Writing your personal statement can feel like the most stressful part of applying to law school. I put off working on my personal statement for a long time, but once I realized what makes a good personal statement, it wasn’t very daunting at all.
First, let’s take a look at some personal statement prompts. Here’s one from the University of Chicago Law School: “Please use the personal statement to introduce yourself to the Admissions Committee and to help the Committee get to know you on a personal level.” Chicago wants you to tell them a story about yourself so they can get to know you beyond your LSAT score and GPA.
Columbia’s prompt is similar. They first give you a long, wordy list of topics you could write about, and then they say you may write about “any other factors that you think should inform the Committee’s evaluation of your candidacy for admission.”