How to Write a Personal Statement for Law School?

Personal Statement for Law School-What It is and How to Write it?

What is a Personal Statement?

As the term reflects, a personal statement is a reflection of yourself that you would like others to see. If someone asks you to speak about yourself in front of a group of people for 5 minutes, what are you going to say? Perhaps talk about your qualifications, your current preoccupation, your interests and finally what you would like to do in the future. This is exactly what goes into a personal statement but with a little bit of panache. Your essay has to be written in style, your style. There are many websites that help you do the same but it will be unfair to pick up ideas from a few websites and collate them to form your statement since it is not yours, it has not been worded with you in mind. Just as every person is unique, every personal statement must be different.

Your writing is a collection of all the information that you would like the law school to know about you. Let’s take for example a law school aspirant who also has an aptitude for music, is writing a description about himself, and he talks repeatedly about his musical interests. Thus, when assessing his statement, the assessors would think that the student is looking for graduation in music instead of law. Remember, it is good to talk about your interests but you should know how to play it down and subtly put the point across that you are a versatile person but are mainly focused towards a full-time law career.

10 Easy Points to Remember While Penning Down Your Essay

• Write your own testimonials, it always makes a difference.
• Make points right in the beginning. This way you will not miss out anything that you want to talk about.
• Your essay is not your entire life story. Just like you write an essay which has an introduction, a body and conclusion that basically weave around a single most important factor, you need to weave your personal statement in the same way such that it revolves around the single most important factor which is your interest in law. Thinking and writing in these terms may be helpful.
• Be crisp in what you say and in the manner in which you say it. Being verbose can be suicidal.
• Be very honest and accurate in the information you provide.
• Do not let your writing run over many pages. Keep it short, preferably close to 350-500 words.
• Do not read statements of others, like those of friends or the ones found on websites etc. It may bias your thoughts.
• It is always great to have a second or third opinion, show it to your parents and teachers or a friend whose opinion you value. Evaluate their comments and make changes if you feel the criticism is justified.
• Do not underplay or overplay yourself. This means that you should not be boastful despite the number of achievements you may have. Boasting is not a virtue. If you do have stuff to write in your personal letter; do it without mincing your words. Write straight to the point, this method always works.
• Revise your statement several times before you send it. Check for grammatical errors, punctuation, spacing etc. Make your essay as error-free as possible.