Some law school applicants struggle with the LSAT, and their challenge is to convince schools to look beyond test scores.
Clare Prober, 22, of Massachusetts, was one of those applicants. Because her mother tongue is Russian and not English, she says, it was difficult for her to finish the reading comprehension portion of the LSAT quickly enough to achieve the test score she wanted.
This was frustrating for Prober, who had excelled as an undergraduate at Wheaton College in Massachusetts.
Nevertheless, Prober was determined to go to law school. She carefully crafted her application essays and emphasized both her background as a child of Russian immigrants and her achievements during college. The goal was to make the strongest possible case for acceptance and mitigate concerns admissions officers might have because of her LSAT score.
[Find out ways to craft a successful application to a top law school.]
Prober focused her personal statement on her experience as a Russian – American, and she described in her essay how her Russian roots shaped her perspective on the U.S. legal system. In the other written components of her law school application, Prober discussed both her academic accomplishments and work experiences.
“I think I got into some schools that, just based on my LSAT scores alone, I shouldn’t have gotten into,” says Prober, who just wrapped up her first semester at Suffolk University School of Law.
Prober recommends that other law school applicants adopt the same approach. Here are four ways to build a solid case in a law school application.
1. Focus on experiences that shaped your character: Anthony Ervin, director of admissions at the North Carolina Central University School of Law, says he is not as interested in hearing about where a student grew up as much as he is in learning about his or her character.
Ervin says applicants should be mindful that every anecdote they tell about their past in their law school application should have a point that is relevant to their desire to be a lawyer, and that communicating personal drive is an essential component of a strong personal statement.
“Our criteria is we’re looking for passion, work ethic and commitment,” Ervin says.
[Explore how to strengthen a law school essay with a thesis.]
2. Discuss your career goals: Cameron Dare Clark, a second-year student at Harvard Law School, says the central theme of his law school application was his dream to become a civil rights attorney.
Clark says his experience as an African-American man from a low-income family inspires his hope that law can be used as a tool to fight for social justice.
He says conveying a compelling vision of your future strengthens your law school application.
“The most effective way to create a clear and coherent application is to start with the vision and work backwards,” Clark said in an email.
3. Remove fluff: Matt Shinners, senior consultant at jdMission and senior manager of academics at Manhattan Prep, says law school applicants sometimes make the mistake of disclosing too much information.
Shinners says excessive detail is counterproductive, because it bores the reader and distracts from the core message.
“Put down in one sentence what you want to convey,” Shinners says.
Towards the end of the application process, he says, applicants should pare down their application to make it as concise as possible
Anything that does not illustrate your main point should be cut, Shinners says, and if you are not sure what the essence of your application is, one useful exercise is filling in the blanks of the followinTowardnce: “I am an ___ person who wants to go to law school because ___.”
Shinners says this exercise will help distill and frame an argument for acceptance.
[Consider these law school scholarships.]
4. See if you’ve swayed an acquaintance: A relative stranger is more likely to notice flaws in your application and give criticism than a close friend, Shinners says.
People who care about an applicant often accept the claims an applicant makes without demanding proof, he says, but strangers are more skeptical. Moreover, he says, an acquaintance is more likely to call you out on language that sounds arrogant.
“Your friends and family will fill in the gaps and look at your application in a positive light,” he says . “It’s important to make sure that somebody who doesn’t know you will take away the same thing as somebody who does know you.”
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Make a Strong Argument for Law School originally appeared on usnews.com
