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To be honest, I think TCR on personal statements is to avoid the life story routine. You want to pick one story that highlights your strengths and show the adcomm that you are insightful, experienced, ready for the challenges of law school etc. You sound like you have enough to draw from so I would pick one of those parts of your background and develop more of a narrative about how that one event changed your perspective, challenged you or something along those lines.

Mal Reynolds wrote:I think TCR on personal statements is to avoid the life story routine. You want to pick one story that highlights your strengths and show the adcomm that you are insightful, experienced, ready for the challenges of law school etc. You sound like you have enough to draw from so I would pick one of those parts of your background and develop more of a narrative about how that one event changed your perspective, challenged you or something along those lines.

Why?

SoPro wrote:

Mal Reynolds wrote:I think TCR on personal statements is to avoid the life story routine. You want to pick one story that highlights your strengths and show the adcomm that you are insightful, experienced, ready for the challenges of law school etc. You sound like you have enough to draw from so I would pick one of those parts of your background and develop more of a narrative about how that one event changed your perspective, challenged you or something along those lines.

Why?

Because when you spread your essay out to cover the events of a lifetime, it gets kind of diluted. For a reader, some of the intensity or passion that might have existed in any of those moments is lacking. Also, when you talk about elementary and middle school stuff, you lose focus on who you are now, even if your early experiences were really important.
One thing you could do is summarize a lot of your earlier experiences into one paragraph, and then use the extra space to talk about your research project and which aspects of it affected you.
Just a couple thoughts. Good luck...

You want to do more than just tell adcomms why you want to go to school and/or the accomplishments that make you a good candidate. Your story should make it implicitly clear why you would be a good fit for the school. So you should not just rehash facts they can get from your resume. And the above poster is right in that a life story is WAY too much detail. Not to be rude, but accomplishments in middle school aren't the best to talk about relative to more recent topics.

AP-375 wrote:Because when you spread your essay out to cover the events of a lifetime, it gets kind of diluted. For a reader, some of the intensity or passion that might have existed in any of those moments is lacking. Also, when you talk about elementary and middle school stuff, you lose focus on who you are now, even if your early experiences were really important.
One thing you could do is summarize a lot of your earlier experiences into one paragraph, and then use the extra space to talk about your research project and which aspects of it affected you.
Just a couple thoughts. Good luck...

Thanks, and I understand how that could happen, but did it happen in my PS? I only mention three things that happened before high school, so it's not as if I'm giving my life history.

Mal Reynolds wrote:You want to do more than just tell adcomms why you want to go to school and/or the accomplishments that make you a good candidate. Your story should make it implicitly clear why you would be a good fit for the school. So you should not just rehash facts they can get from your resume. And the above poster is right in that a life story is WAY too much detail. Not to be rude, but accomplishments in middle school aren't the best to talk about relative to more recent topics.

Thanks for the advice, but unfortunately it's much too general. You seem to telling me the commonly accepted rules for writing a PS. My PS can be found above -- evaluate it as it is.

SoPro wrote:

Mal Reynolds wrote:You want to do more than just tell adcomms why you want to go to school and/or the accomplishments that make you a good candidate. Your story should make it implicitly clear why you would be a good fit for the school. So you should not just rehash facts they can get from your resume. And the above poster is right in that a life story is WAY too much detail. Not to be rude, but accomplishments in middle school aren't the best to talk about relative to more recent topics.

Thanks for the advice, but unfortunately it's much too general. You seem to telling me the commonly accepted rules for writing a PS. My PS can be found above -- evaluate it as it is.

I thought I was evaluating it as is. I am trying to tell you it isn't effective. You want to go to law school because you want to understand the effect the law has on our lives? Tell me how often an adcomm has read that same sentence, I bet you it's a lot. You need to demonstrate why you want to go to law school not say out right that you want to go to law school. And retelling stories from your entire life will not get the job done. I think I saw your numbers in the prediction thread though so you might be able to squeak by without a strong PS. But if you want this evaluated in a vacuum, then it needs work.

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Mal Reynolds wrote:You want to go to law school because you want to understand the effect the law has on our lives? Tell me how often an adcomm has read that same sentence, I bet you it's a lot.

Perhaps, and though you left out half of the sentence, it's the truth.

Mal Reynolds wrote:You need to demonstrate why you want to go to law school not say out right that you want to go to law school.

This doesn't make sense.


Thanks for the advice.

SoPro wrote:

AP-375 wrote:Because when you spread your essay out to cover the events of a lifetime, it gets kind of diluted. For a reader, some of the intensity or passion that might have existed in any of those moments is lacking. Also, when you talk about elementary and middle school stuff, you lose focus on who you are now, even if your early experiences were really important.
One thing you could do is summarize a lot of your earlier experiences into one paragraph, and then use the extra space to talk about your research project and which aspects of it affected you.
Just a couple thoughts. Good luck...

Thanks, and I understand how that could happen, but did it happen in my PS? I only mention three things that happened before high school, so it's not as if I'm giving my life history.

Yes, I believe it did happen in your PS. I wrote my critique with your PS in mind specifically. Feel free to disregard, although I agree with what the other poster is saying in this thread. I'm sure you'll do great in life, but your PS probably isn't going to help you out at all. I see that you're an English major, so you'll understand the basic narrative approach of really focusing on a moment. Allow the first paragraph to set the stage with all of your prior experiences, delve into the research or whatever it was that drove you to your interest in law (the uncomfortable gloom that beset the entire community, knowing that their economic lifeblood was about to run dry, and with it, the stability of their livelihoods, all on account of distant legal mechanisms beyond their ability to understand or control.) Blah, blah, made me want to be a lawyer so I could help them.
Wouldn't be awesome, but would be better.
Best.

Let me give a summary of this thread: user posts PS, looking for confirmation/affirmation of his draft; doesn't like the advice he gets; decides to disregard advice. Why did you post in the first place? If you noticed, no one told you that you have a good draft. Maybe that should be a hint.

Mal Reynolds wrote:Let me give a summary of this thread: user posts PS, looking for confirmation/affirmation of his draft; doesn't like the advice he gets; decides to disregard advice. Why did you post in the first place? If you noticed, no one told you that you have a good draft. Maybe that should be a hint.

Incorrect. I posted my draft looking for substantive comments about my draft. I received from you generic advice that I can (and have) receive anywhere on the web, with little justification as to why I should follow your advice.

To summarize the comments I have received from you -- don't write about your life; pick a single story and be literary; hint why you would be a good candidate, don't tell them. I hope you can see why I find this advice utterly useless and generic. Why did you post in the first place?

SoPro wrote:My PS can be found above -- evaluate it as it is.

Not anymore. But I'd be curious to see what all the fuss is about.

smokemonsterfromLOST wrote:

SoPro wrote:My PS can be found above -- evaluate it as it is.

Not anymore. But I'd be curious to see what all the fuss is about.

+1