If the school looks at your writing sample at all, it will be for one of two things: (1) to see how well you can develop an argument; and/or (2) to compare your writing style to that in your admissions essay(s). This is why it’s important for you to take the LSAT writing sample seriously, and treat it like a very valid representation of your writing abilities.

For some law school applicants, particularly those that have been out of school for a while, the writing sample might be a rather difficult part of the LSAT. This happens for a variety of reasons:

• The LSAT writing sample is administered at the end of the test, when you’ve already been hammering away at logical reasoning, reading comprehension, and logic games for almost three hours—and your brain is exhausted.
• The LSAT writing sample gives you 35 minutes to write a cohesive, logical essay arguing in favor or against one of two equally good options (which, depending on how long you’ve been out of school, may seem like an impossible task—“A full handwritten essay in 35 minutes or less? That’s madness!”)
• The LSAT writing sample is the dark horse when it comes to understanding its role in LSAT scores and law school admissions—and you know this, which can affect how you approach it.

So how is the LSAT writing sample used? It varies from school to school. Admissions committees know that you’re writing the essay at the end of a grueling test, so they’re not looking for polished final products—as a matter of fact, if they use it at all (and some schools don’t), they are much more interested in seeing how you logically develop an idea under time constraints (a situation very similar to the myriad tests you will take in law school) than in how flowery your prose can be.

A logical follow-up question would be, “Does the LSAT writing sample affect my LSAT score?” No, it does not. Your LSAT score is determined by your answers to the questions on the LSAT, and your essay does not affect it in the least.

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1) First things first. You can lead with either your Education or Work section—depending on which aspect of your candidacy is more relevant.  For example, if you are a senior in college, your academic experience is a better indicator of your abilities rather than part-time internships, whereas if you have been working for four years, this professional experience better displays your current potential than your academic history.  Assess whether your work or education section is a more accurate reflection of your candidacy and choose the section that will be a more impressive introduction to your abilities.  Given the academic nature of law school and the general youth of the applicant pool, most applicants are likely to lead with the education section.

2) Keep it simple. While you’ll certainly want to describe your educational achievements, as well as your professional responsibilities and accomplishments, if applicable, remember that this document needs to fit on a single page. Rather than overwhelming the reader with information, try to identify three or four discrete accomplishments or activities from your educational experience.  Similarly, you should choose a few projects to complement a few concise statements about your day to day responsibilities in each of your professional positions. Remember that it’s also important to be as specific as possible about the impact you’ve had on the various organizations with which you have been involved by quantifying the results of your efforts.

3) Round it out. Don’t discount the importance of your interests and outside activities. Schools like applicants who are well-rounded and demonstrate a track record of involvement outside of work and the classroom, so formal extracurricular activities are a logical category to include. At the same time, information about your less structured information and hobbies is also relevant, as these details can lend color to your candidacy and help the adcom get to know you better. Remember to be as specific as possible; many law school applicants are interested in “travel” or “film,” so specifying a region you especially enjoy visiting or your favorite movie genre will be the key to setting yourself apart.

We hope that these general guidelines serve as a good starting point for applicants in translating their experiences and achievements into this brief but important document.

Why Law School: In outlining your reasons for going to law school, it’s important to find the balance between being too vague and too specific.  While you want to persuasively explain your interest in law school, you don’t want to express an overly detailed idea of what law school is, as it can be damaging if you appear too rigid about your expectations, or even express incorrect ideas about what the law school experience would be.  In addition, it’s important to acknowledge that law school is an academic program and not just a career booster or a way to gain a professional degree, as adcoms want to admit students who will contribute to the academic community at their schools.

Why School X: To persuasively argue that you would be a good fit for the school to which you are applying, it’s important to not only describe the appealing aspects of the school, but also why you find it exciting.  Connecting these elements to your academic interests and professional goals will help the adcom understand why you would be a good fit with their program.  In addition, it’s helpful to explain how you arrived at your conviction that the program is right for you, so feel free to briefly mention that you visited the campus, sat in on a class, spoke with student club leaders and/or alumni, etc.   Citing your sources will help the adcom see the effort you have put into learning about their program, as well as lend credibility to your expressed commitment to the program.

Career Goals: To write effectively about your professional future, it’s important to outline your short- and long-term career goals.  As much as possible, applicants should clarify their intended legal field, position within that field, and the impact they intend to have.  This holistic view shows that you have thoughtfully considered what you want to do with your law degree, indicating to the adcom your commitment to attending and succeeding in law school.  In addition to identifying goals for the adcom, it is also important that applicants explain their interest in their particular plans, as this additionally assures the adcom of your commitment to law school.

These general pointers should set applicants on the path toward crafting a strong statement of purpose essay.  Good luck writing!

1) Dress the part. Unless meeting with an alum who explicitly specifies a more casual dress code, assume that business attire is appropriate. We recommend that applicants dress conservatively, opting for a dark suit (pants or skirt are both fine for women, though skirt suits are considered to be more conservative than pants in some parts of the country), a blue or white shirt, a tie for gentleman, and business-appropriate shoes. Steer clear of flashy brand gear and loud ties, and go easy on makeup and fragrances; you want to be remembered for what you say and who you are, not what you wore.

2) Review your materials. Because it’s important that you reinforce your positioning during the interview, reading over your essays and reflecting on the themes presented in your application is a great first step in preparing to speak about your ideas and objectives.

3) Tell them something they don’t know. In addition to reinforcing your existing message, the interview is also a great time to expand on or add new information to your file via the interviewer’s notes. Have there been any major developments in your candidacy that you should share? Have you visited the campus or spoken with students since submitting your written materials? If you have an example from work, school, or an activity that relates to the interview question but didn’t fit into your personal statement or other essays, it’s a great idea to include these, thus approaching the interview with the goal of enhancing the admissions committee’s knowledge of your candidacy.

It’s also common for interviews to be blind, which means that the interviewer does not review your materials prior to meeting with you. In these cases, you should focus on presenting a coherent story for your candidacy that would supplement the adcom’s understanding of your qualifications and personality that they glean from your written materials.

4) Anticipate and practice. Using historical data over the years, we know that in admissions interviews law schools ask a variation on the following questions:
a) What are you doing these days/what have you been doing recently (i.e. since submitting your application)?
b) Why law school?
c) Why is school X the right choice for you?
In addition, you should be prepared to be questioned about your academic and/or professional history, personal strengths and weaknesses, and career goals. It’s a good idea to not only reflect on what you might say in response, but to actually practice articulating your responses before the interview.

5) Follow up. Make sure that you get your interviewer’s card and take his or her contact information in order to send a “thank you” email within 24 hours of the interview. This is not only common courtesy, but could also serve as the first step in forging a lasting correspondence.

Best of luck to all those who are preparing for interviews!

One of these triggers is perceived arrogance.  Applicants risk sounding arrogant in their personal statement and other essays by writing everything they know about law and over-using legal jargon.  However, it’s important to remember that the admissions committee typically contains at least one lawyer, and thus by writing this way, applicants risk making a factual mistake that a licensed lawyer would pick up on, as well as sounding condescending by not understanding their audience.  In addition, applicants who assume that the readers agree with their points of view can risk seeming arrogant.  This is a red flag because the adcom wants to admit people who will contribute something positive to the class, and arrogant law students make everyone miserable.  Even if their scores are impressive, adcoms actively look to avoid admitting these people.  Furthermore, someone who seems arrogant could have problems working in teams, and thus adcoms might worry that this person will not succeed in law school – especially schools like Stanford and Northwestern, which are starting to emphasize teamwork in their revised curricula.  Finally, law is a service industry in which lawyers are supposed to be working for their clients, and arrogance without substance can impede success in this area.

In addition, some time ago, an Admissions Director Symposium organized by the Graduate Management Admissions Council produced an interesting publication on the subject of admissions policy and red flags. Although primarily directed at MBA admissions, their discussion applies to the law school admissions world as well.  Here is an excerpt from their report:

Identifying ‘Red Flags’ in the Application Process

One red flag that is often ignored but should be taken seriously, said some symposium participants, is excessive contact with the admissions office. Termed “Hassler Syndrome” by one participant, extreme dependency on the admissions office may signal a lack of self-confidence that manifests itself as neediness. This trait may show up later in the learning environment, when the student is unable to contribute meaningfully to classes and work groups and becomes known as a “net taker”. The same person may be a drain on career services, unable to take initiative in a job search.

Although the article was aimed at the MBA admissions community, this information is recommended reading for applicants to the top graduate schools. At minimum, it should make applicants think twice before placing repeated phone calls to the admissions office!

1. Consider the broad range of topics available to you. The first step in choosing a subject for the personal statement is to consider all the options, such as meaningful academic, professional, extracurricular, or personal experiences.  Within each of these categories, applicants can discuss a variety of topics, including their successes, challenges, motivations, leadership experiences, and mastery of a subject or field.  In considering your full range of options, keep in mind that it’s best to choose a topic that positions you in a positive light and shows your personal growth.

2. Think about what will make you stand out. The personal statement is the perfect opportunity for applicants to illustrate in their own words what makes them unique to the admissions committee.  Therefore the story you tell should be interesting, memorable, and demonstrate more about you than what appears in the rest of your application.  This is your opportunity to showcase yourself as an individual—so make sure that your topic portrays your most admirable personal characteristics, i.e. intellect, passion, sense of humor, ability to think across disciplines.

3. Think about how you want to position yourself. Law school applicants should consider how they want to “market” themselves to law schools.  Perhaps one applicant’s personal and academic experiences consistently show that they are an effective risk-taker, whereas another applicant’s professional history and extracurriculars demonstrate his or her altruism.  Through considering how your experiences and interests reflect who you are, it will be easier for you to solidify and “sell” a cohesive image of yourself to law school admissions committees throughout your application.  Once you have determined this positioning strategy, it makes sense that your personal statement should fall in line with the image you have decided to present.

4. Don’t try to explain why you want to be a lawyer. If the admissions committee wanted to know your reasons for seeking a law degree, the application would require a Statement of Purpose rather than a Personal Statement.  The assumption in the admissions office is that you want to be a lawyer if you are applying to law school (it is a profession, after all), and admissions committee members are not usually impressed by a 0L’s knowledge of legal terms and what lawyers do.  So, it’s best to make sure that your personal statement gives the admissions committee insight into who you are, regardless of what you choose to discuss.

Good luck writing!

How can it benefit you?
Many applicants may feel as though an optional essay is labeled as such because all the important information regarding their candidacy is contained within the application requirements.  However, answering optional essays is the perfect opportunity for law school applicants to share additional and helpful information to the adcom.  Instead of cramming everything into your personal statement, optional essays give you the chance to discuss different aspects of your background and interests, illustrating you as a multi-dimensional candidate to the adcom.  In addition, making the effort to respond to optional essays demonstrates your initiative and work ethic, as well as your genuine interest and commitment to the law school (especially if the optional essay asks students to explain their interest in the law school program).

Is it relevant?
Perhaps this goes without saying, but the only information worth sharing in an optional essay is that which will make a material difference in your candidacy.  Although some optional essays have specific topics, others simply ask for additional information that applicants feel is important to share with the adcom.  In responding to these broad prompts, it’s wise to think carefully about a school’s other essay questions, as each of these topics affords applicants a chance to introduce the information about their background and interests that they consider to be most important.  Your objective should be to provide as complete a picture of your candidacy as possible within the framework of a school’s required essays and to only introduce information in an optional essay that you could not have covered elsewhere without sacrificing something more essential.  For that reason, we suggest that applicants explain negative subject in addendum essays, as is often required, leaving the optional essays free for positive information about the applicant.

Is it concise?
It’s always a good idea to keep in mind that by answering an optional essay, you are creating extra work for the person reading your file. While this should not dissuade you from addressing a topic that you have deemed important based on the considerations above, it’s very important that you demonstrate good judgment by limiting your comments to the most relevant information and keeping your response as direct and concise as possible, as well as adhering to any word or page limits set by the law school.

We hope that these general guidelines have both helped to clear up some confusion and shed some light on the optional essay issue.  Good luck writing!

1.  Highlight your success. Regardless of your field or function, the growth and accomplishments you have had in your career are important indicators to the admissions committee that you will be a successful law student and lawyer.  Therefore in discussing your job throughout your application, you should focus on your achievements and development.  Discussing your leadership roles, increased responsibilities, ability to work with others, range of skills, and experience in juggling tasks will all point to your potential for future success. In addition, mentioning promotions and raises in salary are often an easy way to provide the adcom with concrete proof of your progress and achievements.  You should also explain how you have used and improved your analytical and writing skills, as your abilities in these areas are crucial to success in law school and the legal field.

2.  Demonstrate your growth. Candidates who have been highly successful at work can use this aspect of their candidacy to assure their adcom of their strengths and potential for future success.  This is especially true if other sections of one’s application demonstrate weaknesses.  For example, candidates can point to their recent professional success as an accurate indicator of their current abilities, which may help to make up for weak undergraduate grades, a low LSAT score, or limited out-of-work or extracurricular activities.  In determining how to use your work experience to your advantage, examine the parts of application that may be lacking (i.e. no undergraduate extracurricular activities) and emphasize how your professional experience illustrates your competency in that area (i.e. founded company mentoring or volunteering programs).

3.  Point to your interest in the law. People who are currently working in the legal field can easily explain how their current jobs have inspired them to pursue further education in the law.  Applicants should note, however, that a current job in the legal field does not automatically mean you will be accepted to your target law schools.  It is important to show why your career is meaningful to you and how it plays into your future goals, i.e. it has helped you determine your future specialty area.  If your current job has little or nothing to do with the law, you can still point to specific aspects of your job that explain your interest or qualifications to study the law and pursue a future career as a lawyer.

Best of luck to those in the working world who are working on their law school applications!

Professor or TA? For current undergraduate students at larger universities, one common dilemma is deciding whether to ask one’s professor or TA to serve as a recommender.  Although it might be tempting to chose professors, since they are the primary instructor of the classes, if the professor does not know you well, you are better off using your TA.  Law schools value recommendations from sources who know applicants well, and therefore even if you have a well-known professor, his or her opinion of you will not be as helpful as a TA’s who can speak knowledgeably about your academic work and potential.

Academic or Work Recommender? For applicants who have been out of work for five years or more, it may be a challenge to find academic recommenders who can still accurately describe the applicant’s abilities.  In this situation, law school applications should feel free to use a recommender from their current work.  Ideally, this recommender would be someone who has seen the applicant use critical thinking skills, can judge his or her writing ability, and describe the applicant’s potential for success in law school and the legal field – essentially someone who can evaluate the applicant using the same criteria an academic recommender would use.

Good Recommender or Good Writer? One situation law school applicants might find themselves in is that their ideal recommender – a college professor who knows them well – is not the best writer.  To ensure that this recommender sends in an effective recommendation, applicants should try to supervise the crafting of the recommendation as much as possible without actually writing it themselves.  If this doesn’t work, or applicants think the recommender would be adverse to collaboration, applicants should feel free to find a new recommender – while applicants want recommenders who knows you well, if they cannot express their opinions in an persuasive manner, the ensuing recommendation letters will not be an effective component of the overall application.

We hope this advice helps law school applicants in selecting their recommenders and obtaining insightful, enthusiastic recommendations that bolster their entire applications.

In order to understand why this category is important, applicants should keep in mind that the adcom is responsible for crafting a dynamic class each year. The aim is to admit individuals who will support a vibrant campus community and step into leadership positions. In other words, as admissions officers consider each applicant, they ask themselves “what’s in it for our school?” An applicant who has previously demonstrated a talent for writing, for example, by contributing to a non-profit’s newsletter, can catch the adcom’s attention if she also expresses her intent to contribute to a specific publication on campus.

Volunteering is of course a great way to expand one’s extracurricular involvement. However, many applicants participate in the occasional fundraising walk or an annual corporate outreach day; those who demonstrate ongoing involvement in one cause or organization will make a more significant impression on the admissions committee, especially if the volunteer work is related to their current or future career. An applicant who has contributed to one or two organizations over a longer period is likely to have developed his or her responsibilities beyond ladling soup or stuffing envelopes.

Lastly, applicants will have a much easier time writing their application essay(s) if they have a variety of experiences from which to draw, especially if one’s extracurricular activities support his or her interest and experience in legal academic and legal work.

We hope that this sheds some light on the opportunities and value that activities outside of work provide with respect to one’s law school candidacy and applications.