application parts
Five Proven Personal Statement Themes 1. Overcoming adversity – this can make a great theme, but it is sometimes a hard essay to pull off. The first obstacle is ensuring that you are writing about an actual adversity rather than a disappointment. An obstacle is something like serious illness, divorce, abuse, war, poverty, discrimination, etc. Contrast that with a disappointment, which is wanting something you didn’t get—failing a class, losing an election, etc. Focusing on disappointments reflects poorly on your priorities. To be successful with this essay you have to have experienced a genuine adversity, and describe how you dealt
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How Law Schools Read Your Letter of Recommendation Law school admissions committees read your letters of recommendation with three questions in mind: 1) how well does the writer know the applicant; 2) what information does the writer give about the applicant’s ability to excel in law school; and 3) how enthusiastic is the writer’s support for the candidate? Remember to find a recommender that is going to reflect well on you in light of these principal questions. Requesting a Letter of Recommendation If possible, you need to request the recommendation in person. Drop by the professor’s office and ask for
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Finding the Appropriate Structure for a Personal Statement Start with a sound structure. Your law school personal statement should have a readily identifiable structure. To ensure that this happens, it is highly important to construct the statement from an outline. An outline should make sense by itself; the ideas should follow logically in the order that you list them. Your body paragraphs should consist of events, experiences, and specific examples that support and move along the theme. Great personal statements incorporate many different elements. They have strong introductions and conclusions. They follow a logical progression, using active voice and the
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An important element of the law school application is the letter of recommendation. This is the only chance for someone else to speak on your behalf within the application, and law schools place weight on what your professors and employers say about you. Because all letters of recommendation are relatively good, it's important to have letters that are outstanding. You should develop relationships with your faculty so that you will get a good letter of recommendation. Cultivate this relationship by participating in class discussions, going to office hours, participating in individual study, etc… Develop a professional relationship with your professors.
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Personal statements are critical in the law school application process. They need to read as genuine, unique and engaging, without sounding pretentious or out of integrity. The best way to understand how your essay should read—regarding tone, content, and style—is to review examples, both the successful and the not-so-successful. An example of off-the-mark storytelling Let’s start with what not to do. This example includes a few points of telling critique from LawSchoolExpert.com's Ann Levine, provided below: It is Monday morning at 4:30 a.m., do you know where your son is? If someone had asked my father this question when I
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When it comes to letters of recommendation (LORs), there are good ones that help propel you forward in the process, and bad ones that actually can drag you down. Below is a sample of each so that you may properly guide your recommenders to create stellar examples of LORs. Example of a bad LOR: August 10, 2010 Re: Suzie Student Dear Law School Admissions Committee: For a number of years I taught a part-time course at Minnesota College called Introduction to the International Law of Human Rights – POLS 410. This was a challenging course intended for upper-level students. Students
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An addendum is an additional written statement provided with your law school application. Its purpose is to highlight any legitimate reasons for weakness in your law school application. Some schools limit the scope for addenda and allow other optional statements to address things like multiple LSAT scores, an upward trend in grades, and/or character and fitness issues that must be reported in the application. If you prepare an addendum, remember to make it as concise as possible and stick to the facts. The facts are more persuasive than your conjecture or belief that you will excel in law school despite
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Law schools are particularly interested in academic letters of recommendation. Much of the information they hope to gain from these letters is best judged by another professor. Ideally, your letters will come from professors who taught classes where you excelled. Law schools are also looking for the letter to come from someone who knows you well. General letters of recommendation from professors, or even well-known politicians, judges, etc. should be avoided. Look for a professor who worked with you extensively and who could comment on your intellectual and analytical abilities—one that personally mentored you if possible. The best choices for
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Resumes are not usually one of the major factors that admissions committees consider. A resume usually provides consistency and reinforcement to the application. But if your resume is flawed, it can hurt your chances for admission. Here are some common mistakes to avoid: 1. Typos or formatting mistakes. As example, there is no comma between months and years. Make sure that you proofread the resume multiple times and have someone else look at it too. 2. Inconsistency. Whatever format you decide on, be consistent. Do your best to have the consistency flow between sections. Make sure that the information is
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