Will it hurt me if I write about why I think I can succeed in law school instead of why I want to attend law school?
I survived an f4 tornado while at my former highschool during the last semester of my senior year. It played a pivotal role in my development as a student of life, and this sencond lease on life instilled a tenacity for achievement that I find very important to mention. What do yall think???
Inquiry Forum
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kalvano
- Posts: 11951
- Joined: Mon Sep 07, 2009 2:24 am
Re: Inquiry
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.)
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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.
