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I lean no. You're a straight white male whose college-educated parents didn't earn much money. My instinct is that your proposed diversity statement carries a significant risk of eliciting a "this applicant lacks perspective" reaction.

But that really is just a gut reaction. If there are HYS (and particularly YS) students/grads out there who tried what you're proposing, I defer to their advice.

cheeseras wrote:The potential DS: since the PS already touches on the importance of class, the DS would VERY briefly lay out the mathematical case that I would add SE diversity. The primary goal would be to ensure that no clever Yale profs go "wait, this personal statement is BS, his parents went to college!"

I wouldn't do this, and not just because of rpupkin's (legit) concern that you might send the wrong message. The purpose of a diversity statement is to show how, thanks to your background, you would add to the classroom and eventually to the legal community. "I was technically below the poverty line", without elaboration, does not accomplish this. If you feel your personal statement isn't believable or coherent without detail about your family's financial situation, it seems more prudent to just put that information directly into the PS.

You should definitely read Dean Asha's blog post on this topic.

Great, this confirmed my suspicion that this would be a bad look. Thanks.