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Why is it so hard to write your law school personal statement?

Why is the personal statement so hard to start? How do you put your heart and soul, and 20+ years of life, into a two-page double-spaced document?

The personal statement is often a source of many starts and stops for the law school applicant. I imagine the writer, in a non-digital world, with a wastebasket of discarded drafts next to their desk. Now that I have dated myself, let me see if I can help you get started without any more stops.

Your personal statement is a statement of purpose

First, the personal statement should be two pages, double-spaced, and closely proofread. I know, it is hard to condense a life into that short a document. But the personal statement is not a memoir; it is a statement. A statement of purpose. And your purpose is to attend law school and pursue a legal education and career. Thus, if you are not given a directive to write about something specific, like what is your favorite color, the personal statement should answer the question, “Why do you want to go to law school?” The narrative should be clear and proofread as many times as possible, and then once more before submitting it.

When working with applicants who are stuck and have yet to get through a draft of the personal statement, I begin with a conversation. The conversation is centered around getting to know the applicant and then, bam, I ask, “So why do you want to go to law school?” As simple as that. The applicant usually then articulates the reasons for putting themselves through the stress of the application process. “I have been working for a couple of years and enjoy the work that I do but realize that I am missing the knowledge and skills necessary to really affect change.” Or: “I come from a family of lawyers and have grown up knowing what I want to do.” Or: “I have seen firsthand the injustice in the world and want to give voice to the voiceless.” These are some common threads, but everyone has a “reason.” It may take a couple of follow-up questions to really tease out the answer, but your own narrative exists, and it really can fit in two pages!

Your personal statement is NOT a resume

I know that you have over two decades of life to share with the committee, but again, the personal statement is not a memoir nor a recitation of your resume. You should be submitting your resume separately so the committee will also get that information. Perhaps your personal statement will share insight into an aspect of your resume, but it should not read like, “Well sophomore year I interned at X law firm and it was great and that lead to another internship at Y Public Defender’s office but it wasn’t until I took that job as a paralegal at Z firm that I really knew what I wanted to do.”

That is all great, but the committee saw all that on the resume so why not provide more insight into your experiences? Don’t waste valuable essay real estate. Dig deeper and go beyond the banal, superficial, obvious, or already known. What motivated you to try the first internship in the first place? How did one summer job lead to another? Why was the work at Z so transforming? Peel back the layers of your motivations and lessons learned to develop an insightful, engaging personal statement that combines anecdote with analysis.

You have two pages to showcase your ability to convey a point: why you want to go to law school. Be clear and concise. That personal statement should also showcase your ability to write and proofread your work. Let your narrative shine, leaving the reader knowing that this applicant is confident in their decision to attend law school and has solid reasoning and writing ability. Now get started!

Do you need help crafting your law school personal statement so that it showcases your greatest strengths and abilities? Check out our Law School Admissions Consulting & Editing Services and work one-on-one with an expert advisor who will help you get ACCEPTED.

Christine Carr is a Harvard graduate with over 15 years of admissions experience, including nine years as Associate Director of Admissions at Boston University School of Law. She has read over 10,000 personal statements and counseled thousands of prospective applicants through the application process Want Christine to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch!

Related Resources:

• The Law School Admissions Guide: 8 Tips for Success, a free guide
• 5 Law School Personal Statement Mistakes to Avoid
• Your Law School Personal Statement Needs to Be Personal!

Tags: Law School Admissions

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The importance of defining your MBA goal

The Importance of Defining Your MBA Goal

You should never view your goals as an afterthought when it comes to your MBA application. Admissions members view MBA goals as lead-role performers, so you certainly shouldn’t push them to a supporting role as you prepare to apply to MBA programs.

What is an MBA Goal?

Your goal should focus on something you want to achieve or do (and not just something you’re interested in studying). For the sake of defining your MBA goal, be sure that you relate your desired achievements or actions to a specific function within a specific industry. You may need to call into play certain external factors such as geography, and certainly you need to take into account your personal experience, talents, passions, and skills; but what you should not do is consider TV personalities (I want to be like X character), short-lived fads, or the desires of your parents/friends/significant other. Your goals also shouldn’t be completely money-driven.

This is not to say that you can’t change careers – in fact, about 50% of MBA students are career changers- so as long as you present your goals in a credible, realistic way (connecting your experience, talents, passions, and skills to a future in a new industry), then there’s no reason to be shy about your aspirations in a new field.

Defining Your MBA Goal

To define your MBA goal, first look inward and address each of these three points:

Consider what you enjoy and in what areas you excel.
Are you a people person or would you rather work behind the scenes? If you’ve been selling lemonade since you were six, your goal may be to be the top salesperson in a Fortune 500 company. Do you have an interest in medicine as well as business? Working in the biomedical field may be just the thing for you. Think about what will make you excited in five or ten years.
Explore lessons learned from your off-the-job achievements to learn more about your professional life.
What do you love to do in your free time? Do you enjoy travel? Is there a special organization that you volunteer for? Examine what you take away from these experiences. Look at contributions you’ve made to that organization. Have you found new ways to fundraise for them, or implemented better ways to keep records? Take some time to think about what you’re passionate about. Your MBA goal can be found there.
Clarify and mine your interests and past experiences.
You’ve explored what you enjoy and where you excel. You’ve looked at where you spend your free time and what you’re passionate about. Use this information and come up with your MBA goal. It may be what you’ve thought all along, or it may be something totally new. Maybe the corporate position you always thought you wanted isn’t what you want after all.

Now look outward and consider these three items:

Examine professional paths that will take advantage of your strengths and give you more of what you find satisfying.
Explore which positions will help fulfill you professionally as well as personally. You will excel much easier in a job that fulfills you. No one wants to look back in 10 or 15 years and realize that they hated their professional life. Now is the time to crystalize your goal and look toward a successful, satisfying future.
Only consider MBA programs that support your career goals and provide an exciting, compelling educational environment for you.
You’ll be making a commitment of 1-2 years, and a significant amount of money, to get your MBA. Be sure the place you’ll be spending this time and money is the place that will give you the educational background for the career that you want, but also will be a place you want to be. If you’re a “city” person, a more rural environment isn’t the place for you. Do you do better in a group setting, or are you an independent learner? These are just a few of the questions you should answer when looking at MBA programs. The educational aspect is important, but you will learn much more in an environment where you feel comfortable.
Establish specific short-term and long-term goals you want to achieve during your education and in your post-MBA years.
You should think in terms of short-term, intermediate, and long-term goals. Your short-term goal could be completing your MBA in the next two years. When establishing your intermediate and long-term goals you should consider what your ideal position would be, and in what industry you see yourself. These goals are not etched in stone, and can change as you transition from one stage to the next. Try to be specific in terms of job titles and companies you would like to work for.

Be Careful of These Mistakes

After having read through all the great material that has come before this, there is no chance your goals will have any issues (of course!), but there are a few common mistakes that still deserve some attention.

Having a goal that is too vague. Saying you want to go into “consulting, investment banking, or product management” telegraphs that you don’t know what you want to do.
If you don’t have reasonably defined direction, an MBA admissions team will think you are not sufficiently focused on what you want to do with the degree, or might just be going after the degree for a resume credential. Adcoms are very suspicious in this type of situation, as they only want to admit people who will be fully committed to the experience while in the program, not just going through the motions.

The career management team would similarly not look favorably upon someone who came in and started taking interview slots for everything under the sun – consulting, operations, finance, and brand management, for example. Recruiters will be similarly unimpressed with your lack of ability to tell them why you are interested in the type of job you are interviewing for. So all around, a bad situation. And one that rightly leads to rejection
Having a goal that is too specific. On the flip side, you don’t want to have a goal that is too specific, either! If you say you want to work at one particular company in one particular job, an admissions committee will be concerned about admitting you because they think you might blame the school if you are unable to achieve that too narrow goal. You want to have a good direction for your goal, “work in strategy consulting at a company like McKinsey or Bain,” for example, but not so precise that it may well be unattainable.
Having a goal that is not well-aligned with the strengths of the school. While most top business schools have solid representation in all of the basic areas of business, some have greater strengths in particular areas. If you focus your goal in an area that is not a particular strength of the school (let’s say data analytics at a program that doesn’t have a strong program in data analytics, as that is a newer subject area), the school will think you haven’t done enough proper research on the school (never something you want an admissions committee to think!) and/or they will have concern the school will not be equipped to help you achieve your goal, which would lead to your overall dissatisfaction of the program.
Having a goal that an MBA program can’t help you achieve. Are you interested in a career in astrophysics and might eventually need management skills? Then an MBA program is not the right option for you at this time. If your short and medium term goals will most likely lead you to a technical job, it makes sense to either move straight into that field or do so with a master’s degree in that area first. At some point further in your career when you may need management skills, a part-time or EMBA program might be the perfect option for you, but getting business management skills first just doesn’t make sense, as you won’t have the opportunity to apply them until further down the line, and they might get rusty in the interim.
For international students: Having a goal that might present visa issues. This is a thorny subject, but H1B visas can be very difficult to come by, and something recruiters coming on campus may have difficulty accommodating. As an international student, it makes sense to lay out your goals to show that you would be satisfied achieving them in your home country/region. If it is your dream of working at Goldman Sachs in NYC, by all means work to achieve that once you are in the program (recognizing that it could be a long shot), but don’t lay that out as your goal beforehand, as admissions committees will once again be concerned about their ability to help you achieve it.

At the end of the day, a school’s goal is to have as many satisfied graduates as possible, which is achieved through a positive experience while in the program, and successful career placement at the end. Make sure you do your part up front to convince the admissions committee that there is an excellent chance you will be satisfied with your career outcome when you graduate by putting together solid goals!

What’s Your Goal?

A strong, clear MBA goal should guide your admissions research and your choice of target schools. Expressing your goals clearly in your essays will help show adcoms why you belong in their programs. Defining your goal is an important first step in the MBA admissions process, and we can help. Learn more about our MBA Admissions Services here.