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Hi,

I am brainstorming what to use for my PS, and 3 different options come to mind. Thoughts?

1) A close friend of mine died of a drug addiction. This was an addiction that was largely hidden from his friends and family, because of a fear of embarrassment in the community and friend group I grew up in. Today, I work in drug policy, trying to change policy in a progressive way, and one of the big reasons for this is to get rid of the stigma- that drug addiction is a health issue and not a criminal one. Would relate the two things. While in some ways I think this is strongest, I also am wary of writing about a friends death here.

2) Talking about my experience visiting a prison and spending some time with people who once were murderers, talking about the shared humanity of us all and what they taught me, relating it to my current work.

3) Talking about spending time in a Palestinian refugee camp, right after spending time in Zionist circles in Israel, and what this taught me in how I see others now, even those I may disagree with. Talking about the friendships that I made in both areas, and how the people were so similar in so many ways. How this relates to studying law.

It would help to know what kind of law you want to do/why you want to be a lawyer.

1) Could work as long as you use the topic to focus on how it affected you, changed you, fueled you to do something great...the keyword being YOU. Spend too much time focusing on the friend's death, his addiction or his friends and family and your image won't come out properly to the person reading it. Also try to avoid any big stance on something that is ultimately your belief and your political stance (addiction being a criminal issue vice a health issue). There is nothing wrong with being opinionated on an issue, but what the adcom wants to see if you touch on a contentious issue is that you can logically and intelligently approach both sides of an issue and come to a well-reasoned conclusion. That being said, I wouldn't be convinced of the effectiveness of the political stance/belief PS until I actually read it, so I would naturally stray away from that being in the statement at all.

2) Did this really have a profound, lasting impact on you and how you see the world? One visit to a prison and seeing that real people really do live there and you have a lot in common with some of them is way too surface level to be your entire PS. If you ended up bonding with an inmate on an initial trip and came to develop an unexpected rapport with one of them and came to realize things about yourself in doing so, then you could have a strong PS on your hands. Be honest with yourself first about how much impact this really had on your life.

3) Personally don't love the topic because you could very easily venture into the political arena that should be avoided and the statement would no longer be about you and how the ADCOM perceives you. I guess it could possibly work, but I'd really have to read this one to believe it was effective.

All that being said, until you actually pick a path and write a PS, no one on here can give you really strong advice about which topic would work best. I'd recommend picking the topic you think is best, give it a rough draft, see if you still like it, then post it on here so others can give their input about the quality of the actual PS.

I'd go with the first one. The third makes me hesitate