Here’s how you can confront stereotypes in your law school application essays successfully:
1. Show how you’ve tackled them
Your law school application essays shouldn’t only show how you’ve struggled with stereotypes. Law school admission officers want to know how you’ve confronted a challenge and come out stronger.
2. Don’t make it your only focus
While dealing with a stereotype may be part of your backstory, there’s likely a larger message you’ll need to deliver in your law school personal statement. My former student Jasmine (who I mentioned in my most recent articles) touched briefly upon stereotypes in her law school diversity statement.
She wrote:
“Medicine and mathematics have been the traditionally promoted fields for many Chinese people. For this reason, there is a stereotype that Chinese people lack the creativity that Western culture has traditionally fostered. However, because China is a country with 1.3 billion people, there is the potential for China to provide the world with an entirely new kind of fashion that will revolutionize the world with a style influenced by Chinese culture.”
As you can see, Jasmine confronts the stereotype of Chinese students focusing on math and medicine head-on. Yet, instead of making the stereotype her primary focus, she instead discusses how in spite of those outdated ideas, China actually has a huge potential to become a global leader in the fashion world.
3. Make sure it ties in with your overall message.
As with any issue or topic you discuss in your law school personal statement, you shouldn’t talk about stereotypes just to make a certain impression on your readers. Don’t include anything that doesn’t tie in with your larger message about your experiences, passions, and how they tie into your plans for the future.
You can see how Jasmine accomplished this in the excerpt above. The overall message of her law school personal statement was how she plans to pursue fashion law to help China become more recognized as a worldwide leader in fashion. While it’s obvious to the reader that she may have witnessed stereotyping against Chinese people first-hand, she only mentions this because it supports the overarching ideas in her law school personal statement.
Writing about stereotypes and other sensitive subjects isn’t always easy, but it can be done. And, if you do it correctly, it could make an outstanding impression on admission officers. Just remember to follow the 3 tips above, and reach out to me if you have any questions or want help using these strategies in your law school personal statement.
Talk soon,
Steve
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