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HELP: Degree to Which Personal Statement Anecdote is Necessary

321raymoney123321raymoney123 Alum Member
edited September 2019 in Law School Admissions 49 karma

Help — How necessary is it to follow a specific anecdote throughout your entire personal statement? I have been writing mine about a disability that I have, and I start it off with an anecdote of me at the doctor’s office for the intro paragraph, but I largely depart from that for the rest of the essay in order to describe how that disability affected me negatively for years, then how I learned to cope with that disability while still feeling as though it would only ever hold me back, and finally how I discovered that the coping mechanism I learned in response to my disability is actually a skill that is underutilized in law and one that I plan to use in my legal career.

I feel like my essay is pretty good (I’m not finished writing it, but in terms of where I see it going), but it seems as though every personal statement I read follows a singular anecdote throughout the essay. Also, 7Sage recommends that you focus on a scene (specific point in time), rather than a summary (span of time), but I don’t see how I can squeeze my idea into a specific anecdote/point in time. Help please:(

Keep Format or Change Format
  1. Attempt to format my personal statement to fit an anecdote through, or keep my current idea?5 votes
    1. Keep current format
      80.00%
    2. Reformat with anecdote through
      20.00%
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