law school entry essay

Law school admissions officers read thousands of application essays every year. So how can you make yours stand out when the stakes couldn't be higher? [Access the U.S. News Best Law Schools rankings.] To ensure that your personal statement maximizes your chances of gaining admission to your dream school (even if your GPA or LSAT is below the school's range), avoid these five mistakes. 1. Writing about study abroad: Having read thousands of application essays, I would estimate that approximately 15 percent of law school applicants write about their study abroad experience. No matter how much your own study abroad experience changed you, writing about it simply will not differentiate you from other applicants. Remember that no one sits next to each admissions officer requiring that he or she read every essay in its entirety. If a reader has just read five study abroad essays and yours starts with, My semester abroad in Florence profoundly changed my life forever, you are much less likely to receive the acceptance letter or E-mail you so covet. 2. Highlighting your personal experience with the legal system: Lawyers pride themselves on being unbiased, relatively unemotional professionals, so your story about witnessing a crime or serving on a jury will not impress the law school admissions committees. Stories that show your character, work ethic, and intellect outside of the legal context will impress the admissions committees far more than your firsthand experiences with the law. [See how law firm recruiters rank the best law schools.] 3. Over-inflating your vocabulary: Always use the word that best exemplifies the idea you are trying to convey. If that word is only one syllable, fine. If it is five syllables, that is fine, too. While you should avoid repeating the same word over and over, do not use a big word simply in an effort to show off your vocabulary. It will.
Home » Law School Admissions » Personal Statements » It requires a lot of effort and thought to write a personal statement that effectively captures your greatest qualities and stands out to admissions committees. While we have an entire article on writing personal statements, one of the best ways to assist and inspire your writing is reading and learning from several personal statement samples. Although writing personal statements requires that you reflect upon what is unique and exemplary about your background, the following personal statement samples will provide insight into how other applicants have successfully crafted their statement. Below you can find 31 personal statement examples found in the TLS Guide to Personal Statements book, which has sections on why these personal statement samples are strong and also how they could have been improved upon. More personal statement samples can be found at EssayEdge.com and the personal statement forum. 31 Example Personal Statements Chapater 8: The Personal Narrative (Structure) Silicon Valley Start-Up Senior Design Stay-at-Home Dad Happy Camper Minimalist Coming Out Belorussian Lawyer Mormon Conflict New York Artist Chapter 9: The Organizing Quote (Structure) Ubuntu PR Agency Builder Alice in Casinoland Kentucky Governor’s Scholar Chapter 10: The Character Sketch (Structure) South Dakota Magazine Industry Russian Grandfather Chapter 11: Overcoming Adversity (Topic) Kenyan Immigrant Gordie Day Surviving Rape Parental Disability Chapter 12: Diversity Candidates (Topic) Resisting the Label “Muslim” Muumuus and Moving On Hurricane Katrina Autism First to Attend College Chapter 13: Chronological Growth (Topic) High-Stakes Law Experience Uganda and Cambodia UK Study Abroad Delmarva Shorebirds Chapter 14: The Mentor (Topic) Debate Skills Korean American Below are 2 of the 31 Personal Statement Samples Sample Personal.
The personal statement is the aspect of the application that we hear the most about when recruiting or talking to prospective students (except perhaps general fear of the LSAT!). What should I write my personal statement about is a critical question for the applicant, but one that is hard to answer. Here is a summary of do's and don'ts taken from several members of our admissions committee: Dos: Most importantly, a personal statement is supposed to be PERSONAL! We want to hear about you, what makes you tick, what motivates you, and what inspires you. We are trying to make up a class of interesting, dynamic people, and this is the place to show us that you will add something vital to our school. A good personal statement will give a sense of who you are as a person after reading it, and there are hundreds of ways to accomplish this. Remember, this is your writing sample as well as a personal statement so make sure that it is a flawless piece of writing. No typos, nice paragraphs, and something that flows well is highly desirable. Make sure to have someone whose writing you respect read it and offer comments. Hopefully your personal statement can be interesting, tell a captivating story, or inject some humor into the essay. We read a lot of these, so something fun helps.  Try to focus on something unique about you, something that is not going to be repeated in other people's essays. One essay topic we see a lot is the pre-med student who has an epiphany in a Political Science class and decides to change her major (but not until after getting a C- in Organic Chemistry!). If you are sending out individualized personal statements, make sure that you send the correct personal statement with your application. I have read hundreds of personal statements talking about how the applicant really wants to go to a school other than Chicago. Needless to say, this can ruin an.