Where to start Forum

[NL2424]

..

[Generally]

Post removed.

[stego]

In general, you can use the same personal statement for multiple schools. Depending on where you apply, some schools might ask specific questions that call for a modified or completely different statement.

If you don't know where to begin, write about why you want to go to law school, why you think you would be good at law school/being a lawyer, life experiences that relate to either of the above, etc.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Hello, just took June LSAT and plan on applying early this cycle. I want to spend this summer writing my personal statement but I have no clue where to start. Are personal statements specific to each school or general? I've seen the sample statements but I still don't even know where to begin...

I am in the same place. It seems a lot of them are a descriptive story about something not related to law at all. I read a bunch that Chicago Law put up and one was about piano lessons... I just don't know how much I am suppose to tie it in with my desire for law schools and my academic ability.

You don't have to make your PS about your desire for law school/academic ability. Schools know you want to go to law school, because you're applying, and they have lots of other evidence of your academic ability. The point of a personal statement is that it's personal, it's a way for schools to get to know a little more about you (including your writing ability, which they don't get a lot of examples of otherwise). You can do "why law," but I think those PSes tend to work better if someone has a very specific law school goal and experience to back it up, rather than for most generic "I want big law applicants" (just because there are a lot of applicants who don't know much about legal practice, and some of the reasons for "why law" or what they want to do in law can come across as incredibly naive/cliched).

So, for example, someone who worked in a non-profit for 4 years advocating for LGBT rights, and eventually decided, based on the work that they did, that they needed a law degree to go further in what they wanted to do in that field, could probably write a good, specific, well-supported "why law" PS. Someone coming straight from undergrad who's only had a couple of non-legal internships and isn't really sure what they want to do but probably biglaw because that's what people do is less likely to write a compelling "why law" PS. (That's not meant to knock the latter candidate; just a comment on their likely PS.) Generally, I think career-changers can write decent "why law" PSes, especially because adcomms might be curious why they're leaving their former field to go to law school. (Though if they're leaving their former profession because it sucks, better not to write that.) People with less work experience/less specific goals are likely to do better with a PS that talks about an experience that shaped them (that can be "why law," of course), or focuses on a specific characteristic they have that tells the reader something about them, that kind of thing.

One thing to avoid is regurgitating your resume in the PS. Don't just list all the stuff you did in college - pick one and talk about what you did and what you learned, that kind of thing.

The other general consensus is that there is no point in tailoring PSes to specific schools - there's too much potential for getting things both within and outside of your control wrong (e.g. send a PS to Yale saying how much you want to attend Harvard; saying you want to attend LS X precisely because they have clinic Y, when the school knows that Prof Z, who runs that clinic, is retiring the following year and isn't going to be replaced; etc.). I think if there is a genuine concrete reason you want a specific school, it's not a terrible thing to throw that into a PS, but it's not something you have to or should do for all schools you apply to. (Here a concrete reason is something like your wife has a good job in that school's city and you want to stay local, rather than just "Penn has been my dream school since I was 5." I don't know that saying the latter will hurt you, I just don't think it gets you very far because anyone can say that.)

Edited to add: This is just my sense of things based on reading a lot of posts on TLS over the last couple of years, so don't take it as absolute gospel. There's a lot of information in the PS forum, even if you have to read around to find it.

[Generally]

Post removed.

[stego]

The topics I mentioned are not the only things you can write about, I just suggested them because that's what I wrote about and it might be a good place to start if you have no idea. I talked about the social justice goals I wanted to accomplish in my legal career and different experiences I had had that made me interested in law. I don't know if my PS was any good or not, but it didn't seem to hurt me, at least.

I wouldn't bother tailoring a personal statement to a particular school unless the school's application required it by asking specific questions. One school I applied to did this but I think I used the same PS everywhere else. Don't know how common this is.

[A. Nony Mouse]

For a lot of applicants the PS doesn't matter much - as long as it doesn't suggest that you're a psychopath or can't write English, it's probably going to be fine. So in most cases, a PS isn't going to hurt you. A PS matters most at schools that genuinely engage in holistic review, and with splitter types whose numbers don't do the job. Even then, a well-written, compelling PS that supports a coherent, convincing narrative throughout your whole application can help you, but a generic PS won't hurt you (except to the extent you've missed the opportunity to make your application stronger, of course).

[slippin_jimmy]

Post removed.