UT Austin > Requirements

Updated for 2025-2026 application cycle

Personal Statement

Required

Personal statement

Personal Statement Required

The personal statement is an opportunity to share with the Admissions Committee your background, interests and experiences. Your personal statement demonstrates to the Admissions Committee not only how you write, a skill fundamental to success in the legal profession, but also how you think and how you have reflected upon and derived meaning from your life experiences. Although there is no specific topic or question for the personal statement, your narrative should at some point address your decision to pursue a legal education

Optional Statements

Supplemental essay

Applicants may submit one or more of the following option statements to provide to the Admissions Committee additional insight when reviewing their application. Each optional statement may not exceed one (1) double-spaced page with minimum 11-point font size and 1-inch margins.

Optional Statements:

Please address any information that you believe your application would be incomplete without and that sheds more light on your unique potential to succeed in the J.D. program and contribute to the University community and the field or profession.
Civil dialogue and reasoned debate over contested ideas are core values both for the practice of law and in legal education. In light of this, Texas Law is interested in learning about experiences you may have had engaging with ideas with which you disagreed, and how such experiences have impacted you.

Undergrad Performance

Addendum

Undergrad Performance

If your academic performance for one or more academic terms was markedly different from that of others, please explain. Please make any other comments about your college transcript(s) or your preparation for college that you believe will help the Admissions Committee in evaluating your application.

Your statement may not exceed one (1) double-spaced page with a minimum 11-point font size and 1-inch margins.

Standardized Test Performance

Addendum

Standardized Test Performance

Candidates sometimes seek to establish that their academic potential is inaccurately reflected by standardized tests or that one LSAT or GRE score is more representative than another. If you believe this to be true in your case, please explain.

Your statement may not exceed one (1) double-spaced page with a minimum 11-point font size and 1-inch margins.

Resume

Required

Resume

Please provide a résumé detailing any significant vocational, avocational, extracurricular, or community activities; graduate work or degree; honors and awards; any service in the Armed Forces; publications, or other information that you believe the Admissions Committee should consider in evaluating your application. Please specify dates of employment, location (city and state), job descriptions, and major areas of responsibility. Your résumé may not exceed three (3) pages. Résumé or education gaps may be explained in a separate addendum.

Character and Fitness

Required

Character and fitness

Character and Fitness Required

Character and fitness

Have you, within the last 10 years, been arrested, cited or ticketed for, charged with any violation of the law; or, have you ever been convicted of an offense, placed on probation, or granted deferred adjudication or any type of pretrial diversion; or, are you currently the target or subject of a grand jury governmental agency investigation? If you answer "yes", please provide a full explanation that includes a narrative description, cause, and outcome of each reported event, and upload the attachment.
Have you ever been dropped, suspended, warned, placed on academic or disciplinary probation, disciplined, expelled, requested or advised to resign from any postsecondary school, college, university, professional school, or law school? If you answer "yes", please provide a full explanation that includes a narrative description, cause, and outcome of each reported event, and upload the attachment.

Level up your application with 7Sage Admissions

Application requirements

Confirm action