Law School Personal Statement Examples Why You Should Never Even Read Them
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OK, I understand that applying to law school can be a frightening proposition and that you are looking for all the help you can get - and that's why you are scouring the internet and the book stores for
law school personal statement examples.
Well stop it.
You don't need examples to show you how to write your law school personal statement. Each and every application you are completing tells you exactly what you need to know. The school has defined the rules, including how long the law school personal statement should be, what topics should be addressed, and frequently what topics should be avoided.
But, many ask, shouldn't I look at what others have done to give me an idea of how to do it? While this is often good advice - and is something I frequently do in my law practice - I fervently believe that it is something that should be avoided when it comes to the law school personal statement.
The main reason you should avoid reading law school personal statement examples is that they all look the same, and you run the very real risk of looking the same if you follow those examples. In every area of life the great reward go to the outstanding people - not the good, or even excellent performers. To be outstanding, you need to do things differently than every one else.
The problem is that everyone is scared to death of screwing up their law school application by not giving the admissions committee what they expect. This kind of thinking probably won't hurt you, because 99% of the law school personal statements they review are exactly the same. Such thinking will definitely, however, not help you because you cannot be outstanding if you look like everyone else.
Let's face it, if you are shooting for the moon and trying to get into a law school that is not going to accept you based on your grades and LSAT scores alone, then turning in a bland personal statement isn't going to do anything for you. You need to do something to set yourself apart, and the personal statement is one of the few areas you have an opportunity to do that.
I'm not recommending that you be crazy and violate the rules set down by the school, but I am recommending that you use those rules as your boundaries and fashion something truly personal, and different. By avoiding the same examples that every one else is reading you stand a better chance of falling in with the sheeple you are competing with.
Your goal is to get into a good law school and its my job to help you achieve that goal. One of the most important pieces of advice I can give is to encourage you to stand out, so make that personal statement yours and not someone elses.
This article may be freely reprinted or distributed in its entirety in any ezine, newsletter, blog or website. The author's name, bio and website links must remain intact and be included with every reproduction.
H. Jefferson, Jr. is an expert on on
law school admission, having applied to and been admitted by 11 of the top law schools in the United States. To learn more about the the techniques and strategies you can use to get into the law school of your choice, visit...
www.coverttactics.com,
Click Here To Order Covert Tactics Now
How to Get Into Law School Three Tips For the Brand new college student
I would have never bothered to read an article like this at a time when it would have mattered because, unfortunately, I didn't think about
how to get into law school, as early and often as I should have. Indeed, if you're already more than half way through undergraduate school, you may want to look for advice somewhere else.
If, however, you are one of those chosen few youngsters who know what you want to do in life years before you have any business knowing such things, then I've got a few words of advice that will help you get into the law school of your dreams.
Although much of this will seem obvious, please take it to heart and try to understand why following these tips can make your life much easier in the future.
Tip #1 - Your GPA
The premise of this article relies on the assumption that you haven't yet had the opportunity to screw up your college career yet. As such, you must make every effort to maximize your grade point average ("GPA") during your undergraduate years.
Others will lie to you, but the truth is that your GPA, coupled with your LSAT score, are the most important factors in determining your admissibility to whatever law school you choose. Let me put this another way - your GPA is much, much, much more important than where you go to school, what activities you participate in, what classes you take, who your grandpa is, etc.
So if you are going to undergraduate school for the sole or primary reason of going to law school, take classes and pursue majors in which you can excel. Your high GPA will make life much easier when it comes time to apply to law school.
Tip #2 - Start Preparing for the LSAT Now
About 60% of prospective law students will do nothing or next to nothing to prepare for the Law School Admission Test ("LSAT"). Another 39% or more won't do anything to prepare until six months or less before their test date. If you get started now, with literally years to perfect your understanding of the test and the time-proven strategies for maximizing your score, you have an excellent chance of getting a score that will virtually guarantee your admission to any school.
Anyone who has been through the process will tell you that the secret to success on the LSAT is practice. I'm not going to discuss the test and its components in any detail, but it is sufficient for me to say that the LSAT test does not test your knowledge of anything. Instead, it is designed to test your ability to think in certain ways.
Anyone can learn how to excel at thinking in these ways, but it takes lots of time and lots of practice. You shouldn't be surprised to learn that the few months before most people take the LSAT is a hectic time. In addition to preparing for the LSAT, you may be preparing your law school applications, finishing your final college courses, and rejoicing in the prospect of your impending graduation.
The result of all this is that even those who think they are preparing extensively aren't even coming close to practicing as much as you could if you start now. So my advice is that you begin reading all the practice materials you can, completing practice tests and even attending LSAT prep classes now.
Changing the way you think - or training yourself to think in a certain way - is a demanding and (biologically) a lengthy process. If you give yourself years of preparation you will demolish even your smartest competitors who have spent just weeks or months learning how the LSAT works.
Tip #3 - Do Interesting Things
In the event even your best efforts don't result in a 4.0 GPA and 175 of the LSAT, you will find yourself in need of the law school admission advice found in my book, Covert Tactics for Getting Into the Law School of Your Choice.
As you will learn, students without premier numbers are given an opportunity to plead their case for admission via a personal statement, interview and/or personal visit. When it comes time to make that case, you should have something interesting to say.
Thus, much as you should prepare for the LSAT now, you should begin gathering ideas for you personal statement now. Don't "volunteer" just for the sake of volunteering, but seek opportunities to do fascinating things that may - or may not - reinforce your desire to go to law school.
This article may be freely reprinted or distributed in its entirety in any ezine, newsletter, blog or website. The author's name, bio and website links must remain intact and be included with every reproduction.
H. Jefferson, Jr. is an expert on on
law school admission, having applied to and been admitted by 11 of the top law schools in the United States. To learn more about the the techniques and strategies you can use to get into the law school of your choice, visit...
www.coverttactics.com,
Click Here To Order Covert Tactics Now
Law School Rankings The Biggest Bunch of Bunk Since Un-sliced Bread
Although I understand that this can be very difficult to do, you must view the popular published
law school rankings, skeptically. These rankings are not only untrustworthy, but mislead students into thinking they need to attend a highly ranked school or they will be second rate lawyers do to their "substandard" law school education. This is simply not true.
What is true, in my opinion unfortunately, is that going to a highly ranked law school can have an enormous financial (note: NOT educational) impact on your early legal career. That is why I wrote Covert Tactics for Getting Into the Law School of Your Choice. As I explain in that book, however, even if you do not attend a highly ranked law school, you are not absolutely doomed to suffer professionally and financially for the rest of your life. Indeed, many times you may be well-served, both educationally and financially, by attending a lower ranked law school.
But back to law school rankings. In addition to a number of studies suggesting that the data underlying the rankings is inaccurate, due to schools trying to misrepresent the true data in order to achieve a higher ranking, it is impossible for any ranking to consider all of the relevant factors, which may vary from individual to individual.
Also problematic is the fact that most of the ranking are based, at least in part, on the subjective opinions of individuals at the various schools. Of course, such subjective opinions are likely to simply reinforce the historical opinions regarding the "top tier" law schools. Indeed, if you look at these rankings historically, you will find that they really haven't changed much over the years.
The reason that it is important that you understand the invalidity of the rankings is that you should understand that the quality of your legal education is likely to be nearly as good, and in some respects may be better, at the University of Idaho as opposed to Harvard.
Depending on who you are, you may be much better off, for a variety of reasons, attending even a very low ranked school. This may be the case even if you have the opportunity to attend a higher-ranked school.
For example, if your intent is to establish a small town practice in rural South Dakota immediately after law school, it may be unwise to attend Stanford Law School over the University of South Dakota School of Law.
Why? Let me give you three good reasons, though there are likely many more. First, you are not going to be particularly highly paid in rural South Dakota, regardless of where you attended law school. As a Stanford Law graduate you are likely to either be saddled with a high debt load or have spent a significant amount of your savings getting through school. Although few law schools are cheap, you should carefully consider whether it is worth spending and extra $100,000 to have a fancy name on your wall.
Second, as a small-town practitioner, you are going to be very reliant on relationships with other attorneys, the business community, and potential clients in general. Spending three years in Palo Alto, far away from the center of your future universe, will do very little to develop those relationships, so law school rankings are virtually meaningless.
Finally, the education isn’t going to be much better at Stanford than at USD. Believe me, in writing this I have prepared myself for the inevitable barrage of criticism that will inevitably be hurled my way. I say this with confidence, however, because I know lawyers from a wide variety of law schools and find a relatively equal distribution of idiots among alumni from top 50 and bottom 50 schools. It really depends on what you are willing to put into it – not what they give you.
There are even some law schools not approved by the American Bar Association that may be worth considering in limited situations. Depending on what you want to do, and the particular laws of the jurisdiction where you intend to practice, a non-ABA accredited school may be a worthwhile choice.
At the end of the day, you need to make a wise choice that you will be happy with for the rest of your life. Don’t put a school on your list just because it is a highly-ranked law school or fits a formula or because you think it will look good on your resume.
Even if we find a cure for cancer in the next decade, you are not likely to live much more than 90 years on this earth. Don’t spend 3.5% of it in the wrong place.
This article may be freely reprinted or distributed in its entirety in any ezine, newsletter, blog or website. The author's name, bio and website links must remain intact and be included with every reproduction.
H. Jefferson, Jr. is an expert on on
law school admission, having applied to and been admitted by 11 of the top law schools in the United States. To learn more about the the techniques and strategies you can use to get into the law school of your choice, visit...
www.coverttactics.com
Click Here To Order Covert Tactics Now
LSAT Logic Games How Can This Have Anything to Do With Law School?
Here's a typical LSAT Logic Games question:
Nine housewives - Alice, Barbara, Carol, Delores, Evelyn, Francis, Gertrude, Hillary, and Ingrid - will be shopping at Safeway this week. They may shop on either Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. Exactly three housewives will shop on each of these days. The following conditions apply:
1. Barbara will shop on Tuesday.
2. Carol and Francis must shop on the same day.
3. Alice and Evelyn must shop on the same day.
4. Gertrude and Hillary cannot shop on the same day.
5. Barbara and Ingrid cannot shop on the same day.
6. Carol and Ingrid cannot shop on the same day.
If Alice shops on Tuesday, and Carol shops on Monday, which of the following must be true?
A. Gertrude shops on Monday.
B. Gertrude shops on Wednesday.
C. Hillary shops on Monday.
D. Delores shops on Wednesday.
E. Francis shops on Wednesday.
I'm not going to waste all of our time by explaining why, but the correct answer is D (Delores shops on Wednesday). I have neither the patience nor the expertise to teach you how to reach this solution, but if you want to excel on the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) you had better be able to answer any question like that within 30-40 seconds.
Is this really possible? Yes, by seeking professional instruction and taking hundreds of LSAT practice tests, you can master the
LSAT Logic Games,
Which brings us back to the question posted in the subtitle: How can this have anything to do with law school?
Well, I don't have any inside information, but the LSAT in general is designed to address skills and abilities that are considered vital for success in law school (note, not in the legal profession). The Logic Games section in particular addresses the prospective law student's ability to comprehend complicated factual scenarios, analyze arguments and reach reliable conclusions - largely by elimination weaker positions.
I can attest that these skills are indeed important to your law school success. Obviously, facts like those in the question above have nothing to do with law school or legal practice. The intellectual ability to deal with such situations, however, is absolutely necessary.
The thing about law school, and the LSAT, that is fortunate for those of us who may be less-than-brilliant, is that everything you need to know is in the question. You don't need to know the quadratic equation, the elements in the periodic table or any other background information. You must simply analyze the information you are given and reach the best conclusion.
The practice of law is very similar, but we'll get to that in a few years...
This article may be freely reprinted or distributed in its entirety in any ezine, newsletter, blog or website. The author's name, bio and website links must remain intact and be included with every reproduction.
H. Jefferson, Jr. is an expert on on
law school admission, having applied to and been admitted by 11 of the top law schools in the United States. To learn more about the the techniques and strategies you can use to get into the law school of your choice, visit...
www.coverttactics.com.
Click Here To Order Covert Tactics Now
Law School Requirements What it takes, in a nutshell, to Apply to law school
Every law school has a set of requirements, what I have referred to as the
law school requirements, that are the bare minimum standards that all students - no matter how "special their situation" - must meet. For the most part, every law school shares the same objective and subjective requirements, though the quality of these requirements may vary from school to school.
The first law school requirement for essentially all law students is that they obtain an undergraduate bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university before attending law school. In connection with obtaining this degree, the graduate must submit a transcript to his or her prospective law school so that the school can evaluate the student's grade point average ("GPA").
Next, every prospective law student must take the Law School Admission Test ("LSAT"). As with the GPA, different schools may have different standards when it comes to their minimum required LSAT score, but every school requires that a score be submitted.
The above factors constitute the objective factors that every law school will use to evaluate law school candidates. Fortunately, most law schools do not make law school admission decisions based solely on objective criteria unless your GPA and LSAT scores are exceptionally high.
Many of the subjective factors are not requirements, but two generally are. These are the personal statement and recommendation letters. The law school application personal statement gives prospective law students the opportunity to demonstrate their individuality, address deficiencies or other problems in his or her application and, of course, demonstrate writing ability.
Similarly, letters of recommendation give the law school admissions committee the opportunity to gather extrinsic information regarding the law school candidate from someone besides the prospective candidate.
There are other subjective requirements that may be considered by a law school in making an admissions decision, such as diversity issues and familial relationships with the school, but such matters are not required to be considered for admission.
The above items are the law school requirements, but the greatest success goes to the law school applicants who go above and beyond the law school requirements and give the law school admissions committee something extra. The greatest rewards in life go to the outstanding, and when it comes to
getting into law school, its no different.
This article may be freely reprinted or distributed in its entirety in any ezine, newsletter, blog or website. The author's name, bio and website links must remain intact and be included with every reproduction.
H. Jefferson, Jr. is an expert on on
law school admission, having applied to and been admitted by 11 of the top law schools in the United States. To learn more about the the techniques and strategies you can use to get into the law school of your choice, visit...
www.coverttactics.com
Click Here To Order Covert Tactics Now
