Law school admission, including admission to the best law schools at the top of a law school rankings, is primarily based on the applicant's GPA and LSAT. In some cases, an exceptional personal statement can help a borderline applicant become an accepted applicant; a similar situtation can occur at the waiting-list level.
According to Georgetown University Career Education Center, one Director of Admissions said, ''Some students write their way into law school. Others write their way out.''
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COMMENTS AND ADVICE
LAW SCHOOL INTERVIEWS
Revised: December 4, 2009
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Many pre-law websites cover the law school personal statement very well. Reading many of these websites before attempting to write your law school personal statement is a very good idea.
LAW SCHOOL PERSONAL STATEMENT ADVICE, from Top-Law-Schools.com, helps you focus in on the key points by giving lists including lists of what to do (13 items), what not to do (13 items), and personal statement mistakes (the top 10). Also given is advice to help you understand your audience, teach you how to craft a persuasive statement, suggest topics, and tell you the inside secrets you should know. This advice is supplemented by personal statement samples with commentary at the end.
The Pre-Law Advising Office at the University of Massachusetts states and discusses ten tasks to do to complete the YOUR PERSONAL STATEMENT including six common errors to avoid.
LAW SCHOOL PERSONAL STATEMENT (Boston College) defines the law school personal statement and gives guidelines for writing a law school personal statement.
At a safety school, you may want to play it safe with your law school personal statement since your GPA and LSAT score should be sufficient for you to stand out. At a reach school, you may want to take the opposite approach since your GPA and LSAT score may not be sufficient for you to stand out.
The University of California at Berkeley Career Center gives the following advice: "The personal statement gives you an opportunity to showcase your abilities. So, the best statements not only follow the schools' instructions, but are tied together by a theme and a logical progression of ideas, making good use of transitions. They also employ perfect grammar and are written in a direct, simple style that avoids pretentious language. The best statements are not laundry lists of accomplishments and activities, but essays that describe a unique episode or two from your experience that demonstrate both your motivation for pursuing legal education along with positive, interesting aspects of your personality."
The University of Florida Pre-Law Handbook writes about books that discuss personal statements: "There are several books available which discuss writing the personal statement such as Getting Into Law School Today, by Martinson and Waldherr. These books offer examples of personal statements. Use caution when reading them. It seems all of the examples were written by students who discovered the cure for cancer during an independent study lab, or worked for three years in the Peace Corps. One statement was written by a police office shot in the line of duty. My point is that sometimes these examples can make students feel inadequate. While I believe there are some people applying to law school with life experiences that would make Mother Theresa stand up and take notice, I do not believe the majority of applicants have had that level of life experience. I actually had one student who came in worried about their chances for acceptance into law school because, as she said, ''I'm just average and I've lived an average life.'' Well, there are many students with average grades and LSAT scores but each life is unique. Whether or not you are able to showcase on your unique experiences for the admission committees is up to you."
LAW SCHOOL PERSONAL STATEMENT LAW SCHOOL INTERVIEWS
Law schools do not typically hold traditional interviews for applicants (one can argue that the personal statemnt takes the place of the interview) but if you do have an interview at a law school, you want to be prepared.
