Law School Admission Essay - Three Key Attributes
What do Law Schools try to find in application essays?
The admissions committee at any law school looks at your application (which includes transcripts, LSAT scores, recommendations, and personal statement), they essentially seek the solution to 1 single question: Can this person succeed only at that school, and will he actually produce a good lawyer upon graduating?
However, because the GST Admission 2021 committee members reach your essay, their focus shifts from objective to subjective analysis. For example, often admissions officers say that they look to the essays to believe they've come to know a real person, his personality and character. In this subjective setting, officers often say that they try to find someone they feel that they know, understand, and most importantly, spend three years of what the law states school with.
They are the three essential ingredients of a fruitful law school admission essay:
1. Writing/Communication Skills
A no-brainer in regards to admissions essays. As an attorney, you're expected to own above-par, even exceptional communication skills.
The admission essay, thus, is just a perfect platform to showcase these skills.
Obviously, your essay doesn't have to seem as the job of a future Pulitzer prize winning author, but as a future lawyer, judge, or politician. The capacity to present ideas skillfully is the primary to success in the legal profession, and good writing is a quite strong indicator of those communication skills.
At the J.D. level, good writing skills are expected in a candidate. A typo, just one grammatical mistake, a factual error - little, oblivious mistakes could run you an area at a law school. While a beautifully written essay won't singularly allow you to get in the law school, a badly written one might run you the admission.
The admissions officer basically looks at the essay and asks: Does the candidate have a powerful command of the English language? Solid writing style and organizational abilities?
Provide the solution to these questions, and you will have one foot inside the college door.
2. Motivation
The admissions committee expects your essay to answer a clear question: Why?
Why do you intend to apply to the college and not that college? Why do you consider you'll produce a good addition to our student body? Why do you consider you'll produce a good lawyer?
Quite simply, the committee is trying to find your motivation to engaging in what the law states school.
Did you decide on an impulse, or because you made a drunken bet with your friend that you have access to into law school. Or even you intend to impress your family, or perhaps its been a lifelong dream of yours to be an attorney.
Quite simply, your reasons for engaging in law school, thus, have to be strong enough to support your application. A drunken bet with friends won't actually cut it, nor will a synthetic reason like impressing family/girlfriend/etc.
What the law states school wants to know that you truly want to get inside, that you truly want to be a lawyer.
Your single, individual goal in the essay, thus, is to prove to the admissions officer that you belong for their school, that you've worked hard to have this far, and that you'll continue doing so once you obtain inside. That you're committed, motivated to be Juris Doctor from your chosen law school.
3. A Real Person
As stated earlier, above anything, the admissions committee members look for character and personality in the essay. Quite simply, the committee members want to believe that they're reading the private statement of a real, live human being.
The admissions committee hasn't seen you. They haven't ever spoken to you. What they find out about you is what is recorded in your transcripts, factual information in your application, and most importantly, what is written in your individual statement.
The non-public statement, thus, becomes the window to your personality, your character. Its how you keep in touch with the admissions officer, woo him, in fact. When asked, admissions officers will often offer you varied advice (be honest, be unique, etc.), that essentially means a very important factor: Be Yourself!
That is, in a way, the exact same advice you'd get while dating.
Imagine the plight of the admissions officers: thumbing through countless stacks of essays, all boring, all penned down mechanically. Then, when he comes across a beautifully crafted essay that speaks to him, connects to him, interests him, you can be sure that he will begin leaning in your favor.
Combine all these elements, and you will have a winner of a law school admissions essay on both hands, one that will charm the hardest of admissions committee and bag you a seat at that law school you've been eying since your undergrad days.