I have a friend who is currently a 2L, he's helping me out with what to do. He told me to add a paragraph to my personal statement about why I specifically chose this law school to apply to, and to show I researched and actually care about this specific law school. He told me to do this for every law school I'm applying to.
Now my question is, should I heed his advice? Or not?
My own logic says to not include this in my personal statement because I have a very powerful + long story that led me to pursue a law degree. And I just want my statement to have that experience, the ways it affected and changed me, and then end with wanting to become a lawyer to prevent anyone else from going through my experiences (not in a "I wanna save the world" cliche type of way, it's more authentic)
Would love to hear y'alls opinions! Thanks.
4 comments
A lot of schools have a why x essay for this exact reason. In a case where they let you do that, I wouldn’t.
Some schools might ask you to. Off the top of my head, Berkeley does, though they also have a slightly longer personal statement than most schools.
In general though, I’d just use best judgment. If they have a why x, don’t.
@ShaneTrullo sounds good, thank you!
If you're already filling up two pages of your personal statement, you really don't have to go back and include this material. As other posters have mentioned, that's the job of that optional statement and it can also be something you mention in your addenda.
But for anyone who reads this post and is like "... so what about me if my PS is falling around 1.5 pages and I have nothing else to say...?", that's a completely reasonable time to bring school specific info into the personal statement.
And at a macro level, it's good for admissions officers to leave your application understanding your fit at their school. Sometimes it'll be clear. To use an easy example, maybe this is a law school in your home city or state. But other times, it may not be clear on the surface - ex: you have family in the area. In the case that it's not clear, that's the most important time to mention your reasons why you're interested in attending.
You should add it. Close to the ending can reduce to just 2 sentences find a program or value etc the school has says it resonates with you because of Y and then hit the conclusion and wrap up