Re-applying: new personal statement? Forum

[Negativezero]

I am unable to accept any of my offers to law schools for 2011 because of unexpected problems pertaining to my family. I am going to try to get my favorite offer deferred but assuming that it isn't successful, I want to be ready to re-apply.

I feel my application was quite strong. My numbers were good but my personal statement and other softs were probably crucial in getting me accepted at various places. However, I applied quite late in the process (Mid December) and didn't even receive most of my offers until April.

My question is this: Do I have to write a new personal statement to re-apply to some of the schools that have already rejected me? I know it's much safer to write a new one, but sadly the PS I wrote for the last cycle was pretty exhaustive in outlining my credentials and unique perspective (work, diversity, and adversity all in one). Writing a new one would mean trying something that ignored my experiences entirely and focused on "the way I think" or some other type of statement. This year, I'm focusing on the same line of work I did last year so I have nothing new to add to my CV.

Please help!

[risktaker]

You can leave it the same. That's what I did and it worked out fine. I got into and got rejected from all the schools I did the previous cycle. Actually, got accepted to a couple better ones as well.

[Negativezero]

Maybe I should also include my target schools:

UCLA, USC, and any of the T14 schools.