Top Law Schools

Not undertaking any of the optional essays -or- including a forced one just to avoid looking like a bum?

(For argument's sake, let's say the writing is clean and technically impressive but the content just isn't anything special.)

Oh wow! technically impressive, you don't say...

oblig.lawl.ref wrote:Oh wow! technically impressive, you don't say...

This is a hypothetical. Let's not get bitter now...

Aside from my bitterness about your technically impressive writing abilities, I wondered this myself when I was applying and never figured out the answer.

Ultimately I did most supplemental essays etc b/c I felt like more and more law school were adding additional things just to gauge how much you care and how likely you are to actually attend.

oblig.lawl.ref wrote:Ultimately I did most supplemental essays etc b/c I felt like more and more law school were adding additional things just to gauge how much you care and how likely you are to actually attend.

I intend on doing the optional essays as well, but I do feel like they ask for them in part to see how much effort you are willing to put into applying to their school so they can gauge interest.

As long as the writing doesn't suck I don't see how it can hurt you. Maybe the adcomms will think you're not really all that interested if the content isn't great, but I feel like they would just assume that anyway if you didn't even bother to try writing one.

Find something interesting to say then. If you can write technically impressively, then you can find one little nugget that is interesting.

Write the essay. Being technically impressive pretty much makes you an auto-admit.