Questions about Stanford, PS, and Index Forum

[JohnV]

I was browsing the main page of this website and decided to give the specific top law schools pages a read over. I'm basically just fantasizing here because I haven't taken the LSAT (I think scoring mid 170 is possible for me, but only time will tell), but it raised some really interesting questions for me because I thought Stanford was out of the picture no matter what because of my GPA and what LSN had shown me.

My current GPA (and probably what I'll apply with) is a 3.76. History/Gov double major at a decent school. Will be a 3.78 - 3.79 after my last semester this fall though I don't know how much this minimal rise will help once I update my transcript. Stanford's median is significantly higher than that, unfortunately. But the interesting part I read is that they may take into account Public Interest work and an interest in working in that field with more consideration that others. I happen to currently work in a law schools Public Interest school, which I think should help. So what I want advice on is, should I write 2 PS? Or multiple for different schools? I had planned to write about poor-socio-economic coniditions and familial disadvantages I've had (which are fairly serious and I've been told would make for a good PS by an advisor and some on this forum) but I'm wondering if I should write a second PS that incorporates more Public Interest interest into it or make one that is a combination of the 2.

So any advice on that and if I should even be thinking about Stanford with my fairly low (by Stanford standards) GPA.

EDIT: After doing more research, it appears that writing multiple Personal Statement's is fairly common? This part of the application process is still slightly confusing to me, sorry if this was a dumb question.

[thederangedwang]

its not that common.

What most people do is either write a single basic personal statement and send it to every school, or write a single basic PS, but then tailor it a bit for a specific school.

Very seldomly do people write a completely different PS. Im not saying its a bad idea however. If you got the time, why not. I just find it hard to write 2 PS of equal quality. Better to have one good one then 2 ok ones.

[JohnV]

I see. I worry about that as well, but I don't want to write to every school that I'm interested in going into Public Interest law (it's one of many interest) when they don't specifically seem to care or specialize in that field, whereas Stanfard apparently does. And I wonder if my resume will do the talking for me or should I still tailor it in that way.

I've also noticed some things in the profiles that raise concerns for me. For one, Berkley prefers students who have taken a year off from school? Is that a normal things for schools to look for? And Yale says P/F hurts your application? That's unfortunate for me (and contrary to all the advice I've ever recieved) because I took Calculus P/F just because I wanted to take Calculus in college and see if I could hack it as an Economics major (turns out, not so much lol), but had I known it could one day be a deciding factor (or even frowned upon to the point that they'd comment on it) I probably would had just stuck with my cozy, easy major and not ventured out to other disciplines.

[thederangedwang]

I see. I worry about that as well, but I don't want to write to every school that I'm interested in going into Public Interest law (it's one of many interest) when they don't specifically seem to care or specialize in that field, whereas Stanfard apparently does. And I wonder if my resume will do the talking for me or should I still tailor it in that way.

I've also noticed some things in the profiles that raise concerns for me. For one, Berkley prefers students who have taken a year off from school? Is that a normal things for schools to look for? And Yale says P/F hurts your application? That's unfortunate for me (and contrary to all the advice I've ever recieved) because I took Calculus P/F just because I wanted to take Calculus in college and see if I could hack it as an Economics major (turns out, not so much lol), but had I known it could one day be a deciding factor (or even frowned upon to the point that they'd comment on it) I probably would had just stuck with my cozy, easy major and not ventured out to other disciplines.

look man, if theres one regret i have with my cycle, its not using all my P/F.

The schools say they care, to a very very small extent, they do. But generally speaking, its much better to have a higher gpa with more p/f, then a lower gpa and no p/f. Its really that simple. Dont worry about your p/f and keep using them. Just make sure you dont use more then 4 or 5..any more than that, then it could start to matter.

For the personal statement, dont write about public service...the statement is about you, who you are, the resume and if necessary, an addendum/letter of interest is where you talk about these things

[attractive_NUisance]

Stanfard apparently does.

Berkley prefers students

Make sure to spellcheck your apps. Spelling either school like above would not help your chances at an admit.

[JohnV]

Stanfard apparently does.

Berkley prefers students

Make sure to spellcheck your apps. Spelling either school like above would not help your chances at an admit.

Lol, sure thing. Not sure why I did that on either of them but an on-the-fly written TLS thread is not necessarily something I care to review for obvious spelling mistakes.

I mean really, I spelled Stanford a dozen times and you are going to grammar-nazi me because I mispelled it once? Geeez...

[attractive_NUisance]

just giving you a hard time