BIGGEST law school personal statement myth

If you’ve been reading my articles, by this point you can probably guess that I’m pretty passionate about the law school personal statement. After all, excellent law school application essays have helped many of my students get into their top-choice law schools. So, if you were to ask them how important the law school personal statement is, they’d probably agree that it’s very important! But many students still wonder, just how much does the law school personal statement really matter? If it were a test, for instance, how much of the overall application would the personal statement “count for?” How much does it matter compared to your GPA and LSAT scores?

Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to answer that question. That’s because the law school application is unlike the LSAT or any normal “test” you’ve ever taken. In fact, it’s not a test at all. It’s something far different. Instead of trying to put a precise value on “how much” the law school personal statement matters, I’m here to help you discover for yourself how much it should matter to you. I’ll share some of my most interesting findings with you: It answers questions the law school application doesn’t ask, but admission officers still need to know.    The general law school application can only ask so many questions. Yet, admission officers still need to know more about you to decide whether you’re right for their school (and, whether it’s right for you, too!). The law school personal statement gives you the chance to answer questions like, “Do you take initiative?” and “Can you overcome difficult circumstances?” (Click here for my full list of questions every law school personal statement should answer!) The BIGGEST myth about law school personal statements is… that no one reads them! FALSE. In fact, admission officers love reading them.    Many have told me that the law school personal statement is their favorite part of the application! Since the decision to accept you falls on them, don’t you think it’s important to work extra hard on their favorite aspect of the application? The idea that they “don’t matter as much as you think” is a lie. And I’ve repeatedly heard the same from law school admission officers I’ve interviewed and worked with at schools like Harvard, NYU, UChicago, and UCLA. (You can see our discussions on the LSAT Unplugged YouTube channel and podcast.) No, a law school personal statement can’t make up for poor academic performance or extremely low LSAT scores. But it definitely showcases your unique abilities and goals as a student. And, this might just be enough to supplement average performance. After all, it's worked for the countless students I’ve helped. Until next time, Steve P.S. Know what else is extremely important in the law school application process? Giving admission officers the “complete package.” In addition to your law school personal statement, including supplemental essays is always a good idea, since it gives them the broadest understanding of you and your academic goals. For my next article, I’ll share some examples of supplemental essay questions, along with a sample from a student I’ve worked with.

Recommended Resources: 1. Law School Admissions Coaching Get personalized 1-1 help on every aspect of the law school admission process -- or just the law school personal statement. 2. Law School Admissions Guide I've written a concise guide to the law school admission process with tips on completing every aspect of your applications from start to finish. It's a small price to pay for a whole lot of guidance, and it's short enough that you'll actually read the whole thing. 3. Law School Admissions Cheat Sheet Quick-reference guide for the law school personal statement, the "Why X?" essay, and the law school résumé. (You can also get it with the LSAT Cheat Sheets.)

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Law school personal statement questions

In my years of experience helping students write the best law school personal statement possible, I’ve encountered many of the same questions. Most students all have similar concerns when they’re applying to law schools. If you’re looking for answers, you’re not alone.

Luckily, I’m here to help. I know there’s a lot of information out there, but you can find all of the answers you need to the most commonly asked best law school personal statement questions here in one place. These are the answers I usually share with my own students when I work with them, so enjoy some of the sneak peeks to my best answers, below! 1. How Do I Start? Most students can’t just sit down and write their entire law school personal statement. Unfortunately, it’s simply not that easy! Instead, I encourage students to start by determining their goals. What is it you want to highlight in your law school personal statement? What’s the most important standout quality you want admission officers to know about you? Then, you can select a topic, brainstorm, and develop an outline. Finally, you’ll write your first draft. (If you’re interested, I share more detailed step-by-step tips for getting started here.) 2. When Should I Start? Ideally, you should start as early as possible! For most students still in college who want to go directly to law school, the summer before senior year is a good time to start thinking about the law school application. Most college students still complete their applications during the autumn of their senior year. Yet, you can start brainstorming about the law school personal statement as early as five to six months before you submit your application. Three to four months before you submit it, write your first draft so you can leave ample time for editing. 3. How Personal Should It Be? This is about you, so don’t be afraid to get too personal. Very few topics are considered “off-limits.” Your law school personal statement should make the reader feel like they’re there with you, experiencing your memory. You’ll probably have to do some serious brainstorming to dig into your emotions and thoughts. Your law school personal statement might include some things that most people may not know about you, and that’s okay. Allow your reader to see the truest version of yourself. 4. Do I Need to Write a Different Law School Personal Statement for Each School? Simply put, no. All law school personal statement prompts are essentially asking for the same thing, something like "Tell us about yourself." It's hard not to answer the question asked on the application. 5. What Are Supplemental Essays? Supplemental essays have become more popular in recent years. They’re designed to give you an extra opportunity to share more information about yourself. Some schools might ask questions along the lines of, “Why do you want to go to this school?” Many allow you to submit a "diversity statement" as well. While these law school application essays are sometimes optional, answering them allows you to paint the fullest picture about yourself as an applicant. Hopefully, I’ve answered most of your questions about the law school personal statement essay. If not, you know where to reach me! Simply reach out and get in touch. Until next time, Steve P.S. Just because these are the most common questions doesn’t mean there aren’t other very good questions to ask. Many students who come to me with genuine concerns about their law school application essays or another aspect of the law school application process are surprised by the answers I give them.  If you have a question you think might sound strange or silly, I encourage you to ask it anyway. It might just help another student who’s wondering the same thing, too!

Recommended Resources: 1. Law School Admissions Coaching Get personalized 1-1 help on every aspect of the law school admission process -- or just the law school personal statement. 2. Law School Admissions Guide I've written a concise guide to the law school admission process with tips on completing every aspect of your applications from start to finish. It's a small price to pay for a whole lot of guidance, and it's short enough that you'll actually read the whole thing. 3. Law School Admissions Cheat Sheet Quick-reference guide for the law school personal statement, the "Why X?" essay, and the law school résumé. (You can also get it with the LSAT Cheat Sheets.)

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Optional law school application essays

Options can be overwhelming. So far, you might have decided between many different options in the law school admissions process. Whether to go to law school at all. Your top-choice law schools. Which professors and employers you’ll ask for letters of recommendation.

Now that you’ve made your way to the law school personal statement, you might think most of the options are behind you. Aside from choosing a law school personal statement topic, what else is there to think about? This is where optional law school application essays come in. Usually shorter in length, the optional essays are just that – “extra” elective pieces of writing you can submit to show another side of yourself. It seems easy – you can either write it, or you don’t have to. It’s simply up to you.  Yet, many students struggle over what to do. On the one hand, will you appear lazy if you don’t write it? Will it look like you don’t care that much about getting into the school? On the other, what if you look like you’re trying too hard by writing optional essays? Most law school admission officers I’ve spoken with publicly claim they don’t prefer applications one way or the other. If a student submits the optional essay, they’ll read it. If not, that’s fine, too. Of course, this answer doesn’t make the decision any easier. While this dilemma understandably tends to make applicants a bit nervous, I always tend to encourage the students I work with to submit them.  Why? It gives law school admission officers the opportunity to learn even more about you. The more you can show your uniqueness, the better your odds are of standing out. Ultimately, the decision is completely up to you. But when you’re given the opportunity to possibly increase your odds of submitting a stronger, more complete application, I always say: Go for it!   Until next time, Steve P.S. If you’re like most of the students I’ve worked with, you probably have some other questions about the law school personal statement, too. Look for my next article, where I’ll share five of the most common questions I get asked and provide answers for each.

Recommended Resources: 1. Law School Admissions Coaching Get personalized 1-1 help on every aspect of the law school admission process -- or just the law school personal statement. 2. Law School Admissions Guide I've written a concise guide to the law school admission process with tips on completing every aspect of your applications from start to finish. It's a small price to pay for a whole lot of guidance, and it's short enough that you'll actually read the whole thing. 3. Law School Admissions Cheat Sheet Quick-reference guide for the law school personal statement, the "Why X?" essay, and the law school résumé. (You can also get it with the LSAT Cheat Sheets.)

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Law school personal statement lies

In my experience helping students write law school personal statements, I’ve heard just about everything from applicants. I’ve also worked with dozens of law school admission officers, so I’ve heard a lot from the recipients’ side, too. But there’s one thing that stuns me again and again every time I hear it. It’s a lie, and it’s a dangerous one to believe.

Maybe you’ve heard it around the hallways of your high school. Perhaps you’ve read it somewhere online. But it’s time to finally expose this lie, once and for all.     The biggest lie about the law school personal statement is that no one reads it. I know what you’re thinking: Are you sure they read every law school personal statement? How is it possible to read them all?   It’s not only possible, but in some cases, it’s the very thing that gets a student into their top-choice school! Yes – law school admission officers receive many, many personal statements. But they read each and every one of them with care. Admission officers want you to write the law school personal statement, because they want to learn something about you that your grades and test scores alone won’t tell them. It could just be the very thing that makes you the perfect student to attend their school. I know it’s challenging. I know there’s a lot of pressure on you to write a great law school personal statement. But you must believe it will be read. That’s why I provide so much law school personal statement advice to help you and countless other students. If there’s anything you’ve learned so far from me, please let it be this: Your law school personal statement will get read. Believing it won’t be is dangerous, because you won’t put your full effort into it.   So, approach your law school personal statement as if it’s the most important piece of writing you’ve ever done – because in many cases, it truly is! Until next time, Steve P.S. You may be wondering, “What about optional law school application essays?” Yes, admission officers read those, too! But are you struggling to decide whether you should include it in your application? If so, keep an eye out for my next article. I’ll share my insights, as well as an example of an optional essay from a student who was accepted to her top-choice school! Recommended Resources: 1. Law School Admissions Coaching Get personalized 1-1 help on every aspect of the law school admission process -- or just the law school personal statement. 2. Law School Admissions Guide I've written a concise guide to the law school admission process with tips on completing every aspect of your applications from start to finish. It's a small price to pay for a whole lot of guidance, and it's short enough that you'll actually read the whole thing. 3. Law School Admissions Cheat Sheet Quick-reference guide for the law school personal statement, the "Why X?" essay, and the law school résumé. (You can also get it with the LSAT Cheat Sheets.) Free Stuff | YouTube | Podcast | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Books | Courses

Writing your law school personal statement

In my last article, I shared a strategy for overcoming writer’s block. I also mentioned how many students experience this frustrating problem when writing the law school personal statement because they know it’s so important to their future. Here’s another reason students get caught up before they can even begin their law school personal statement: they have too many ideas. I’ve shared some useful tips on how to pick a law school personal statement topic with you in the past. What I haven’t shared yet is the one simple rule you can follow to make the law school personal statement much less complicated and easier to write. It’s all about focus. The one simple rule is to focus on just one aspect of yourself in the law school personal statement. Really, that’s it! Here’s the issue: so many students I work with are overwhelmed by the law school personal statement because they feel like they only have a few hundred words to make a great impression on admission officers. While that’s true, you only need to share one aspect about yourself to win over your readers. But what many students try to do is share all of their best qualities in their law school personal statement. The result is a chaotic law school personal statement that’s hard to follow because it goes all over the place.    If you’re having this problem, it’s an easy fix. Narrow your focus and choose one aspect of yourself to write about. Let’s look at one student I worked with, Rachel. Rachel had many different topics she wanted to write about, ranging from career goals to educational experience. Ultimately, she decided on an entirely different topic, because it had the greatest impact on her life: identifying as Chinese-American. Her law school personal statement shows how she came to appreciate her Chinese heritage, including a story about how she witnessed her father's kindness first-hand during a trip to China. Yet, it still remains focused on her quest to find greater meaning in her Chinese-American identity. By staying focused on just one topic, Rachel writes a law school personal statement that’s concise but thought-provoking. Her law school personal statement also shows how she overcame a challenge: she now knows the stereotypes she’s always heard about Chinese people are simply ignorant remarks made by people who fail to appreciate the value of different perspectives and ethnicities.  So, if you’re struggling with the law school personal statement, it could simply be a result of trying to fit in too many ideas. Choose to highlight one aspect of your identity, and dig deeper until you’ve told a complete story. Until next time, Steve P.S. Any time you feel like you might be veering off in too many different directions, take another look at the topic you’ve chosen. Sometimes, I even encourage my students to print out the topic and tape it somewhere visible so they can keep looking at it while writing their law school personal statement. A good rule of thumb to follow is to take another glance at it after you finish every other paragraph to make sure you’re focusing on the same key idea.

Recommended Resources: 1. Law School Admissions Coaching Get personalized 1-1 help on every aspect of the law school admission process -- or just the law school personal statement. 2. Law School Admissions Guide I've written a concise guide to the law school admission process with tips on completing every aspect of your applications from start to finish. It's a small price to pay for a whole lot of guidance, and it's short enough that you'll actually read the whole thing. 3. Law School Admissions Cheat Sheet Quick-reference guide for the law school personal statement, the "Why X?" essay, and the law school résumé. (You can also get it with the LSAT Cheat Sheets.)

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Law school personal statement + writer's block

Writer’s block is never something students want to experience. If you’re writing your law school personal statement, it can be especially frustrating. There are many different tips you can use to beat writer’s block. But maybe you just need an entirely new approach.

Many students stress over the law school personal statement for a number of reasons. For one, they know just how important it is to write a thoughtful, concise law school personal statement to help them get into their top-choice school. Truthfully, the law school personal statement is one of the most important pieces of writing you’ll ever do. For another thing, many students just don’t know where to begin. Even after reading their prompts, discovering useful tips and advice, and doing ample brainstorming, they’re still stumped for an idea.  Here’s a secret strategy I share with some of my students: pretend you’re writing a letter instead.    While it won’t leave you with the final version of the law school personal statement you’ll send off to your schools, it will generate some useful ideas. Here’s how it works: Instead of focusing on writing a law school personal statement that admission officers will read, instead pretend to write a letter to your new law school roommate. (Believe it or not, Stanford and Harvard have actually included similar topics to this one in their undergraduate college essay prompts!) Brainstorming about the most important aspects your future roommate should know about you may lead to some interesting insights about yourself. For example, this exercise helps some students develop a deeper understanding of why their favorite books have made such an impact on them, how they’ve developed a passion for their favorite past times, and which shared values are most important to them when making new friends. Exploring these and similar subjects a bit deeper might just help you write a complete law school personal statement! Even if it doesn’t produce the perfect law school personal statement, at the very least this exercise will help you uncover some new ideas about yourself.  Until next time, Steve P.S. If you’re still struggling just to get started, be on the lookout for my next article. In it, you’ll find out how following one simple rule can make the law school personal statement-writing process much easier (and how my student used this rule to write her perfect law school application essay). Stay tuned!

Recommended Resources: 1. Law School Admissions Coaching Get personalized 1-1 help on every aspect of the law school admission process -- or just the law school personal statement. 2. Law School Admissions Guide I've written a concise guide to the law school admission process with tips on completing every aspect of your applications from start to finish. It's a small price to pay for a whole lot of guidance, and it's short enough that you'll actually read the whole thing. 3. Law School Admissions Cheat Sheet Quick-reference guide for the law school personal statement, the "Why X?" essay, and the law school résumé. (You can also get it with the LSAT Cheat Sheets.)

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