if writing very unusual circumstances in personal statement- - - do I also need diversity statement?

shesovertheedge

My personal statement is going to cover the following:

foster care -> drop out in 9th grade - > community college - > work with youth -> graduate college -> social work career -> masters of social work -> law school

Should I also discuss these factors in a diversity statement or will the personal statement be enough???

Im guessing there aren't too many 9th grade drop outs applying to law school.

Suggestions appreciated.

Chipster Study

I have been reading all of the how to get into law school books. If it were I, would do personal statement on something you learned when you working with youth or in your social work career. You make your personal statement like a short, short story - a narrative about specific day in your life or an event. You put the dropout to law school stuff in a diversity statement, IMHO

Chipster Study

P.S. you sound like a badass. Good for you.

studyingandrestudying

Will you be a first-generation law and/or college student?

shesovertheedge

Well no not technically...my mom went to community college for a few semesters

taschasp

@"Chipster Study" said:
I have been reading all of the how to get into law school books. If it were I, would do personal statement on something you learned when you working with youth or in your social work career. You make your personal statement like a short, short story - a narrative about specific day in your life or an event. You put the dropout to law school stuff in a diversity statement, IMHO

Or, in theory, you could do the opposite: keep what you've written as a personal statement (if you intended/wrote it as such), and then write a diversity statement that goes more deeply into one of those parts of your life that you might have not spent as much time talking about in your personal statement. But I think both ways could totally work.

For example, my personal statement was usually* about how my experiences as a union organizer made me passionate about legal advocacy and ultimately deciding to go to law school. My diversity statement was usually* about my experience working in a sweatshop and organizing a union with my coworkers. The caveat is that in my case, I didn't mention that experience at all in my personal statement, so there was no redundancy; but they tied together nicely to give the admissions officers a thorough understanding of what motivated me to go to law school, and what kind of unique experiences I would bring to their community as a student.

*Note that I said "usually", because I tailored my essays to each school based on my research on that school. The way I see it, wherever I go, I'm going to be a slightly different student with a slightly different plan because I'll want to take advantage of whatever I feel are the strengths of that particular school. And I also want the school to pay attention to the parts of me and my story that they might find most compelling to them from their vantage point. So for a few schools, I actually used my "diversity statement" as my personal statement, and a modified version of my personal statement as my diversity statement. And I wrote something direct and specific about the schools I applied to in most of my personal statements (tying my experiences and motivations for going to law school to their school in particular). Doing all this may or may not be feasible depending on how much time you have to spend on your essays, but its a good idea to think about each school and what they are looking for that may be distinct from other schools, in addition to thinking broadly about what your essays should entail for all of your applications. Just my two cents!

shesovertheedge

Thanks so much. You have definately given me some ideas!!