Transcript Writing an Excellent Personal Statement

Writing an Excellent Personal
Statement
Eileen Doyle Crane, J.D.
Prelaw Advisor
Utah Valley University
How Many People Write
Personal Statements
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Why I want to go to law school
What I’ve done to prepare
Explanation of a resume
Attempts to “impress”
Chronological autobiographies
Political or philosophical essays
Who is the Audience?
• Remember the first rule of public speaking:
– KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE!!!
– Don’t start a PS without knowing who the audience is
• They are:
– Deans of Admissions
– Admissions Committee members
• Faculty Members
• Administrative Staff
• Students, in some schools
• Your audience reads 750-10,000 applications a year,
every year!
The Life of a Dean
• Dean of Admissions
– Travels every year from Labor Day to
Thanksgiving recruiting students
– Reads files from Thanksgiving (November) to
Memorial Day (May)
– Spends the summer trying to find out who is
actually coming to in fall
– Talks frequently to those on the Wait-List,
explaining when/how/if they will take anyone off
of it
– Receives a weekly list of those who have
deposited at more than one school
Who Reads Personal
Statements?
• Admissions Committee Members
– Faculty
– Administrative Staff
– Students, in some schools
• Applications are available on the web
(www.lsac.org) usually around August
15th; some earlier, some later
• Files start being read about one month
or so after school starts
How Applications Are Read
• Law School Formulas (approx. 155+ have a formula that creates an index score
for each applicant; formula derived from LSAT + GPA + Constant = Score)
• The Applicant Pool is often divided into three categories:
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Presumptive Admits
Potential Admits/Hold Category
Presumptive Denies
ALL applications get read, either in order of arrival or in order of
likelihood of acceptance or both
• Early Application Programs: (Students often assume that applying to early-app
programs heightens their likelihood of acceptance, but it is not always the case)
– Binding— If you are accepted, then you MUST go
– Non-Binding Early Application Pool— If not accepted in EAP, then
your application is rolled over to the general application pool
• Rolling Admissions File Reading— Most schools start reading
applications when they are complete, but many schools do not start
Admissions Committee meetings till late December or after Christmas
Parts of An Application
• Master Report: A summary created by LSAC from all your
transcripts and your LSAT score for the law schools
• Application: From the LSAC website or the law school website
• Transcripts: From ALL schools you’ve attended since high school
• Personal Statement: To show them aspects of who/what
you are that are not elsewhere in the application
• Letters of Recommendation: What do your professors
and employers or supervisors say about you?
• Addendums: To explain any special circumstances that surround
grades, test scores, or other situations
• Supplemental Essays: Why Law? Why Your Law School?
essays or others required by the law school
Role of the
Personal Statement
• Most important part of your application
AFTER test score and grades
• Your opportunity to become a REAL
person to reader by what you say
• Your opportunity to tell stories about
yourself not obvious ANYWHERE else
in the application
• SHOW the readers who you are
What the Dean Needs
• Deans ask themselves two questions:
– Can this student thrive in our school?
– If the student can thrive here, what else does this student
bring to the school?
• The Dean is looking for:
– Interesting points of view
– Interesting, broadening, and unique experiences that others
may not have had
– Evidence in the application (e.g. PS, Recommendations,
Resume, Awards) that this student has had academic and
extracurricular experiences that will add to the quality of the
class
Recruitment Issues
• US News and other rankings may
greatly affect the recruitment plan at
law schools
• Deans are looking for students from
many:
– US states & foreign countries
– Universities & colleges
– Different majors, minors, graduate degrees
– Work, volunteer, family backgrounds
– Both genders
– All ethnicities
Recruitment Management
• Weekly LSAC reports update the deans about who is
in the applicant pool
• Updates provide data including LSAT scores,
undergraduate schools, GPA’s, majors
• Progressive admissions decisions are made based
on statistical projections of need by the same date
last year
• Deans are looking for certain kinds of candidates the
later it gets in the admission year
• CRS—Candidate Referral System—helps deans find
certain kinds of students
Writing Your
Personal Statement
• Now that you understand the audience
(Deans and Admissions Committee
Members), you can start to THINK about
writing
• Ask yourself:
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What does the reader need?
Who am I?
What do I have to say about my life?
How can I tell my best stories?
If this was the only thing I ever wrote about my
life, does this statement tell stories that SHOW
who I am?
Suggested Outline
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Theme I
Theme II
Academics
Theme III
Theme I & Theme II
• One theme is a breath story
– A story that illustrates something that you have
learned, seen, done that is very different from the
rest of your life experiences
• One theme is a depth story
– Something that you’ve done a lot of
• The juxtaposition of Themes I & II creates the
picture of a multi-faceted student
• After you have written the best stories,
transition sentences between the two stories
can be written later
Academics
• A story that SHOWS something
academic about you
– Your academic hero (favorite teacher,
book character, public person, etc)
– How an academic experience changed
your life
– What learning means to you
– Your family history with respect to
education
– Anything about you that is academic
Theme III
• This is one last short, short, 4th story
• A story that shows some other aspect
of your life not covered by any aspect
of the three previous stories, and often
not anywhere in the application
• Another story that the reader could
NOT know about you, unless you told it
here
Step-by-Step
1) Write up as many stories about your life that you
think are important stories about yourself;
2) Do not pay attention to length, just write them till
you’ve told the whole story, but without all the
small details;
3) Figure out which stories are most important to you
to tell the Admissions Committee;
4) Figure out which stories are breadth and depth and
academic stories and put them in order;
5) Then edit the stories till they are three pages in
length in total.
Format Instructions
• Length
– 3 double-spaced pages
– If LS requires 2 pages, write 3 and decrease font size and/or
widen margins
– If only a certain number of words or space are allowed, write
this one, then cull from the long one to create a shortened
version
• Make sure you are telling your best stories
• Write transitions between stories that optimally tie
stories together
• Introductions and conclusions are not necessary
Supplemental Essays
• There ARE some committee members who DO want
to know
– Why you want to be a lawyer?
– What you have done to prepare for that?
• Why Law? Why Your Law School? Essay
– Write one paragraph to answer each question
– The answers to why you are applying to a particular law
school should address: 1) faculty; 2) curriculum; 3) special
programs; and/or 4) placement, both during and after law
school
– Mail this essay directly to law schools unless it is possible
to upload it into the electronic application
Timing
• It takes about 50 hours to write an
excellent personal statement
• Start right after the June test or in the
summer prior to taking a fall or winter
LSAT
• Plan to send in several/many versions
of your statement for feedback and
editing
• Relax and have fun writing about your
life!