How long to write a good PS? Forum

[StopLawying]

Just curious, how long do you guys think it typically takes to write a good PS? Hours/Weeks, how long would you say the process is from start to finish? Beginning the PS next week and I'm just curious as to how long this whole thing takes.

[Jordan Catalano]

I used bits and pieces of old undergrad/ scholarship essays to brainstorm for about a month. Then I began writing a specific essay for law schools, writing the essay in chunks and not worrying about how smooth it read at first. I then spent about 3 months refining the essay, wordsmithing it, and sending it out to different people I knew to read and offer suggestions. The whole PS/DS process took me about 4 months to complete, but I wasn't working on it every single day, maybe every other day I would stare at it for an hour or two and made edits. Some people write their PS in a week. I personally felt like I needed to re-work it for several months to be satisfied with it.

[ebouchard]

I wrote my PS and DS over the span of two months (started around late August and submitted around late October). I worked on them mainly on weekends (about 3 hours a day) because I had a pretty demanding full-time job. On weekdays at work, whenever I had downtime, I worked on them intermittently. I had maybe 5-6 trusted friends review my essays, in addition to my undergrad law school adviser.
PS took a lot longer for me, and DS was pretty easy once I got a pretty good idea of the topic and style of writing.
It helped to re-read my undergrad application essays to refresh my memories, but my law school essays were significantly different from undergrad ones. Good luck!

[zeglo]

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[KatCoco]

This is really going to depend on the person. I'm a strong writer, and knew from the start exactly what I wanted to write and what the overall narrative of my application would be. I've collectively spent maybe a week writing both my PS and DS, spread out over about a month and a half.

In my opinion, getting other people's opinions on this won't be of much help to you. It depends on you. Just get started.