Make Your Personal Statement Personal

It’s that time of the year when people are applying to law schools.

Because I’ve gone through the process myself, and based on the opportunity to be on the other side of reviewing applications, I’ve developed certain views on what makes a good personal statement, not just for law school applications but for applications in general.

In a way, the personal statement is the most important part of the application.  Yes, the score on the standardized test, your transcript and letters of recommendation are crucial components, but there is very little you can do with them, albeit with two exceptions.

First, I urge you to confirm with the professor who is writing your recommendation that s/he will actually recommend you.  It could be an awkward moment when you pose the question, but the damage done by a non-recommendation is catastrophic.  I heard this same advice given at a forum of deans of admissions before I applied to law school and thought it was a joke. Then I reviewed an application with a letter of recommendation in which the professor accused the student of cheating on the final exam.  Such letter is fatal, regardless of the quality of the remaining aspects of the application.

Second, pick a professor based, not on grades, but on your personal relationship with him/her.  The best letter of recommendation I ever read was from a professor who consistently gave the student a B but wrote glowingly about the student’s attitude and the work of the student as his research assistant.

I think the emphasis on the “personal” is also the most important point of consideration in a personal statement.  It is the one chance you have to humanize the application, beyond the numbers and list of accomplishments.

In that regard, doing a run-down of your academic achievements and work experience is a terrible idea.  That’s what a resumé is for.  If you discuss more than one class or work experience in your personal statement, it’s too many.  Just pick one, if you feel the need, and elaborate.

To make the statement personal, I always urge people to tell a story, which makes the essay both memorable and entertaining.  The story doesn’t have to be long, but it should capture an event in your life (not life of others) that a reader can’t easily glean from the resumé.

Of course, not all of us grew up lacking food on the table, working three jobs to support the family and walking an hour to school, uphill both ways, because the bus was too expensive.  But everyone’s life is unique, and there’s always a good story to tell about what makes you different.

Telling the story is the easy part; the challenge is to make the story mean something.  That’s where theme comes into play.  It gives an overall purpose to the personal statement, a common bond that ties together everything you say.

I have mixed feelings about whether the theme should answer the question, “why are you applying?”

For starters, it’s not easy to make a genuine connection between a personal story and the reason you want to attend law school.  Not too many of us experience the moment of eureka where you said, “My god, I now know why I need to go to law school.”

On the other hand, you are writing the personal statement for the specific purpose of getting accepted into a school.  Most schools require you to explain why you want to attend the school, and even if it doesn’t, the personal statement would probably read a little off if it doesn’t touch on the subject.

The problem here is that the reason most people give for “why law school?” doesn’t correlate well with what law school actually does. The most common example of this is people who say they are applying to law school because they were interested in politics in college.  People interested in pursing their political interest should be applying to Georgetown’s Public Policy Institute for a degree in Master’s in Public Policy, not law school to become a lawyer.  It’s a Catch-22, really:  you’re writing an essay about why you want to go to law school, but you don’t know what law school does because you haven’t attended it.

After you decide on a theme, everything in the personal statement should relate to it, including your story and academic achievement or work experience you choose to highlight.  It is crucial to keep your essay focused and concise.  You don’t have the space to digress and you can’t afford to lose the attention of the admissions officer.

As for the actual writing, you should strive to write a statement that is grammatically correct but is a good read.  Ask another person or two to thoroughly review the essay and you should check the first and last paragraphs thrice.  As my high school teacher advised, if you’re going to make a mistake–and it’s best if you don’t–bury it in the middle.

It’s important to remember, though, that the personal statement shouldn’t read too polished lest you lose the personal feel.  Hence, I would ignore some rules of “good writing” by occasionally starting a sentence with an “And” or a “But” and I wouldn’t rely on a thesaurus to show off the vocabulary.  Remember, your audience is an admissions officer who has to read hundreds of these essays.  Your goal should be to convey a message in a quick, captivating manner.

It’s of course easy for me to say how I think you should write your personal statement.  I know how difficult a task can be because my personal statement did none of the things I urge above, which is why my application process was a near unmitigated disaster.  My personal statement discussed how America should reform its educational system.  It was highly polished and so impersonal that it did very little to convey who I was.  I would have been wise to take the advice of a reader who commented that the personal statement read like a campaign speech.

Regardless of whether you take my advice or learn from my mistake, you should spend a significant amount of time thinking about and perfecting your personal statement because it is well worth the effort.  If you have weaknesses in other parts of your application, the personal statement may be able to offset them.  If your application is on the border line, it can get you over the top.

The personal statement is the one shot you have to convey who you are.  Don’t waste it.