these first year courses? did you have a tutor? use different types of learning skills? Whats the goal of this writing/ purpose? when you started understanding tax code did you look at scholarly information or just basic google and you tube sites?

Better improve presentation of this line. Not so clear to me :(


what do you mean by failing classes? Did you fail your exams? Not clear :(
Well, you need to highlight what was your failure in this essay. Be more specific about the failure and tell the reader in detail about that. This prompt wants you to tell them what was your failure and what you learned out of it and how you overcame the failure.

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I understand that you want to put across the struggle you've had in the past with the subject and that you wish to rise to the challenge, but I believe the statements I've quoted above do yourself a great disservice. You are, perhaps unintentionally, revealing negative traits about yourself and need to address them.

Referring to the quotes above:
1. Though you're talking about the past, you're still putting across the idea that you found it "boring". Admissions tutors are more likely to pick someone who has always been interested/captivated by the subject.

2. Suggests you may lack the ability to succeed and are likely to struggle on the course.

3. Like #2, it may cause the admissions tutor to cast doubt over your ability to keep up with the course material.

4. This creates uncertainty over your intentions for study. Admissions officers may be thinking to themselves "Does this guy really know what he wants out of this? How likely is he to change his mind mid-course and drop out?"

I hope you can see where I'm coming from. I'm being necessarily critical as this is the best way to improve your application.

I would remove the negatives and try to always focus on the positives. For instance, you could talk about how you've always been interested and found the material to be challenging at first, but through hard work and dedication you have overcome your past failures and this convinces you that you can succeed in this field. Make them feel as if they you've always wanted to be a taxation expert and that this is your life's calling.