Posting Personal Statements

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• 1 Like

  vanessa fisher Alum Member

  July 2017 edited July 2017 1084 karma

  Interesting questions
  With the plagiarism concern, I think Personal Statements are hard to plagiarize considering that each person has unique life experiences. In fact, if your essay was easy to plagiarize and could easily have another name on it, I'd be concerned that the essay itself is probably cliche or generic.

  Just my take, but I think the best personal statements are ones that highlight unique experiences, obstacles, etc. from your own life and go deep into them. People may get ideas from your essay for how to craft their own, but it will be more with style and structure than content, since no one can have had exactly your experience. Again, if you think another name could just be slapped onto your essay and submitted, I'd probably advise working on making the statement more original to who you are
• Seeking Perfection Alum Member

  July 2017 4428 karma

  @"vanessa fisher" said:
  Interesting questions
  With the plagiarism concern, I think Personal Statements are hard to plagiarize considering that each person has unique life experiences. In fact, if your essay was easy to plagiarize and could easily have another name on it, I'd be concerned that the essay itself is probably cliche or generic.

  Just my take, but I think the best personal statements are ones that highlight unique experiences, obstacles, etc. from your own life and go deep into them. People may get ideas from your essay for how to craft their own, but it will be more with style and structure than content, since no one can have had exactly your experience. Again, if you think another name could just be slapped onto your essay and submitted, I'd probably advise working on making the statement more original to who you are

  I think you are right with the caveat that the claimed experiences are practically unverifiable by the admissions committee. They aren't necessarily on your resume. For example, my main statement right now is about suffering from the symptoms of migraines. The value in the essay is largely in my change in perspective about how people experience pain and finally how that drives me to want to be a lawyer. Many people have migraines and although fewer people experience the strange symptoms that I get with them, anyone could claim to. Short of checking with my doctor Law Schools can't really check.

  I have even read personal statements about a topic as generic as the experience of being tall which was a suprisingly good essay. The experience is no where near as rare as his perspective on it. But once they have read the essay, anyone could claim to have had that perspective.

  That said. I agree that it is not a particularly compelling reason not to post them (since someone stealing my essay would have to worry even more than I do about theft being found out and being denied admission or later banned from the bar). That's why I am curious why people decide not to post them, but rather to swap them via private message or not to share them until they have been admitted?
• vanessa fisher Alum Member

  July 2017 edited July 2017 1084 karma

  @"Seeking Perfection"
  Yes, I see what you mean, although I do think the concern is probably a low one. Could always happen, but yeah I think more something for the thief to be worried about than you.

  Regarding why people don't share personal statements openly often. I think that is probably pretty explainable in that people get nervous sharing their writing. I've written for many years and had my writing ripped apart by critics in the past, so I've got a thick skin around it at this point. But for many people it's very tender, especially if it is an emotional or personal topic. It's not easy to put your writing out in public for a bunch of strangers to scrutinize
• Alex Alum Member ⭐

  July 2017 23929 karma

  @"vanessa fisher" said:
  Interesting questions
  With the plagiarism concern, I think Personal Statements are hard to plagiarize considering that each person has unique life experiences. In fact, if your essay was easy to plagiarize and could easily have another name on it, I'd be concerned that the essay itself is probably cliche or generic.

  Hmmm that's a really great point! It definitely helped to quell any anxiety I had over it. I think my PS is so unique to my life someone would have to Talented Mr. Ripley me to even take a sentence from it.

  I think there's a lot to gain from getting online edits via swaps and posting on forums. You can always delete/edit after you're happy with what edits you receive. Just keep in mind that most people don't know shit from shinola about admissions and are just parroting what they've heard other people say.

  I've noticed this a lot when it comes to personal statement edits. I've seen people with promising topics who were discouraged from writing about them because a random person who knows very little about admissions told them something that is patently false. So just keep that in mind. I truly think spending money on an admission's editor like @"David.Busis" is worth it. I feel it's like analogous to not to hire a lawyer if you get into trouble if you don't take advantage of professional help. At least read some of the admissions literature by actual admissions professionals. Much of it can be found in the LSAT Ultimate + package in the Admission course part.