I wrote my personal statement, but I have gotten feedback from my teachers that it is too descriptive about my heritage/the story and not so much why I want to go to law school. It is roughly 50% story and then only 50% why law. My teachers recommend I cut back on the story/narrative part. Is that correct? I was reading some PS examples and they sounded pretty narrative.
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It's hard to tell without looking at the document, but the main goal of a personal statement should be to explain why you want to go to law school. That eventual end point ("And this is why I want to be a lawyer!") should be rooted in some combination of your personal, professional, and/or academic background. The exact combo of those factors will be unique for each person since everyone has different backstories.
But with that said, as long as all the info about your personal background is relevant to the eventual "and that's why I want to go to law school," then you're fine. But if you're going off on tangents that aren't really important to the Why Law (ex: "the best Christmas gift I ever got was a Nintendo Switch the year that it came out.... And that's why I want to be a tax lawyer"), you should cut those bits so that you can keep the focus on Why Law.
Thank you! this was very helpful
I think story makes sense if it ultimately serves the question of why you want to go to law school. If you start writing a narrative about how you were doing research to write a novel about pork, and then the end of your essay is ‘I want to be an immigration lawyer,’ and there’s no connective tissue logically connecting these ideas, then yeah, that’s something you should rethink.