TELLING A STORY

You don’t need to chronicle your entire life in a personal statement. The connections among you, law school, and your topic of choice might not even be obvious. A simple, well-told vignette can still speak volumes about you as a person and as a prospective lawyer. The stories range from a few hours in length to broader looks at the development of a skill or other effort. Essays in this category recount stories from applicants’ lives, often with a literary flair that also serves to demonstrate an aptitude for the written word.

In recounting an anecdote, remember that your ultimate goal is to make a case for yourself as a law school applicant. You shouldn’t be making a case for your friend who stars in an interesting story. And you shouldn’t be making a case for your adroitness with ornate prose or punchy dialogue. First make sure the content reflects the message you aim to send. Then make sure your writing communicates it.

Ensuring that readers understand the meaning behind your story can prove tricky, too. Your audience isn’t a classroom of English students conducting meticulous literary analysis; it’s an admissions officer perusing a thick stack of essays. You shouldn’t dumb down your ideas or rely on phrasing like “this example shows that…” or “as this story demonstrates…” but your message should be clear and relatable. If it is, your story, even a brief glimpse spanning a few hours, will say a lot about who you are as a writer, thinker, and person.