The drafting process for your law school personal statement can seem daunting, but knowing what to expect can make it manageable. Let’s dive into how many drafts you should plan for and what the overall process should look like.
The Foundation
Having strong foundational elements are key to having a strong personal statement. If you don’t get it right from the beginning, you’ll likely end up reworking it extensively.
Now, what exactly are these foundational elements?
First, you must start with doing some brainstorming. Usually the first draft lacks something as you did not start with the right ingredients. Think of it as like making a pizza. Without any tomato sauce, pepperoni or cheese, it’s going nowhere. So it is important to gather the right ingredients to create a strong personal statement by beginning to brainstorm.
Take the time to do a brainstorming session by stepping away for a moment from all of the applications you have been doing and just think about all of the unique moments in your life. These significant moments can be from your personal or professional life, talking about your ups and downs, the failures and successes, and the impacts it made. It does not have to be related to law.
A week or two is a good amount of time to brainstorm and get all of the correct ingredients to cook up your personal statement. After this, it is time to reflect on why you even want to attend law school. What motivates you? Why do you want to do law? What are your plans? Think about your answers to these questions and connect them with your stories to form an interesting narrative of your life.
Don’t make these connections dull. Showcase your passion and growth. I want to understand why you’re pursuing law, what drives you, and how you’ve actively worked toward your goals.
You are the main character in your personal statement, so show how the plot begins and how you got to the point you are at right now. Demonstrate your commitment through activities like volunteering, participating in clubs, or conducting research—anything that shows your dedication beyond mere words.
With brainstorming and identifying what motivates you, this can help create the right amount of drafts you need instead of writing up to 20 drafts that are coming out of nothing but a set of random ideas.
The Drafts
In my decade of counseling experience, I’ve found that producing a strong personal statement typically requires three to seven drafts, with five drafts being an ideal goal.
The first few drafts are about finding your rhythm so it is expected to have many rewrites during this stage. Knowing that the first draft is just your starting draft can help ease you and encourage you to do better, making improvements in future drafts. Remember, it’s only a draft.
The next drafts should focus on refining details. This is where you polish individual sentences, narrative flow, word choice, and transitions. With the strong foundation from your initial drafts, you’ll now be fine-tuning the nuances that transform a basic statement into an outstanding one.
Pay attention to writing style. Use active voice, correct punctuation, and precise language. Errors or awkward transitions can detract from your message, making it seem like the admissions committee is critiquing your writing mechanics rather than your passion and purpose.
Timeline & Preparation
Overall, it takes about three months to get all of your application materials put together. Due to other responsibilities such as working and or studying for the LSAT, it can take some time for you to complete three to seven drafts for your personal statement. Additionally, it can take another three to seven drafts for your diversity statement as well! Not to mention, the time it takes to form your addenda or supplemental essays stacks on to your list of drafts to write.
Adding all of this up can be approximately 16 drafts and with your busy schedule, it is crucial to plan ahead. Balancing your time is important and if you were to work on one draft every week, that would be 16 weeks showing that it takes more than three months to accomplish all of these drafts. Keep this in mind when planning your schedule and ensure that you are also making time for yourself!
Final Thoughts
The key to staying at a reasonable amount of drafts is by ensuring you are brainstorming and collecting the correct ingredients to stir up the perfect personal statement.Without these, you’ll probably have to backtrack and find those right elements anyways.
As long as you plan accordingly, you will have enough time to complete those drafts until perfection to submit in time for fall!
This article first appeared on Breaking Barriers. Read full piece here
