Let’s Talk Personal Statements

Anna Donovan: Hey, welcome back to Applying Yourself, a law school admissions podcast hosted by staff here at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. My name is Anna Donovan and I am the Communications Program Manager.

Naomi Stuart: And my name is Naomi Stuart. I serve as a director in the admissions office. Today, we are going back to the parts of the application and specifically talking about the personal statement. We are very fortunate to have another guest on joining us today, Mary Ann Clifford, the Assistant Dean for Admissions. Mary Ann, do you want to talk a little bit about why you’re an expert and maybe at this point how many personal statements you’ve read over these years?

Mary Ann Clifford: Oh, my goodness. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be here and to talk about personal statements. Thank goodness. How many personal statements would I have read over the years? I don’t know if I can do that high level math, but it’s been 20-25,000.

Naomi Stuart: At minimum.

Mary Ann Clifford: No, well, maybe, actually, you know what? Maybe make that closer to maybe like 80,000 now that I think about it. Well, because there’s, you know, thousands every year. And I have been in admissions for 23 years. And so, yeah, you can do the math. So, but no, it’s a great fun part, a central part of the application, and I’m really excited to talk about them today.

Naomi Stuart: Yeah. And Mary Ann, you went to law school, so you also wrote a personal statement.

Mary Ann Clifford: Yes, I did. Yes, I did. And I do remember thinking when I was putting together my application materials, you know, the personal statement, that was, honestly, along with the preparation for the LSAT, that was one of the more challenging parts of the application. So it definitely took some thought and consideration. And it’s, I would say it’s a long process. It’s not something you can just sit down and do very quickly in an afternoon. And so we’ll talk about how to, how to approach it…

Naomi Stuart: Absolutely. And so, before we get to a portion of this podcast that will be about topics for your personal statement, we’re going to start with sort of the writing process for your personal statement. Chief among these being starting off with brainstorming. And this can even start before you’re like as you’re studying for the LSAT, as you’re even just thinking about law school, just writing down your thoughts about why this is coming up for you as a next step.

Anna Donovan: Yeah. And, you know, kind of as it is such a central part and a big piece and things we really enjoy reading and learning more about our applicants in the personal statement, thinking of different topics, you know, and tying this back to always looking at the law schools you’re applying to, seeing if they might actually have a prompt or something that they are actually asking you to write about. Whether it’s completely open, both are, you know, sometimes tough to get start doing, but you want to make sure you’re following those rules for each and every school you’re looking to apply to.

Naomi Stuart: Absolutely. And remembering, too, that creating and editing are two very, very different processes. So once you have an idea of what it is you need to be writing about, whether it’s a prompt or it’s completely open, just, you know, starting the writing process and doing that over short bursts of time. It can maybe take several weeks, a couple of months, not making yourself too tired and really focusing on that creative process before you get to the editing process.

Anna Donovan: Yeah. So, you know, let’s just say you’re getting to it and you’re thinking about the personal statement. You’re going to have to have one of these when you’re applying to law school. Let’s talk about topics. Mary Ann, when you are reading, you know, one of these many, many, many thousands of personal statements, what do you like to see when you’re reading or learning about the candidate?

Mary Ann Clifford: Yeah, so the, I think of the personal statement as just, again, that way to get to know the candidate and what, and see what they want to let the admissions committee or let the reader know about them. So I just like to see a well-written personal statement. It’s wonderful if it can grab your attention fairly early on in the statement, maybe in the first paragraph. You’re going to share some sort of experience you’ve had or some obstacle, maybe a challenge or a triumph that you’ve had.

So again, it’s when you’re coming up with topics, you’re reflecting over a lifetime of what you can think about and what maybe, what really had an impact on your life or what changed you or… And so I just like to, you know, just learn as much as I can about the candidate through their written work product.

And, but again, as Anna said, you know, if a school doesn’t give a prompt or a question they want answered, and quite honestly, I don’t think many do, so it’s pretty open-ended. You can write about any number of topics that you would like to share with the admissions committee.

Naomi Stuart: Absolutely, and it’s something that shows a thoughtfulness and really maybe a progression in a certain area, maybe a change of idea, some type of growth. Maybe it’s through an experience or just a growth in your perspective. And sometimes the greatest successes, they do come after something that either is or feels like a big failure. It can be, you know, either one.

So it just, it’s important too that it is about you and your experience. Sometimes we do get really beautiful personal statements about maybe a family member, someone else. And while those are interesting, if it doesn’t illuminate a lot about you, it may not fit the audience and the purpose of the statement.

A question we get all the time, I’m gonna throw this to you, Mary Ann. Do you think that the candidate needs to kind of state why they want to go to law school or why they’re going to law school in the personal statement?

Mary Ann Clifford: Yeah, so I would say, and I’ll get to answer your question, but I would say probably most students or most personal statements I’ve read, they do kind of pull it all together at the end and maybe put down, you know, and this is why I want to go to law school or why I want to go to your law school. And that’s fine.

I would say it’s not necessary to do that. Usually the, you know, the personal statement’s part of a whole application. So we’re reading everything and we’re gonna get that sense of, oh yeah, this makes sense. You know, this makes sense for this candidate, why they want to go to law school.

But of course, if you’ve met with an injustice or seen an injustice in your life, or maybe, you know, occasionally some family members will have gone through something that you’ve, some dealing with the law. Well, of course, then that can lead to that, you know, you know, and this is why I want to go to law. But oftentimes it’s not necessary. You could be writing about, again, whatever you want the committee to know about you. It’s almost like an interview where you’re, again, telling a story or giving an anecdote or several anecdotes about you and your personality or again, what you want the committee to know. So I would say it can answer the why law question, but it doesn’t have to.

Naomi Stuart: Exactly.

Anna Donovan: Yeah, absolutely. You know, this is the way where you can show, you know, how strong of a candidate you’re going to be for the specific law school or for law school in general and really have that shine through, you know, what you can bring to this class and this just specific community and pulling from strengths of, you know, previous experiences, you know, whether you’re coming straight from undergrad or you have many years of work experience and just how that ultimately is going to make you a great lawyer and are a great candidate for law school.

Mary Ann Clifford: And I think that you just hit on it. I think that’s what the admissions committee and the admissions readers are taking away. What are you bringing to our law school from your personal statement and from the rest of your application? What can you bring to our community? What can you bring to the legal community?

Naomi Stuart: Yeah, absolutely. We, at the end of our podcast, we try to do like a takeaway tip and that kind of leads into what mine is. My tip is always to get someone else to read your personal statement, you know, or when you’re kind of at a draft that you’re happy with. It can be anyone else, but making sure that that takeaway is what you want it to be.

Sometimes you get so zoned in on, you know, this is my 36th version of this personal statement and I’ve read it a million times and my eyes are kind of cross-eyed, you know, making sure, you know, if you just have someone else read it, that, you know, what you are trying to get across to that staff member, that admissions committee, you know, member, committee is what you are wanting and any kind of red flags or anything that pops up, you can address, you know, before you’re then submitting that with your application.

Anna Donovan: Absolutely.

Naomi Stuart: And, and a tip that comes up is also another side of having someone edit your personal statement or read your personal statement for what it is they take away, is error-free writing. It’s an important skill and a primary skill for attorneys. Error-free writing, it is something that’s learned. Many of us have to work really hard at error-free writing. So to the extent that you can have this document be completely error-free and do not forge or plagiarize, but yeah, certainly it will highlight that, you know, maybe you don’t have a particular skill around it, but you’ve arrived at this document. It shows that you can find a way to do that, and so it’s incredibly important.

Anna Donovan: Yeah. Mary Ann, do you have a takeaway tip for people thinking about writing their personal statement?

Mary Ann Clifford: Well, I would say, of course, be yourself. It is about you. You can, it should be written professionally, but it can certainly be casual. It’s, again, you want to make it as interesting as possible for the reader. But you’re writing it really about yourself, for yourself, and of course for the admissions committee. So good luck.

Naomi Stuart: Yeah, excellent. Thank you so much for joining us, Mary Ann. We hope to have you back.

Mary Ann Clifford: Yes, thank you.

Naomi Stuart: You have expertise in so many areas. We will, we will have you back on our podcast very soon. Thank you, everybody.

Anna Donovan: Thank you.