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1、TABLE OF CONTENTSPART ONE: INTRODUCTION TO THE PERSONAL STATEMENTChapter 1: Preparing to Write Your Statement The Importance of the Personal Statement Avoid Avoidance BehaviorChapter 2: Understanding the Admissions Committee and Its Expectations for the Personal Statement About Your Audience Seven Q
2、uestions the Admissions Committee Will Ask 1. Have you demonstrated intellectual excellence? 2. Have you had a tangible impact on individuals or groups? 3. Have you demonstrated good leadership skills? 4. Have you had real-world experience? 5. Can you look at an issue from multiple perspectives? 6.
3、What will you bring to our school? 7. What brings you to our school? Chapter 3: The Rhetorical Approach to the Personal Statement Convincing Your Audience to Admit You to Law School Logical Appeals Emotional Appeals Ethical Appeals Cultural AppealsChapter 4: Choosing Structure and Topic Structuring
4、Your Statement 1. Tell a personal narrative or story. 2. Begin with a personally meaningful quote. 3. Sketch a character. 4. Use a metaphor or analogy. 5. Pose rhetorical questions. 6. Present a problem and how you solved it or would solve it. Topics for Law School Personal Statements 1. Describe ho
5、w you endured adversity. 2. Describe what makes you a diversity candidate. 3. Show how you have matured. 4. Describe what you have learned from a mentor. 5. Write about an event or issue of particular importance to you. 6. Write about coursework or research. 7. Write about your passions, ideals, or
6、favorite hobbies. 8. Write about leadership experience that you have had. Chapter 5: Writing Powerful Sentences 1. Hook your reader immediately. 2. Write strong sentences. 3. Use the active voice. 4. Vary your words and sentences. 5. Write in a professional and formal tone. 6. Do not make elementary
7、 writing mistakes. 7. Do not mismatch the number of a noun and its verb. 8. Avoid clichs. 9. Avoid sentences with empty subjects. 10. Conclude powerfully. Chapter 6: The Personal Statement Checklist 1. Have a clear idea of what you want to convey before writing. 2. Write about aspects of yourself th
8、at reader cannot get from other parts of your application. 3. Do not use gimmicks. 4. Be personal in the law school personal statement. 5. Offer specific, meaningful stories and experiences. 6. Tailor your personal statement for the law schools to which you are applying. 7. Focus on your strengths a
9、nd not your weaknesses. 8. Adhere to the page or word limitations. 9. Edit your law school personal statement. 10. Make your personal statement do extra work for you. PART TWO: SAMPLE PERSONAL STATEMENTS AND COMMENTARYChapter 7: Making the Most of the Sample Personal Statements and CommentaryChapate
10、r 8: The Personal Narrative (Structure) 1. Silicon Valley Start-Up 2. Senior Design 3. Stay-at-Home Dad 4. Happy Camper 5. Minimalist 6. Coming Out 7. Belorussian Lawyer 8. Mormon Conflict 9. New York Artist Chapter 9: The Organizing Quote (Structure) 10. Ubuntu 11. PR Agency Builder 12. Alice in Ca
11、sinoland 13. Kentucky Governors Scholar Chapter 10: The Character Sketch (Structure) 14. South Dakota 15. Magazine Industry 16. Russian Grandfather Chapter 11: Overcoming Adversity (Topic) 17. Kenyan Immigrant 18. Gordie Day 19. Surviving Rape 20. Parental Disability Chapter 12: Diversity Candidates
12、 (Topic) 21. Resisting the Label “Muslim” 22. Muumuus and Moving On 23. Hurricane Katrina 24. Autism 25. First to Attend College Chapter 13: Chronological Growth (Topic) 26. High-Stakes Law Experience 27. Uganda and Cambodia 28. UK Study Abroad 29. Delmarva Shorebirds Chapter 14: The Mentor (Topic)
13、30. Debate Skills 31. Korean American APPENDIX: ADDITIONAL APPLICATION ADVICEAppendix A: Reach School Risk-TakingAppendix B: “Why Our School?” Essay 1. Why Penn? 2. Why Michigan? 3. Law in the Casbah 4. Taxi! Appendix C: Yale 250s 1. Porgy and Bess 2. Violin Maker 3. Bighead 4. The Buildings of Stor
14、ies 5. Multiple Heritages 6. Volunteer Work Appendix D: Ending on a Good Note Application Addendum Letter of Diversity 1. Proud Latino Heritage 2. Garment Factory to British Marshall Finalist 3. Swimming Lessons Appendix E: Letters of Recommendation Requirements for Letters of Recommendation Selecti
15、ng a Good Recommender Requesting Your Letter of Recommendation Do Not Draft Your Own Letter of Recommendation To Waive or Not to WaiveAppendix F: Letters of Continued Interest What Should I Write About in my LOCI? How long should my LOCI be? When should I send my LOCI? Who should I send my LOCI to?
16、How should I send my LOCI? Other Points About LOCIs Sample LOCI 1. Interest in Juvenile Law 2. Zebra Law School Letter #1 3. Zebra Law School Letter #2 After You Send a LOCIAppendix G: Considering a Joint Degree Chapter 1: Preparing to Write Your StatementYour LSAT score has been tallied, your under
17、graduate grades have been earned and recorded, and your recommendation letters have been requested. To complete your law school application, you must write an excellent personal statement, one that sets you apart from a sea of outstanding candidates with similar academic qualifications. Like an inte
18、rview, your personal statement introduces the application committee to the values, qualities, and accomplishments that make you uniqueand uniquely qualified to excel in the legal profession. It is not an overstatement to say that your personal statement may determine the future course of your law sc
19、hool admissions. Admissions committees at top law schools feel that if you will not invest the time to write an exceptional personal statement, then you will probably not excel in their programs. Discussing the personal statement in an interview with Top-Law-S, Ed Tom, Dean of Admissions at UC Berke
20、leys Boalt Hall School of Law, stated that “the personal statement is the first thing I look at when I open a folder, even before viewing the GPA or LSAT score. . . . The personal statement is the applicants opportunity to distinguish himself from hundreds of other applicants who have the same numbe
21、rs, and the same major, and come from a similar school.” Your personal statement could, in other words, mean the difference between an acceptance and a rejection from your preferred law school.This book is designed to give you the tools to write your best law school personal statement possible. The
22、commentary and revision advice outlined here will explain how you will be judged in relation to other prospective students. You will learn not only how to avoid common mistakes but also, and more crucially, how to write what admissions committees consider to be the very strongest kind of personal st
23、atement. To write this book, I have drawn on my own experience and expertise as a lawyer with a degree from the UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law and as the founder of Top-Law-S, a website dedicated to helping prospective law students with all aspects of the application process. This guide, devel
24、oped from advice tested on my website and interviews with over a dozen deans of admissions from top law schools, will help you understand your audience, suggest potential essay topics to you, teach you the craft of writing persuasive personal statements, and give you an insiders view of how the pers
25、onal statement affects the application process as a whole.Unlike all other law school admissions guides, this book provides detailed analysis of thirty-one real personal statementsan insiders look at triumphs and blunders in applicants statements. Furthermore, this book offers suggestions for small
26、tweaks and major overhauls to personal statements that will help you write what admissions committee members want to find as they search for students to admit.As you read through this books sample personal statements,you will see that personal statements all quickly start to sound the same. Now imag
27、ine that you are on an admissions committee reading through hundreds of satisfactory essays. Admissions committee members can spot a good personal statement in about five seconds. Dean Sarah Zearfoss of the University of Michigan comments,Say Im doing forty first reads; maybe two out of those forty
28、are going to be wow personal statements. What makes those stand out? One is just that they are well-written and well-expressed. Two is that they are just good stories. Youre telling a story here; I dont mean it in a fictional sense, a huge part of lawyering is being a persuasive writer so you have t
29、o figure out whats going to appeal to a reader; whats going to draw him in.Committee members are searching for personal statements with polished ideas and an elegant style; they expect to find no amateurish errors in the writing. They are looking for evidence of a powerful mind. Moreover, admissions
30、 committees want to create a law school class composed of unique individuals whose diverse views and stories will complement each other. Consequently, admissions decisions are based not only upon objective measurements, such as the GPA and LSAT score, but also upon subjective determinations, like th
31、e admission committee members response to your personal statement. Use this opportunity to show the admissions committee that you are more than a standardized test score and a cluster of good grades.In some cases, a well-written personal statement can persuade an admissions committee member to argue
32、 passionately on your behalf in one of the all-important admissions meetings. In these meetings, the committee members sit around a table behind closed doorssometimes for hourswhile they hammer out the admissions list and, finally, the wait list. If an admissions committee member fights for your adm
33、ission in a committee meeting, staking his or her own credibility on your admission, you will almost certainly be admitted. Committee members cannot come up with reasons to admit you by themselves; you need to provide that hypothetical committee member with a substantial list of reasons for admittin
34、g you. In your personal statement, you must interpret your own strengths for your readers and give them no reason to doubt you. Remember, the committee members know nothing about you except what you tell them in your application file and what your recommenders say about you. You need to present a pi
35、cture of yourself as a well-rounded, intelligent, self-confident, and worldly candidate. By helping you write your best personal statement, this book can significantly increase the chances that your preferred law school will accept you.Avoid Avoidance BehaviorBecoming a mature, self-sufficient adult
36、 means facing and completing some unpleasant tasks in your career. You must learn to accept some degree of disagreeable responsibility. For most of us, writing the law school personal statement falls into this category. As you would in a strenuous mountain hike, just keep putting one foot in front o
37、f the other, and dont let the entire undertaking immobilize you. Eventually, youll reach your goal, turn around and look back, and the sense of achievement will be incredible.Read Part One of this book to familiarize yourself with the personal statement genre. Then jump in. The sooner you start writ
38、ing, the more time you will have to revise your statement based on the commentaries in Part Two of this guide. Any kind of writing is a creative process; you are creating something that did not exist before, and doing so is rarely easy. Remember this when you feel stuck or feel like your writing is
39、not going as well as you had hoped. You may have to write yourself over initial roadblocks or, later, out of a slump. The most important thing is to keep going. Remember, writing your first draft is only half of the battle. Most of what will make your statement exceptional will come through revision
40、, so its better to have a crude first draft than nothing at all.In order to prepare to write your statement, block out a few hours, minimize interruptions, and give yourself a chance to focus. Once you have devoted a block of time to starting your personal statement, get to work right away. This is
41、the stage avoidance behavior will set in. Beware of this and notice when it happens to you. Do not procrastinate these hours away by interrupting yourself every few minutes to get a drink or to check your email or surf the net. For most people, it takes about twenty to forty minutes to calm down eno
42、ugh to begin focusing on a mental task such as writing. Once you begin to sink into the creative process, you should find your mind becoming immersed in the task at hand and much less easily distracted.In order to sink into this process, try focused free writing on the computer for half an hour. Set
43、 a timer, and do not stop until it beeps. Begin by imagining what your essay might look like. Create a list of keywords or sentences that express the distinctive perspectives or values you would bring to any law school. These are your arguments for why you should be admitted. Next, brainstorm storie
44、s and personal evidence that best illustrate these unique attributes. Finally, decide on a narrative structure that will allow you to most compellingly frame the story you want to tell about yourself.The collection of free writing you create at the beginning of the process is your plan. It helps to
45、make a plan before you write, however rough, because a plan will give your mind a foundation upon which it can build. If you cannot imagine some preliminary form you want your personal statement to take, then you will be more likely to hit a wall, to feel like you cannot go on, or to stop in the mid
46、dle.Once youve accomplished some preliminary writing, a little bit of the pressure diminishes. Begin writing your personal statement and see where your mind takes you. As you go, use the advice in this guide. Make sure to include specific evidence to back up your arguments for why you should be admi
47、tted to law school. When you are in the middle of a piece of writing, it is better to go on a little longer, until you come to a natural stopping point, rather than stopping abruptly. If you stop in the middle of a sentence or paragraph, you will need to take twenty minutes or longer to warm up agai
48、n and focus, and you will have basically wasted that time.The writing process might be unpleasant, but it should not be torturous. In law school, you will be expected to write a considerable amount, so you should begin finding ways to approach writing as a form of self-expression, a regular part of your life, rather than a hated obligation. That being said, there is much to learn about why good writing in a personal statement is good and how to craft a piece of writing that the admissions committee will immediately re