To why law school or not to why law school? Forum

[WestOfTheRest]

I want to clear this up once and for all. A lot of advice on this forum regarding personal statements often is in this format, "From your personal statement I cannot see why you want to go to law school." But does your personal statement have to say why you want to go to law school?

While Ivey and Montauk both admit that this can make a good personal statement, neither feel it is necessary. In fact, both state that PSs regarding this topic are often done poorly because they fail to really bring out the authours character. The fact that you are applying to law school already suggests that you want to go to law school, does the why really matter that much. Unless your only aspirations are to make big money, I don't think you really need to explicitly, or implicitly for that matter, state why you want to go to law school.

So what is your opinion on this matter?

[bleu]

in a subtle way, let it fall quietly into an interesting story about yourself that makes you seem interesting and special

dont say "i want to go to law school," "this is why i want to go to law school," but make it a logical inference or conclusion from what they learned about you in your ps

[WestOfTheRest]

in a subtle way, let it fall quietly into an interesting story about yourself that makes you seem interesting and special

dont say "i want to go to law school," "this is why i want to go to law school," but make it a logical inference or conclusion from what they learned about you in your ps

I understand where you are going with this and it is a common strategy used in many personal statements. But why force this issue if you don't have a jaw dropping, eye popping, I want to go to law school kind of moment. I have personally wanted to go since I was a small child. I don't even know why.

[Albatross]

The law school you are applying to should have mustered up the assumption that you want to go to law school. No reason to rub it in IMO. Why on the other hand, I don't view as that important either. LS's are business oriented. I assume that they would rather you be a legit candidate for passing the state bar than be someone who really wants to go to law school because (insert sappy, yet ridiculous reason why they should accept you here). Mind you, I'm a 0L as well, but I'm gearing my PS towards showmanship of leadership and the like. Pardon the ships.

[bleu]

um... you convinced me but i cant take back my vote.

however i think there are some cases where an explination or hint as to "why" is necessary. For example, you are a sucessful business man who travels the world, your personal statement shows signs of having nothing better to do, or your ps gives the impression that your parents (situation etc..) are putting presure on you to attend.

It has to be relative to a degree? but for the most part i was wrong about putting it in, good thing i didnt write it yet.

[WestOfTheRest]

um... you convinced me but i cant take back my vote.

however i think there are some cases where an explination or hint as to "why" is necessary. For example, you are a sucessful business man who travels the world, your personal statement shows signs of having nothing better to do, or your ps gives the impression that your parents (situation etc..) are putting presure on you to attend.

It has to be relative to a degree? but for the most part i was wrong about putting it in, good thing i didnt write it yet.

I agree wit this. There are cases where it is extremely important to show why you want to go to law school. For example, successful, mature applicants who will be giving up a career that they have succeeded in. But as for a ugrad, I'm not sure it's as important.

Note: I changed the poll so you can now re-submit your response.

[Albatross]

um... you convinced me but i cant take back my vote.

however i think there are some cases where an explination or hint as to "why" is necessary. For example, you are a sucessful business man who travels the world, your personal statement shows signs of having nothing better to do, or your ps gives the impression that your parents (situation etc..) are putting presure on you to attend.

It has to be relative to a degree? but for the most part i was wrong about putting it in, good thing i didnt write it yet.

I agree wit this. There are cases where it is extremely important to show why you want to go to law school. For example, successful, mature applicants who will be giving up a career that they have succeeded in. But as for a ugrad, I'm not sure it's as important.

Note: I changed the poll so you can now re-submit your response.

I don't think the PS is ever an appropriate place to state why you want to go to law school. Primarily because adcomms don't really give a shit.

[WestOfTheRest]

um... you convinced me but i cant take back my vote.

however i think there are some cases where an explination or hint as to "why" is necessary. For example, you are a sucessful business man who travels the world, your personal statement shows signs of having nothing better to do, or your ps gives the impression that your parents (situation etc..) are putting presure on you to attend.

It has to be relative to a degree? but for the most part i was wrong about putting it in, good thing i didnt write it yet.

I agree wit this. There are cases where it is extremely important to show why you want to go to law school. For example, successful, mature applicants who will be giving up a career that they have succeeded in. But as for a ugrad, I'm not sure it's as important.

Note: I changed the poll so you can now re-submit your response.

I don't think the PS is ever an appropriate place to state why you want to go to law school. Primarily because adcomms don't really give a shit.

In the situation I have given above I think an explanation is necessary. However, the explanation is perhaps best left to a addendum. If you can make a good story of it I don't think it can hurt you either.

[Albatross]

um... you convinced me but i cant take back my vote.

however i think there are some cases where an explination or hint as to "why" is necessary. For example, you are a sucessful business man who travels the world, your personal statement shows signs of having nothing better to do, or your ps gives the impression that your parents (situation etc..) are putting presure on you to attend.

It has to be relative to a degree? but for the most part i was wrong about putting it in, good thing i didnt write it yet.

I agree wit this. There are cases where it is extremely important to show why you want to go to law school. For example, successful, mature applicants who will be giving up a career that they have succeeded in. But as for a ugrad, I'm not sure it's as important.

Note: I changed the poll so you can now re-submit your response.

I don't think the PS is ever an appropriate place to state why you want to go to law school. Primarily because adcomms don't really give a shit.

In the situation I have given above I think an explanation is necessary. However, the explanation is perhaps best left to a addendum. If you can make a good story of it I don't think it can hurt you either.

Suppose you're UChicago adcomm member. Your main goal is to admit student who will pass the state bar and become good attorneys. Now, suppose you have one spot left in the UChicago 2014 class. Both have 3.73 GPA and 176 LSAT. Applicant A has written a PS about how much he wants to go to LS, as well as why he wants to go to law school (because said applicant wants to be the best contract lawyer in the state of Illinois). Applicant B on the other hand has written a PS about having to be the man of his house since he was 16 because his father died/went to jail/moved away. Obviously, the adcomm does not give a shit about why A wants to go, and they probably don't even give a shit if your dad died or went to jail. The applicant that shows leadership will be the stronger applicant.

[WestOfTheRest]

Suppose you're UChicago adcomm member. Your main goal is to admit student who will pass the state bar and become good attorneys. Now, suppose you have one spot left in the UChicago 2014 class. Both have 3.73 GPA and 176 LSAT. Applicant A has written a PS about how much he wants to go to LS, as well as why he wants to go to law school (because said applicant wants to be the best contract lawyer in the state of Illinois). Applicant B on the other hand has written a PS about having to be the man of his house since he was 16 because his father died/went to jail/moved away. Obviously, the adcomm does not give a shit about why A wants to go, and they probably don't even give a shit if your dad died or went to jail. The applicant that shows leadership will be the stronger applicant.

I completely agree that a PS solely about why you want to go to law school is crap. That's why most people only hint at there reasons. I don't think that you should allow your reasons for wanting to go to law school detract from the rest of your PS, and most often, the best way to avoid this is to leave your reasons out altogether.

[Albatross]

Suppose you're UChicago adcomm member. Your main goal is to admit student who will pass the state bar and become good attorneys. Now, suppose you have one spot left in the UChicago 2014 class. Both have 3.73 GPA and 176 LSAT. Applicant A has written a PS about how much he wants to go to LS, as well as why he wants to go to law school (because said applicant wants to be the best contract lawyer in the state of Illinois). Applicant B on the other hand has written a PS about having to be the man of his house since he was 16 because his father died/went to jail/moved away. Obviously, the adcomm does not give a shit about why A wants to go, and they probably don't even give a shit if your dad died or went to jail. The applicant that shows leadership will be the stronger applicant.

I completely agree that a PS solely about why you want to go to law school is crap. That's why most people only hint at there reasons. I don't think that you should allow your reasons for wanting to go to law school detract from the rest of your PS, and most often, the best way to avoid this is to leave your reasons out altogether.

So, I guess we agree.

[doyleoil]

I don't really care to weigh in on this, other than to say that all of you better find damn good proofreaders for your personal statements.

[kalvano]

W&L has the best advice on personal statements -

The personal statement is your opportunity to give us a sense of who you are beyond what we can glean from the rest of the paper we've required of you. The best use of that opportunity? Tell us something about yourself that we won't discover otherwise. As a starting point, we recommend you imagine that our admissions committee has one seat available, and is considering your file and one other, both with the same numerical qualifications. Your personal statement will be read aloud. What do you want us to know about you before we make a choice? What makes you who you are?

We know this is still a daunting prospect, so here are a few concrete guidelines:

We read thousands of files, so you should strive for your personal statement to be memorable... within limits. Accordingly, if you summarize your resume, you've wasted the opportunity. On the other hand, iambic pentameter, baked goods, photo albums or the necessity of a decoder ring are not the sorts of "memorable" we're after. (You think we're joking, don't you? We're not.)

Every year we receive numerous well-written personal statements that highlight the aspects of W&L Law the writer finds attractive. This sort of statement almost never hurts an applicant, but hardly ever helps as much as a personal statement can. Your discussion of an aspect of the educational experience available here, no matter how eloquent, is not likely to stick with us very long. We know about us; tell us about you.

Don't discuss your LSAT score or your grades in your personal statement. We accept any number of explanatory attachments to your application, and recommend you deal with these issues in a separate submission. There's more to you than your numbers, after all!

We're willing to take your application as sufficient evidence of your interest in studying law, so you needn't try to convince us of the sincerity of your ambition. Remember, we're trying to get an idea of the voice you might bring to campus. While you'll do a lot of talking about law here, of course, we're after a sense of what might inform your contribution to the conversation. So tell us about your losing season, your musical aspirations, that pivotal vacation experience, the single most important piece of advice you've ever received, your troubled (or wonderful) relationship with your sibling, why you volunteered… you get the idea. Those are the things that bring manila folders to life.

[scott82]

The personal statement is your opportunity to give us a sense of who you are beyond what we can glean from the rest of the paper we've required of you. The best use of that opportunity? Tell us something about yourself that we won't discover otherwise. As a starting point, we recommend you imagine that our admissions committee has one seat available, and is considering your file and one other, both with the same numerical qualifications.

QFT.

[Warhawk]

They know you want to go to law school, since, y'know, you're applying to law school.

I think of a personal statement as a very focused resume (at least the interesting parts of a resume) in a sense. It's a vehicle to show the admissions office that you're more than just a set of numbers, dates, addresses, and other assorted data.

Ideally, a good personal statement will result in someone in the admissions office, who read your personal statement a few days or a week or a few weeks ago, picking up your file, seeing the name, and going "Right, this is the guy who xyz."

[Albatross]

I don't really care to weigh in on this, other than to say that all of you better find damn good proofreaders for your personal statements.

Yea, I was pretty drunk when I wrote all of this jargon.

[Emma.]

I think it was Dean Deal who said that one of the biggest mistakes people make in PS essays is not giving her any idea why they want to go to law school.

If your school and/or career path makes law school an obvious choice then I think you can afford to be less explicit in your essay, otherwise I think it is generally a bad idea to not provide any hint of a "why law school?" in your PS.

[Albatross]

I think it was Dean Deal who said that one of the biggest mistakes people make in PS essays is not giving her any idea why they want to go to law school.

If your school and/or career path makes law school an obvious choice then I think you can afford to be less explicit in your essay, otherwise I think it is generally a bad idea to not provide any hint of a "why law school?" in your PS.

Forget my input if this is the case.

[03121202698008]

I didn't put it in my PS and it didn't hurt me at all. After reading many many PS's on this site...I've yet to read someones reason for wanting to be a lawyer that I didn't find childish and irrelevant. For example, you really based a decision to pay $250K and spend the rest of your life as a lawyer based upon an underage drinking citation when you were 19? Or because you got a DUI and felt that the prosecutor should have recognized that you're really a good guy and dismissed?

Use your PS as a way to tell the Adcomms who you really are. Unless your entire personality is based on the law...you don't need to mention it. They'll be happy to here your reason for wanting to be a lawyer while at an ASW.

I think it was Dean Deal who said that one of the biggest mistakes people make in PS essays is not giving her any idea why they want to go to law school.

If your school and/or career path makes law school an obvious choice then I think you can afford to be less explicit in your essay, otherwise I think it is generally a bad idea to not provide any hint of a "why law school?" in your PS.

I agree that if you are changing careers it is advisable to mention it. That's what her quote was about. If you are coming straight from undergrad or with only menial jobs after school...no reason to mention.