Spend a considerable amount of time brainstorming and outlining your ideas before you write your law school personal statement. This essay, along with the optional essays, is an invaluable opportunity for you to share the personal experiences that go beyond your resume, gpa and lsat score. Law school admissions committees seek a student body with diverse interests, passions and histories and what you write in your personal statement could distinguish you and help you reinforce that you are the best possible candidate for admission. After a decade of working with prospective law students at stratus prep, i have come to appreciate that one of the most challenging parts of writing a personal statement is selecting a topic or series of interrelated topics. Once you have identified a subject that demonstrates your unique attributes, it is essential to get your story down on paper or on screen and begin editing. This often feels like a much more manageable task than the herculean, nerve racking decision of determining what to write about. So how do you choose from an abundance of rich life experiences and distinctive attributes? at stratus prep, i ask all my clients to fill out an extensive 10 page brainstorming questionnaire and then we discuss in depth their personal, academic and – if relevant – professional lives to identify the best examples of their uniqueness, values and passions.

Avoid summarizing your resume: the admissions committee already knows the bullet points included in your resume. Go beyond the basics and think about experiences in your personal, academic and professional life to share with them that help give context to your accomplishments. Do not simply write what you think a school wants to hear: if you write what you believe will get you in, it will likely come across as inauthentic. In addition, readers will have heard those topics repeatedly, since other students will almost certainly act on the same misconception. Instead of brainstorming topics that you believe admissions committees want to hear about, take the time to reacquaint yourself with the challenges you have overcome, your proudest accomplishments and the experiences that have fundamentally changed your perspective.

For example, i worked with a student who wanted to study banking law and regulation. After thoroughly brainstorming essay ideas, she decided to write about her experience losing her family's home to foreclosure during the recession. Differentiate yourself from similar applicants: two popular, generic topics that prospective students often choose are study abroad or their experience with the legal system. You may feel that one of these experiences truly best reveals your unique qualities.

One story likely to stand out that of is a student with whom i worked who studied talmudic law in israel. He wrote about how this experience shaped his perspective on the relationship between law and morality. Keep in mind, however, that a personal statement about one of these more common experiences may be a topic about which the admissions committee has already read many times. This may make you less noticeable among those in the applicant pool who share the same general characteristics. Go beyond simply your passion for the law or a particular law school: if an admissions staff member is reviewing your law school application, they already know you are likely passionate about the law and their law school. Instead, expand on your other interests, activities and experiences to demonstrate the distinct perspective you will bring to campus.

Be sure to spend sufficient time brainstorming and outlining your essays – in my decade of admissions experience, these two steps, more than any others, have proven to be the key to essay writing success. Consider asking for input from teachers, family or friends, as they may have insight into which of the stories from which you are choosing sound the most authentic and compelling. Have you started your personal statement? let me know in the comments, email me or contact me via twitter at @stratusprep. Applications are out, and yes people who already have lsat scores are submitting them.

Essays for Mentorship

Don't panic if you're taking the october or december lsat, but keep these 10 common mistakes in mind when it's your turn to fill out and submit applications. Not listing things in chronological order, or reverse chronological order, when specifically asked. lawyers need to follow rules, and so do law applicants. If you can't follow these simple instructions, how on earth are you going to follow the federal rules of civil procedure? think the judge will like you enough to overlook it? neither will law school admissions committees. Submitting optional essays that don't really apply to you. if the best you can do on your diversity statement is that your grandfather had minority status, or that your best friend is gay, then the diversity statement isn't for you and will fall flat. If everyone had an obstacle overcame story then it wouldn't really be diverse, would it? stick with your strengths, and don't invent diversity where it doesn't exist. Choosing not to submit optional essays that apply to everyone. if you can't take an hour to research a school, why should they take an hour to review your file, accept you, and give you a scholarship? they shouldn't. And a tip – if you could easily substitute the name of that school for any other and not have to change the rest of your answer, you didn't do a good job on this essay.

Criminal Law Paper Ideas

This is your one chance to show contributions you made to organizations and workplace environments. If you save this stuff for your personal statement, it will be boring, blah, and it will absolutely bomb. Putting see attached r é sumé on application blanks instead of filling them in. this goes back to laziness. Or you don't capture their interest in the application itself? use every line that applies to you. One typo in something usually won't be the death of an application except to the very top law schools but two or more will sink you.

Not checking the pdf version to be sure that your words aren't cut off in the boxes. this is really important! i can't believe how many law school applicants don't realize that if your words don't appear on the pdf, the school won't see them. Not checking to be sure your materials comport with the instructions on the school's website and/or application. take a few minutes to check each school's instructions. If there aren't instructions that you can find easily, call the school and ask where they are.

Sending the wrong personal statement to a school. i hope i don't have to comment on this one…. Addendums for law school applications addendums are the place to address any weaknesses in your application, i.e. Low grades, mediocre lsat scores, or an off year where everything just seemed to fall apart. I had one applicant who told me she went to take her lsat, misjudged how long it would take her to arrive at the test center, and thus arrived frazzled and hungry because she didn't have time to eat breakfast. She asked me what i thought of her explaining these circumstances to the admissions committee.

Academic Writing Exercises With Answers

My answer? i told her i thought they would think, she should have been better organized and she should have brought a snack. Use this space to explain that you have a history of poor standardized test taking if you do , that your mother was seriously ill if she was , or that you had a sudden and drastic circumstance that required that you take on full time employment if you did. Do not supply a fluffy excuse for your shortcomings, or worse, lie about why you had a bad semester or year. Admissions committees are filled with people who understand family crises, debilitating illness, and circumstances beyond one's control. They are not sympathetic to immaturity, irresponsibility, or the expectation that too much partying will be accepted as a reasonable excuse for failing your political science course. The best approach is a just the facts tone, free of an appeal for pity or sympathy. Optional essays in law school applications many law schools follow the business school model of offering an optional essay for interested applicants.

Get used to it! your goal is to rise above the crowd, to surge to the top of the applicant pool. You need to convince the adcom that you have more to say, that you do not shy away from challenges, that you are the crme de la crme. And about what should you write? your experience working for habitat for humanity, what it was like to have a hitless season in college baseball, only to score an out of the park home run in the playoff game, or your family's trip to costa rica and how it broadened your horizons. Some schools provide a list of suggested topics, but many will simply say, is there anything else you would like the admissions committee to know about that is not included elsewhere in your application? use this opportunity to demonstrate your writing skills and your determination to rise to the challenge, and to give them another insight into who you are outside of the numbers.

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Extra letters of recommendation if you choose your recommenders wisely, the standard two, or sometimes three, letters of recommendation will usually be sufficient. They have many applications to read, and you don't want to annoy them by not following directions. There is one exception to this rule: if you are wait listed at a school that you very much want to attend, you can attempt to sway the committee to move you onto the accepted roster by sending another letter of recommendation. You will want to write a follow up letter see law school wait list letters below , where you will state that another letter of recommendation is coming. Choose this recommender well, and make sure you tell them exactly what you would like them to say. Many will ask you to write it yourself, and then give it to them for approval and a signature. While it will again require more work, at least you have control over the letter's contents.

In this letter, you want to emphasize your strengths, but also to describe how you have overcome any past weaknesses, especially those that you feel contributed to landing you on the waiting list. The most important qualification of all is that your recommender be someone who doesn't necessarily wear the biggest wig, but who does know you best and will write a glowing recommendation. Law school wait list letters after months of uncertainty and waiting for a yes or a no answer to your request for admission, you are greeted with a wishy washy maybe.