Maybe you’ve printed out your law school personal statement, since reading it on paper can help you find mistakes that are easy to spot on the screen.
Maybe you’ve even read your law school personal statement out loud, which is something I recommend to all of my students. (It allows you to identify any awkward phrasing or areas that might be a little unclear.)
By this point, maybe your law school personal statement looks absolutely flawless to you. Think you’re ready to submit it?
Not just yet.
Why not? There’s one final – but critically important – thing you must do before you send it off.
You absolutely must have someone else read your law school personal statement.
See, when students write their law school personal statements, they may assume that their reader will understand their thoughts. This happens to all of us, and it’s because we’re the ones writing. If it makes sense to us, we just believe it will also make sense to our audience.
The problem lies in the fact that there are sometimes things you may know that your reader will not. The only way to tell for sure whether you might have an issue like this in your law school personal statement is to have someone else read it.
Who could read it? That’s completely up to you. But sometimes, it may help to have someone who isn’t super close to you take a look.
If someone knows you too well – say, a best friend, sibling, or parent – they, too, might fall into the same trap. They might understand things about you that won’t be obvious to a law school admission officer, who doesn’t know you at all.
For this reason, you might seek out a professor, mentor, or classmate who’s a friend (but perhaps not your best friend) whose input you value. Of course, you could also come to me, too!
Just why is it so important to have another set of eyes look over your work?
Let me share a story as an example:
Lauren, a student who came to me with her law school personal statement, lacked some details in her first draft, making her essay a bit difficult to follow. Her goal was to study both business and law (dual-degree JD/MBA). She explained in her law school personal statement how having both business and legal skills would be useful for her career goals. Yet, she needed to clarify how her educational and work experiences experience led her to value these two very different subjects.
By encouraging her to dig a little deeper, I helped Lauren share her business and legal experiences in her essay (including participation in a startup incubator). The end result was a much clearer personal statement that was easy to follow and made a more powerful statement about her educational passions.
What could a second set of eyes do for your law school personal statement?
Until next time,
Steve
P.S. Have you ever wondered what law school admission officers have to say about the stress caused by the law school personal statement? Check out my discussions with them on the LSAT Unplugged podcast and YouTube channel.
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