Duke Law PS Forum

[HRomanus]

Looking ahead to the 2014-2015 cycle after deciding to wait another year for WE/retake reasons. Duke Law is my top choice and I'm confused about their personal statement topic.

According to the application:

Personal Statement: You will be required to submit a personal statement as an attachment. The statement is your opportunity to introduce yourself to the admissions committee and should include (1) what you think have been your significant personal experiences beyond what may be reflected in your academic transcripts and on your resume, and (2) your personal and career ambitions. There is no required length.

According to the application FAQs:

The personal statement is an open-ended opportunity for you to tell us more about your experiences and interests, so you should choose a topic that will help us understand where you are coming from and what role you might play in the Duke Law community. Some people choose to highlight one or two significant items from their resume, while others address other experiences.

The application prompt is very definite, but the FAQ response seemingly provides for a broader response. The FAQ even suggests highlighting items on your resume, while the prompt explicitly asks for experiences NOT on your resume. Does anyone have suggestions on the Duke PS? For successful Duke applicants, how did you choose your topic?

[middlebear]

Disclaimer: I'm a fellow future Duke applicant, not a been-there-done-that.

I think you're reading a little too much into the first description. It essentially says, like most descriptions of the 'ideal' PS, that if you have something important to say about yourself that an admit reader won't be able to divine from the other application materials, to talk about that, and to say a bit about where you're going.

"...beyond what may be reflected in your academic transcripts and on your resume..." to me is not saying "You have to write about something other than your transcripts/resume, it is saying that if you need to write about something else significant, you should.

So for me, the bottom line here is that both of these descriptions are the sort of broad brush strokes all schools say they want for their PS, and that the most important bit to come from all of it is probably that they don't have a limit on length. Just my two cents, but this won't be changing my PS for Duke.

[scoobysnax]

It's telling you to not regurgitate your resume, but you can talk about certain resume points in depth in your personal statement if you want. For example, if you've worked at XYZ, XYZ is going to be on your resume with a few bullet points under it. For your personal statement, you can talk about a specific experience you had at XYZ and how it changed your perspective on law or something like that that's beyond the scope of duties you listed on your resume. But don't just list that you've worked at XYZ in your PS (or anything else on your resume for that matter). Don't include things that are already on your resume unless they actually add to your PS.