5. NAIL THE ESSAYS

Finished feeling like a social security number, a GPA, and an LSAT score? Luckily, admissions folks are curious about the non-number parts of your life. Your essays mark an important departure from the data-driven forms of your application, making them the place where you show your true colors. On that note, we'd like to offer you some surefire tips to writing the best essays to sell yourself (not in that way, you perv!... that doesn't come until after you've gone to law school ).

The personal statement
Other essays
Expanded resume

The personal statement

Ahhhthe personal statement. This is basically the school's way of saying, "Using 12-point font and 1 -inch spacing, tell us a story about yourself in less that two pages." There are no guidelines, no real content requirements; you just have to tell the school about you and why they should accept you. Here are some potential angles:

  • A good way to begin tackling this little gem is to think of some concrete examples that illustrate the point you'd like to make. Want to paint yourself as a civic-minded individual? Write about your experiences tutoring and fundraising for charity campaigns. The same admissions officers who read your personal statement will also see your transcripts and your resume (if you include one; we recommend that you do). So you don't need to reiterate everything you've done; rather, explain some of the really good stuff.

  • You may also, if necessary, use the personal statement as a way to explain a semester of particularly poor academic performance, or an LSAT score that inadequately represents you as a candidate.

  • If you've done anything particularly interesting (worked in an African village for a year, worked as a CIA agent, grew up in foster care, etc.), then play it up in your essay. Those intriguing personal stories really jump out.

  • No matter what, NEVER start out with "I want to go to law school because" It's the most boring way to start an essay. Some poor reasons to go to law school include "Because I love L.A. Law," "Because so many injustices exist in the world, that I feel morally compelled to solve them," and "I want to make millions." These are all trite, boring, and say nothing about you as a person. No matter what you write about, make sure that it speaks about you as an individual.

Check out some great personal statement tips here, and take a look at these sample questions. Whatever you write about, you must be careful to not have any typos or stupid mistakes, and you should give it to a couple friends to read over to make sure it makes sense.

Other essays

Some schools ask you to complete other essays with your application. Show these writing samples the same love and affection you showered on your personal statement, but most importantly, STICK TO THE QUESTION YOU'RE ASKED! We're serious on this one. If you are asked, for example, to describe a mistake you made and what you learned from it, do NOT babble on and on about you're the lesson you learned when you heard your roommate's boyfriend's brother cry about the exam he slept through. Trust us, no one will care. Just write honestly, clearly, and (somewhat) creatively, and you'll do just fine. You may even feel compelled to complete some schools' optional essays (no harm in showing initiative).

Expanded resume

If you participate in 65 extracurricular activities, work 4.9 jobs, or are otherwise involved in a jillion things at once, you may wish to include this information via an expanded resume. Unlike the resume you'd use when you're trying to get a job, the expanded resume is more like a "CV," meaning it can be longer than a page. It should be a forum for fleshing out explanations of projects and activities more in-depth than a bullet point and three words can indicate. Don't repeat any information found on your transcript, and don't rehash details from your personal statement. Instead, use the space to explain any important research you're conducting, specific duties you perform at a job or internship, or even any phenomenally cool interests. This is a particularly good idea for people who are not going straight from undergraduate school into law school; you may have won awards earlier in your life, or had some publications, or had some interesting jobs that you wouldn't put on a standard resume. All of these things give you personality and make you stand out in the admission committee's mind, so throw them in.

And there you have it - our tips for gaining admission into law school. We wish you the best of luck and if you don't get in, please, don't sue us, you bloodsucker.