Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

The magic word.  The one right thing that needs to be in your essay so that law school X will admit you.  

There's no such word.  

Poetry can have a perfect word -- rhyme, meter, and tone all merging to create exactly the right effect.  Essays, on the other hand, rarely hang on whether you say "eat," "dine," or "feast" (although I would avoid "pig out" unless you're trying to create a very particular tone).  

Let's step inside the admissions office for a few minutes.

Well, give or take a minute.  But think, folks, how much time can an original reading of a file take?  Let's do some math.  Between, say, January 1 and March 1, the admissions officer must make an initial review of 2,400 files.  That's 8 weeks, so 300 files per week. Assume 30 hours a week for initial scans.  That makes 10 files an hour -- not counting phone calls, meetings, rest room and cigarette breaks, refilling the coffee cup, etc.  

The math varies, of course.  Some schools have half that many apps, and others have double that number.  But I think you get my drift.  An initial reading of the file is intended to grab the reader's attention.  The use of the perfect word in paragraph 7 just ain't gonna do that!  

The opening paragraph should be a real eye-catcher.  The content should make the reader want to read more, so you make it into the "maybe" stack.  That's what your essays buy you -- a promotion from "no" to "maybe."

"Wait a minute, Loretta!" you shout.  "There's six more weeks after March 1 that you're not counting."  Those six weeks, boys and girls, are the time allotted for reviewing the apps in the "maybe" stack.   So let's do more math.  My law forum interviews one year included questions on the number of presumptive admits, presumptive denies, and discretionary apps.  The typical answer was about one-half discretionary.  So now we have 1200 apps to review in six more weeks, or 200 a week.  At 40 hours a week, that's still 5 per hour, or 12 additional minutes per application.   

What is the admissions officer looking for in those 12 minutes?

• Content that answers questions about weaknesses in your file;
• Content that says you have something fascinating, delightful, or intellectually engaging to offer, that isn't apparent from your resume and transcript;
• A style that shows you are funny, friendly, or insightful;
• Evidence that you've been careful in writing and proofreading the essays.

So what is important?

• Topic selection is crucial.  You definitely want to write an essay that says something noteworthy.  
• You definitely want to avoid the kind of mistakes that make people laugh at you.  (This month I've seen "meager" savings turned into "merger" savings, a dozen accidentally omitted words, and more "to-too-two" errors than I can count.)
• And you definitely want to avoid subtlety.  Subtlety takes too much time to catch.  

You also want to avoid being boring.  People who cannot resist the urge to add one more sentence simply because the space exists tend to forget that that sentence may not be as important to the admissions officer as it is to them.  Here's an example:  

"In 1969 I ran my right hand through a shredder.  It took six operations over two years to repair the damage; the result was functional, but not perfect.  Fortunately, I am left-handed."

"On October 23, 1969 at 2:00 p.m., I suffered an accident in which my hand was caught in a wool carding machine, resulting in severe lacerations to the second, third and fourth fingers as well as the top third of the palm of my hand. A series of six operations, including several Z-plasty's, two skin grafts, and an attempted (but failed) nerve reconnection, were conducted over the course of the next two years.  With subsequent intervening physical therapy I was able to regain almost full use of my hand.  The resulting physical limitations, however, are minimal, since the hand in question is not my dominant one."

Both paragraphs say the same thing.  The first says it more simply, and without the two grammatical mistakes in the second ("were" instead of "was" after "series," and the redundant or contradictory phrase "subsequent intervening").  

Which one works better between 10:00 and 10:04?

Bad and Good Advice

Bad personal statements are much easier to describe than good ones.  If you want to see examples of how to talk your way out of law school, click here.