Today we’d like to provide some guidance for those law school applicants who are about to start or have started to write their personal statements. Because most law schools offer broad guidelines for the personal statement, it can be a challenging endeavor to find your focus and craft an effective response. However, we hope that the following guidance helps make this aspect of the application process a little easier for law school applicants.
1. Take time to reflect: Before diving in and beginning work on your personal statement, it’s often fruitful to think carefully about all of the stories and accomplishments at one’s disposal. These can include experiences from the professional realm, formal extracurricular activities, participation in college clubs, experiences growing up and even more casual hobbies and interests. A comprehensive, reflective approach should enable you to arrive at the essay topics that are most impressive and in line with your overall positioning.
2. Keep it current: In considering which examples to explore in a personal statement, one should choose college and post-college experiences to elaborate on, as these experiences will appear to have the most relevance for your application and provide the greatest insight into the person you will be on the campus of the law school. In other words, if your essays prominently feature stories from high school, you are likely making a strategic mistake. Younger applicants may find examples from college to be their strongest, as they may not have accrued the same leadership and life experiences that older applicants who have lived outside the academic bubble have experienced. All applicants, though, should include at least one recent story in their application, whether it’s in the personal statement or populates an addendum essay.
3. Establish balance: It is crucial that your personal statement presents a consistent and compelling picture of who you are, what you’ve done and what you bring to the table; the adcom is looking for students who are interesting, well-rounded and likely to make a contribution to the class both in and out of the classroom. In selecting topics for your personal statement from your list of possibilities, remember that it’s ideal to have a balance of stories covering your full academic and professional career and to introduce your interests and involvements outside of work or school.
Happy writing! Stay tuned to this blog throughout the autumn for additional writing tips for your personal statement.
