A law school personal statement can take various forms. The voice, tone, content, storyline and structure will depend on who you are and what you’re writing about.
But all personal statements serve one chief purpose. After reading your personal statement, an admissions officer should have a sense of why you think you should be admitted to law school.
After all, reasoning and persuasion are essential legal skills. If you can’t make a clear case for your own admission to law school, then what kind of advocate will you be for your clients’ interests as a lawyer?
Many arguments have layers and nuances. But good lawyers are able to summarize the case they’re making in a sentence or two. This encapsulation of the core of an argument is called a thesis.
The thesis might appear in the first or second paragraph, at the end of the essay or at a particular turning point in the story. It may not even be necessary to state the thesis explicitly, if the reader can grasp the argument you’re making without it.
[Read: Personal and Diversity Statements Differ for Law School]
Even if you don’t include an explicit thesis statement, developing your own thesis as you start to brainstorm and write your admissions essay will help you keep your essay on track and tie together the points you intend to convey to the reader.
Distinguishing the Thesis of an Essay From Its Topic
For the essays you write for college classes, you might support your thesis with textual evidence. In a personal statement, your evidence should come from your own life.
For example, you might center your personal statement around a time you showed personal courage or perseverance. Maybe you did the right thing when it wasn’t easy, like standing up for something you believed in or changing your mind even when it was uncomfortable to admit you were wrong.
This can be the subject of a great personal statement. However, the story itself will have a limited impact unless its purpose is clear to the reader. Why is this the story you’re sharing with admissions officers? What does it say about you? More importantly, what does it say about your legal career?
Without such context, the personal statement will seem more like a diary entry or a prose version of your resume, simply recounting events from your life.
[READ: How to Write a Resume for Law School Applications.]
What if What You Want to Write Doesn’t Fit Your Thesis?
Admissions officers don’t have time to read your autobiography, so they ask you to keep your personal statement brief. Most law schools limit you to two double-spaced pages, although some allow three or more pages.
If you find parts of your personal statement that don’t align with your thesis, first consider whether they’d be clear enough from your resume, recommendation letters or other materials. Remember, the personal statement is just one piece of the puzzle.
Next, consider moving these parts of your story into a diversity or perspective statement. Indeed, schools provide space for this optional essay for experiences or circumstances that have shaped your life that may not fit neatly into your personal statement.
Such optional essays may be used to show sides of yourself that don’t fit neatly into your thesis.
[READ: What to Know About Law School Optional Essays.]
For instance, imagine a candidate who identifies as LGBTQ and is most interested in environmental law. Perhaps this candidate could creatively tie both elements together into one argument for admission, but it may feel like a mishmash. Worse, doing so may risk an awkward tonal clash that interferes with the candidate’s authentic voice.
It may be easier to separate these stories into two essays, one about the candidate’s personal challenges and one about the growth and development of their interest in environmental law. Both essays may have a thesis, but it would be most critical in the personal statement.
If this seems complicated, remember that your essays will evolve over the course of multiple drafts. Don’t aim for perfection on the first try. Instead, start early and give yourself at least several weeks to prepare your law school applications.
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How a Thesis Statement Can Strengthen a Law School Application Essay originally appeared on usnews.com