A couple of things the personal statement should not be about. If it's about a unique aspect of your identity, especially race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, I would strongly consider making that a diversity statement topic instead, saving the main personal statement for something else. That way you get two statements instead of one. Alternatively, if you have multiple diversity statements that you could write, then maybe you would pick one of them for the personal statement, the other for the diversity statement.
If it's about you getting in trouble with the law, getting arrested or getting convicted, character and fitness statement, some schools will ask if you got arrested, others will ask if you've been convicted. And that typically varies based on the questions your state asks when you apply for admission to the bar. That's why there's so much variation. New York will say one thing, California will ask a different thing, Florida asks another question, Texas asks a different one.
They all vary slightly. So if there's any question about your record, disciplinary record arrests, convictions, look at very carefully at the wording, application by application school by school because those can vary. But again, if you have something that you'll need to talk about, I would strongly suggest saving it for the character and fitness statement rather than the personal statement because there's no need to make it a focus of your application overall. The personal statement is the biggest area.
It's the longest. So I would use that for something else. If it's about a low GPA or low LSAT score, lower than it could have been otherwise, I would strongly suggest writing in addendum. If you had a lower GPA followed by an upward trend, that's even better.
Call that out. If it was temporarily low due to COVID, you can mention that in addendum, I don't love the idea of COVID focused personal statements because there are just going to be so many of those. And law schools also know about COVID. They know that every college student was impacted in some way.
Many in the workforce were impacted in some way as well. Anything I didn't list here could be a good candidate for a main personal statement topic, but it's never just about the idea. It's also about the execution. So execution over ideas.
Now I put together a couple of personal statement ideas that aren't about saving the world. They're personal to me. Here's how I would execute them. This one is informally titled shadow versus surface.
I wouldn't actually title a personal statement. For most of my life, I thought that I was living in the shadow. In reality, I was barely scratching the surface. By living as an introvert, I thought that automatically meant I was living an introspective life in touch with my shadow side.
It turns out that well read doesn't mean well examined. As a child, I spent most of my free time reading novels because I felt trapped in an abusive household. It turned out, though, that by living through other people, through characters, I was actually taking on their identities rather than fully owning who I was. When I finally moved out of the house and went to college, I discovered that I didn't need novels anymore.
I used to read a minimum of two to three novels per week. Now I barely read two to three per year. You see, I've realized I can create my own life story and I can also do the deep personal work to discover the shadow aspects of my personality and bring them to life. So this is obviously not a final draft.
I just kind of jotted this down a couple hours before this evening's class. But this came to me, this came to mind for me because most personal statements merely scratched the surface under the guise of being professional. But getting in touch with what's underneath the surface and getting to the shadow side is really discussed and has a far greater impact. So I prepared this for you and read it out loud just now, not for the exact wording I'm sure could be improved significantly, but to make that distinction between personal and professional.
Most personal statements naturally tending too much towards the professional. Getting personal, putting out something that feels a little bit uncomfortable for you is going to have a far greater impact. Now I've also written another brief one and I will torture you with that now just for another minute or two again to illustrate the difference here. So this one is a title, Outstanding versus Obsession.
I've always had the drive to be outstanding, but it turns out I was merely obsessed. I've always had the drive to do the to be the best in the world at whatever I do. But while driving and determination have their place, it turns out it's an unachievable goal to be the best at everything and pushing myself to the limit was unhealthy and unsustainable. Whether it was going to cross fit six days per week, running a half marathon barefoot, we're trying to walk the 33 mile perimeter of Manhattan in a day with no training.
I've chosen a variety of extreme goals over the years in an attempt to prove something to myself and to others. And in pursuit of these goals, I finally reached a breaking point where I could barely walk for two weeks. This was a serious physical reminder that I had pushed myself too far and had to slow down. And I realized that improving from where I previously was would allow me to stand out in the long term.
That's what would be truly outstanding, not to measure myself simply against others. So again, it's personal, it's succinct. I would obviously write a bit more and I would edit this more, but I'm drawing out some general themes while also giving some very specific examples. I'm also not trying to launch or list everything I've ever done.
I mentioned a couple of things because they had a common theme. I also did not aim to define everything with all of the exact details. So in the second one, I didn't take the time to define what CrossFit was. I assumed that either know what CrossFit was or they can look it up or they can understand it in context based on the name alone or how I frame it.
For the previous example, I don't bother listing the specific novels or even the kinds of novels that I would read. It's not necessary. I don't list exact characters I was living through vicariously. I didn't consider it necessary.
I would rather share something else than start launching or listing all the specifics when I think it's not really adding anything. So there are some tough choices here, some tough decisions to make. You can't cover everything. But the most important thing to me at least is that you actually get personal.
Now here are three topics. They're going to read a ton of this year. Again, anything COVID is going to be cliche. They're going to see a million of these.
So anything about how COVID led to your firing or to your unemployment, stay away from that. How COVID interrupted your college semester or grad school semester. Again, stay away from that far too many people have been in that situation. You might write an addendum depending on the exact circumstances, but again, I would not make it the focus of a personal statement.
I would think very carefully about whether that is truly necessary or if there's a better story you could tell. They're going to know that anything from approximately March of 2020 and on has the potential to have any impact about COVID in some way. And so a blank space on your resume doesn't necessarily need to be explained. One other topic I would consider strongly staying away from is how watching videos of police brutality inspire you to want to change the system.
A lot of people have suddenly become very aware of police brutality in the aftermath of the George Floyd and other cases this past few months. They're going to read a lot of these, a lot of people who are very idealistic and want to change the system, but don't necessarily have the resume experience to back it up. So if you do, that's a totally different story. If you've been working in this area for a while, either in your work or the nonprofit sector for volunteering or extracurriculars, that's great.
That actually means you got something to truly back it up. You can point to otherwise if it's more related to your personal background or your identity, that could be good for a diversity statement. Otherwise I would think strongly about what from your actual background that's personal in nature you can bring to this, not just based on what you've seen on the internet or heard from other people. Thanks for tuning into the show.
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