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We
are pleased to present the following
excerpt from the book
The Ivey Guide to
Law School Admissions: Straight Advice on
Essays, Resumes, Interviews, and
More
by Anna
Ivey
Harcourt - April
2005
The
Application Essay
Whether you're submitting a personal
statement, a statement of purpose, or a
diversity essay, make sure to follow these
rules:
Rule #1: Edit and Proofread, Then
Proofread Again Your grammar,
spelling, and punctuation must be
flawless. When in doubt, pullout those old
standbys The Chicago Manual of
Style and Strunk & White. If
grammar, spelling, and punctuation aren't
your strong points, enlist a friend to
help (and give you a tutorial, while
you're at it). There's no excuse for a
college graduate to mess this up. And
beware the spell-check trap -- it won't
catch "right" when you should have written
"write," and it won't catch your
"commitment to pubic service." (You laugh,
but I saw that typo as a law review
editor.) Always have a second pair of eyes
proofread your essays before you send them
off.
Rule #2: Nothing Cutesy Anything
cutesy or gimmicky will make admissions
officers groan. Stay away from the
following:
- Essays in the form of poetry
- Essays in the form of a legal brief
("For all the reasons cited above, the
admissions committee should admit
Petitioner to Slamdunk Law
School.")
- Essays in the form of an obituary
("Tracy Johnson died the most respected
jurist of her time.")
- Essays in the form of an
interview
- Crayons, construction paper,
perfume, or illustrated essays, no
matter how sophisticated
Rule #3: No Legalisms You're not
a lawyer yet, so your use of legal
concepts or terminology will most likely
demonstrate that you have no idea what
you're talking about, not to mention the
fact that legal writing is considered
god-awful by the rest of the world,
including admissions officers. Many
applicants, for example, refer to a
company or a person violating someone's
right to free speech, when, in fact, the
First Amendment applies only to
government restrictions on speech.
And by all means, steer clear of anything
in Latin.
Rule #4: Show, Don't Tell Back
up any general statements with examples
and anecdotes. If you write, "The student
presidency taught me that leadership means
more than delegating," tell us how
you learned that lesson. What were the
conflicts and problems you faced? If you
write, "I have excellent time-management
skills," back up that statement by
pointing out that you graduated in the top
10 percent of an engineering program that
40 percent of engineering freshmen
drop.
Rule #5: Respect Page Limits and
Other Minutiae If a school gives you a
page or word limit, abide by it. And
follow the spirit of the rule as well as
the letter -- don't get too sneaky with
fonts, margins, and line spacing.
Admissions officers won't cut you any
slack if your essay comes in under the
page limit but makes them go cross-eyed
because the font or line spacing is so
small. If a school doesn't specify a
length, a good rule of thumb is two to
three pages, double-spaced, in
eleven-point Times New Roman, with
one-inch margins all around. When in
doubt, shorter is better than longer. As
an admissions officer buddy of mine likes
to say: "The vast, vast, vast majority of
just-out-of-college applicants (almost all
applicants, really) are not interesting
enough to fill six pages. Show me that you
understand my time is valuable, and show
me that you understand how to pick out
what's really important."
Make sure to put your name and Social
Security number in a header and page
numbers in a footer, just in case your
file goes splat and has to be reassembled.
Also, identify in the header what essay
question you're answering, if you're given
more than one option or are submitting
more than one essay ("Personal Statement,"
"Optional Essay #3," etc.). By the way,
you don't need to give your essay a title
like "Morris 405" or "Jorge." I added
those titles in the appendix essays so
that I could refer to them easily in this
chapter.
Don't submit pages that are crumpled,
stained, or smell like pot smoke -- most
admissions officers really aren't looking
for that contact high. Really, your essay
shouldn't smell like any kind of
smoke.
And finally, if you're getting too
close to your material and think you're
losing perspective, turn to the sample
essays in the appendix to keep your
big-picture objective in mind. Can you see
how much more engaging and revealing the
good ones are?
Copyright © 2006
Anna Ivey and reproduced here by
permission.
About the
Author
Anna Ivey, JD, served
as dean of admissions at the University of
Chicago Law School. She now runs Anna Ivey
Admissions Counseling, a counseling firm
for college, business school, and law
school applicants. She divides her time
between Boston and Orlando. Please visit
her website at http://www.annaivey.com.
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