Law School Admissions Essay II

I’m presuming that you’ve already read the last part in this series, where I talked about the three essential elements of a successful law school admission essay. If you haven’t, please click the link above and check it out yourself.

In the previous article, I talked about how writing/grammar skills, motivation, and the “personality” that you show in the admission essay becomes crucial to your success in getting into a good law school.

In this second part, I’ll talk about the three things that can further increase your chances of success:

1. Getting Personal

This sounds straightforward enough: plug in personal details into your essay to draw the admission committee’s attention.

Why?

Because generic essays, if nothing, make for a boring reading. Plus, they don’t give the committee any insight into the mind and personality of the candidate they’re looking at.

Try and write about your own life experiences. Events and instances that brought about some change in your viewpoint, your life direction. I know that many few of you have actually had a truly life changing experience, but nevertheless, try and focus on events that left a lasting impression, if not life changing one. Don’t write fiction; be honest. Don’t be overtly melodramatic or sentimental, but do convey emotion and feeling in your essay, not mere facts.

An anecdote, a story, or a good description of a event can go a long way in helping the committee members connect with you. Once they feel they can understand and identify with you, they’ll be much more likely to view your application in a more sympathetic light.

2. Details

Ask any successful writer about their recipe for success, and you’ll invariably hear this: details, details, details.

To make anything stand out, interesting, to draw the reader in, it requires details. Generality kills interest, makes your writing mundane. To relive your experiences, the reader must know the details of an event.

For instance, say you want to begin your essay by narrating an event that happened to you over summer.

The generic, mundane essay would likely begin like this: On a summer evening, I picked up a book about a young man who had no sense of direction in his life. This book had a profound impact on me…

On the other hand, a strong, detailed essay might begin like this: On a warm summer evening, with the sun directly overhead and the heat refusing to die, I curled up on the sofa with a glass of cold iced tea and picked up a book about a disillusioned young man named Holden Caulfied and his ordeal of one night, when he struggled with issues of identity and direction. This book, Catcher in the Rye, had a profound impact on me.

Notice how differently the above two paragraphs read? They both convey the same idea: you read a book that left a lasting impression on you. The first one, however, left too many blanks in the reader’s mind about the intimate details of your situation.

In the second example, however, the reader knew that it was hot because the sun was directly overhead, and that you sat on the sofa and drank iced tea as you read Catcher in the Rye, and that you identified not with just a young man, but with a young man named Holden Caulfield.

A good essay, thus, is quite like a piece of good fiction: it tells you details, it makes the reader involve and imagjne himself in your place, it makes him sympathize with the character (you, i.e.).

3. Tell a Story

This again ties in with the two points above. To gain the reader’s attention, you must tell a story, not simply narrate facts.

The best method to integrate a story in your essay would be to narrate a story first, then to take  a step back and examine it in terms of what you learned from the story, what impact did it leave on you, and what you gathered from it.

Again, don’t be overly dramatic or gimmicky. Remember that you’re writing an essay, not a short story. Keep the story short and simple. Plug in the interesting details, leave out the mundane. Write, preferably, in the first person with a strong voice. Keep personal views out of the story (leave that for the analysis later).

You can begin an essay straightaway with a story. It has the advantage of beginning your essay with ‘action’ – a tried and tested method of grabbing the reader’s attention.

Don’t exaggerate to impress the reader. Be humble in your story, and most importantly, be honest and true to yourself.