March 7, 2019

The Ultimate Law School Personal Statement Resource List

In the midst of the application season, one of the most common questions we receive is about crafting personal statements. Over the years, we’ve assembled an impressive array of free resources for students. If you’re still struggling with finalizing your statement, you may find that one of the following tools helps you put everything in place. These tools cover everything from how to select a topic to avoiding common writing pitfalls. Let’s take a look at what we have.

Personal Statement Seminar

I’ve been working with students on personal statements for over 20 years, and I use that experience to talk about how the admissions committee views your personal statement, what they are looking for in your essay, and, perhaps most importantly, how to avoid the common mistakes that so many essays include. To help drive the ideas home, I pulled segments from essays I’ve seen in the past—some that were wildly successful and others that regrettably pushed the application onto the law school scrap heap. Watch the archived recording of this 1.5 hour seminar here.

You might also enjoy the Secrets of the Law School Admissions Process Webinar. In this webinar I cover the major application elements – including personal statements, GPA, recommendations, and more – and give clarity on how to make each aspect shine as bright as possible.

Some Key Blogs

Here are some of the best posts about writing your personal statement:

Podcasts

We also speak on this topic in our Podcast! Tune in for updates in the LSAT and Law School Admissions world.

Our Personal Statement Blog Series

A few years ago, our former head of admissions put together a blog series on various aspects of creating a strong personal statement. Her advice is still spot on.

The Admissions Free Help Area

As part of our regular LSAT Free Help Area, we devote an entire sub-section to free law school Admissions resources. Our free LSAT and law school areas are the most comprehensive on the web, and there is a wealth of information to assist you with your application. Of particular note is our Law School Admissions Guide: Creating a Killer Application, which contains advice from selected admissions experts. There’s no doubt that the advice in here can help you create a better essay and a better application.

Law School Admissions Consulting Programs

Of course, sometimes even the best free resources and all the time you can muster won’t quite turn your essay into a diamond. If you’ve tried everything and still feel dissatisfied, turn to one of our experts for professional help and consider one of our consulting programs. These programs allow you to work one-on-one with an admissions expert who can help you forge the best possible essay and application.

Recorded Discussions of the Law School Essay

Over on the PowerScore YouTube and Vimeo channels, we serve up a 9-part series on the law school admissions process. Part 6 of that series details the personal statement, and it’s a good introduction to where the statement fits inside your entire application.

If you have a question about the personal statement, please feel free to ask me about it in the comments section below, or post it over on our Forum.

Anna
October 12, 2017 at 7:15pm
Hello! First, thank you for your course. After reading 3 Bibles I improved my score from 138 to 152!!! I am going to retake LSAT in December but I am happy with my current result. I would greatly appreciate it if you kindly give me some feedback on my personal statement. Thank you very much.
April 2014. Dreams come true. I am a good paid lawyer in the capital of Russia. I have already made more money then I paid for 5 years of my legal education. I won a lot of trials and got salary raised three times in two years. But something was missing. I thought it was religion. During 5 years of Law School and 2 years of work I hardly ever was thinking of God and soul. Since in Russia we would say “Higher in Mountains Closer to God”, I decided to go to the Himalayan mountains for three weeks.
After considering all kind of opportunities I choose Everest Base Camp Trek in Nepal. On that trek we were walking 8-9 hours on the narrow ways approximately 1 meter wide and even share it sometimes with the yaks’ herds. We slept in the rooms with the temperature sometimes below 30 faregates. We were happy to be able to get a hot shower once in 5-7 days. While dealing with weariness and lack of oxygen, we had to fight the symptoms of altitude sickness. But every day we were going higher and higher until reached Max-Altitude 18,192ft. It was breathtaking in many ways. Surrounded by dozens of snow glaciers mount Everest was flooded with sunlight.
In our group, we had four people. Three girls and one man. He was from Morgantown, WV. Those three weeks in mountains we spend together and became good friends. In a month after we all went back home he came to Russia with a short visit. After two more month I went to the USA and have never left. On March 23, 2015 we got married and on September 17, 2016 our son was born. If you believe that God is Love then Russian adage is correct as well. I went high in mountains and I found that missing point and my big love.
Three years ago, I left my country, my family and my job. And even I can leave without the first two I can’t not to be a lawyer. I can talk about my law experience for hours and never get tired of it. I bought my first LSAT preparation book before I can speak any English. It took me three years to study English, pass TOEFL and LSAT. Now I am applying to American Law School. I believe that dream come true.

Dave Killoran
October 15, 2017 at 5:55pm
Hi Anna,
Thanks for the message, and congratulations on your progress so far with the LSAT! And congratulations also on finding what you were looking for 🙂
Your personal statement is very raw, but I like what is there. With work, you could improve the presentation but hopefully retain the emotional honestly and directness of what you have written. I will be candid in saying that I think it will take a quite a bit of work to put this in the right shape and then polish into a gem. I would suggest you think about using a professional to help with this process (such as the Start-to-Finish Personal Statement Help at https://www.powerscore.com/lsat/law-school-admissions — any of our counselors would LOVE to work on this with you because this has great potential), but I would counsel you to not have someone make the language perfect. Given your language background, your TOEFL score, your LSAT Writing Sample, and you personal statement, you want a consistent language ability to be conveyed. Making this too smooth would actually call the entire essay into question. I also think that what you’ve achieved so far–going from no English knowledge to scoring a 152 on the LSAT–is actually incredible, and speaks to your clear academic and intellectual ability. If I were an admissions committee member reading your essay and seeing your LSAT and TOEFL scores, I wouldn’t hold a few small language errors against you, especially since this essay addresses the cause, and provides an explanation that shows you can achieve whatever you set your mind to.
So, in the above I can see where the language is challenging for you, and your expressions at times are those of a second-language speaker. Some of that is ok, and expected. I’d look to get that cleaned up a bit, but try to keep the basics of your story because I think those are quite powerful.
I’d also expand on some of your legal work, and talk a bit more about the Russian system, and perhaps the type of casework you handled. Your experience there is not something other applicants will have, so you should highlight that a bit more.
Last thought: I often say that these personal statements are meant to answer the basic questions of, “Would you want to sit next to this person in class and talk to them?” After reading this draft, I can say that I would be interested, and I think admissions members would be interested, so you’ve passed that first test. Keep going in this same direction but work on the language and expanding some of the content, and I think this will turn out well for you.
Good luck!!

Drew
December 17, 2017 at 3:50am
First, thank you for allowing the opportunity of potential law school students to get feedback from you, the professionals. Some insight into my background:
-Non-traditional applicant (26) out of undergrad for 3 years
-Full-time legislative staffer in a state capitol, editing and correcting policy in several topics
-Low UGPA (2.66)
-One absent LSAT score and one very low LSAT score (6 percentile) (both due to extremities)
-Undergrad in Political Science & Criminal Justice (State School)
-Masters in Business & Project Management
-Highly renowned LOR’s (federal judge, president of undergrad school, professor of my grad program public policy course)
-Not a URM
-Applying to a Tier III school
-Student Body Vice President at my undergrad (25k students)
I am looking for a personal statement that I am a statistical anomaly. I am dedicated to becoming a more profound public servant, so I can craft legislation that will create a society for the collective good. Any suggestions would help. I have a current personal statement drafted, but it focuses on one broad aspect: purpose. I go on to list 3 major events that I believe shaped my path and purpose to study and become immersed into the education of law. I spend the latter part of the statement describing that I am powered by purpose and sense of inherent duty to public service. I make the letter specific to the school I want to target, using their mission statement as a guideline to align my pros with.
Any advice you can give would be appreciated. Thank you again for your time.

Dave Killoran
December 17, 2017 at 7:44pm
Hey Drew,
Thanks for the comment! A few thoughts:
1. You aren’t a NonTrad applicant. 26 isn’t that old to be applying, and in fact 26 is about the average age of entering law school students. A solid 30% of applicants fall into the 25-29 age group, and 20% are over 30. Thus, 26 isn’t anything that will catch their eye or create separation for you.
2. Your LSAT scores are irrelevant if you can go post one much higher score. Law schools only have to report the high score, so they don’t care about lower or missed scores. DO NOT worry about explaining those low/absent scores. However, if you don’t have a higher score, you need to retake asap. A 6th percentile LSAT and your GPA won’t allow you to get into any schools.
3. Point 1 plays into this point: I’m not seeing anything here that suggests you are a statistical anomaly. At least not in a notable sense. I don’t say that to burst your bubble, but the typical Adcomm sees *thousands* of apps, and to play the “I’m different” card you better be very different. I’d suggest reshaping your message away form the idea of being a statistical anomaly anyway, because there’s no personality in it.
4. Have you watched my Personal Statement seminar? I go through all sorts of ways to present ideas–and which ideas to stay away from. It says far more than anything one of us can say in writing here. But there is one truth to this all: we can’t make advisement about your statement because all of this is about execution. Having a “great” topic is helpful, but great writers can make an essay about quitting smoking sound amazing, or do the same to one about learning flute from their grandmother. It’s rarely just the topic that sets apart a statement–it’s the way it is written.
5. Re your Letters of Recommendation (LOR), just to be clear, it’s not about how renowned they are. It’s about what they say about you. Hopefully, your LOR choices not only have great positions, but know you extremely well. I talk about this in detail here: https://vimeo.com/195500523.
6. If you keep struggling with topic and positioning for your app, consider working with an expert on this. Their entire job is to shape up applications into smooth, streamlined powerhouses, and they can help you avoid many of the pitfalls we see. More info at https://www.powerscore.com/lsat/law-school-admissions/.
Thanks!

Comments

Rose says
July 27, 2019 at 7:25 pm
Hello! I’m quite new to PowerScore but I’ve seen you guys post quite a bit on r/LSAT and I was wondering if I can reach out for some advice on my application/suggest some services I can use.
Some background on me:
1) I’m a student at a top Canadian university. My GPA (3.61) is considered low/average compared to the stats I’ve seen on Reddit but at my school it’s considered within the Top 30% (we practice grade deflation and always curve at 70-75%)
2) I’m still waiting on my July LSAT Score but I got a 164 on the June LSAT.
3) My target school is Northwestern and I plan on applying ED and going to Chicago for the interview.
4) I have a lot of work experience (which I know NU likes): I’ve interned for three summers at a large Canadian bank with branches in the States, one of which was in the bank’s legal department. I’ve worked part-time 11-17 hours a week during the school year.
5) As such, I have pretty good LORs, one of them from my manager, the bank’s associate ombudsman, and from three professors. I’ve tailored the ombudsman’s letter specifically to NU.
6) I think my extracurriculars are on the strong side: I’ve been on student government for three years (will be going into my fourth) and I’ve also done things like being a deliberator on our Student Discipline and Grievance Committee. I’m on the executive board for a national charity and was recently elected president of my sorority. I’ve volunteered with charities affiliated with my sorority and with the bank I intern at, and I’ve also done some Pro Bono work with the lawyers from my bank. I’m also currently volunteering at the provincial law association for my province.
7) I’m a bit concerned about the diversity piece: I’m a Chinese immigrant and I wrote the first drafts of my personal statement/diversity statement about my experiences. I shared them with my father and he said that law schools discriminate against Chinese people so I should take anything related to being Chinese out of my application. I’m not sure what sources he gets this from (I’ve done some research but a lot of the things I found were anecdotal so I’m not sure if I should trust it). Do you think it’s better to leave it out of my applications? Or have you had any previous students who had issues? Personally, I feel that if I show up at the interview they’re going to find out I’m Chinese anyways and a lot of online resources say to be sincere in personal statements.
I was wondering if I can get your take on my situation and maybe you can refer me to some resources that can help. Thank you!
Reply
- Dave Killoran says
  July 27, 2019 at 11:47 pm
  Hi Rose,
  Thanks for the message! As far as questions, it looks like the only one I see is in point #7. In this instance, while I understand the concern, I would speak directly about your experiences if you feel that doing so is compelling. As you said, when they meet you they will know who you are, so my call here is to write about the topics that best convey you. It sounds to me like you feel that your immigrant experiences do just that, so I would disregard your father’s advice (which is likely drawn from some prominent articles about undergrads at certain Ivy schools). Your overall position looks good, so it will be the softs that helps set you apart when ti comes down to it.
  As far as resources, we offer an immense amount of free resources, and you’ve found some of them here. We also have similar for letters of rec, etc. Aside from that, working with a professional is the best way to shape your application for maximum success, and we offers all sorts of programs for that: https://www.powerscore.com/lsat/law-school-admissions/.
  I hope that helps get you started!
  Reply