In this series, a jdMission Senior Consultant reviews real law school personal statements. What’s working well? What’s not? If it were his/her essay, what would be changed? Find out!

Note: To maintain the integrity and authenticity of this project, we have not edited the personal statements, though any identifying names and details have been changed or removed. Any grammatical errors that appear in the essays belong to the candidates and illustrate of the importance of having someone (or multiple someones) proofread your work.

Personal Statement

I don’t think I understood about being black. Everyone in my world just was. Of course there were white people and black people, but race and its complexities seemed to play out mostly on TV, in movies, in newspapers. But in my world, and let me try not to sound cliché, there were just deepening and lightening shades of people. Read more

Ready to study the right way? We incorporate the latest discoveries in learning science into our LSAT course to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of your prep. Want to see? Try the first session of any of our upcoming courses for free.

Of all the standardized tests out there, the LSAT is perhaps the most intensely time-pressured. We all know the feeling of our hand shaking a little as we stare down at an entire unattempted Logic Game with only five minutes left on the clock. So students often ask me questions like, “When will I start to see improvements in my LSAT timing?” “Will it come with practice, or will I just kind of naturally start to go faster?” Read more

A personal statement is really no more than telling a story—one that illuminates the “you” a law school would be lucky to have in its student body. In this series, a jdMission Senior Consultant will discuss how elements of storytelling can—and should—be applied to your personal statement.

About a year ago, my sister called and asked what I was doing.

“I’m brainstorming ideas for my book,” I told her.

“With whom?” she asked. I was alone.

“I’m pretty sure if you’re by yourself, it’s just called thinking,” she said. Ah. Indeed.

Brainstorming, as we all know, is a term commonly (over-)used today in business, education and pretty much any environment to describe how a group generates as many ideas as possible. Apparently, some of us use the term for individuals as well.
Read more

Ready to study the right way? We incorporate the latest discoveries in learning science into our LSAT course to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of your prep. Want to see? Try the first session of any of our upcoming courses for free.

Some people walk out of their test centers on LSAT day all smiles and good cheer, ready to enjoy their study-free day.

Some people. Read more

Learning science has come a long way in recent years, and we’ve been learning with it. We incorporate the latest discoveries in learning science into our LSAT course to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of your prep. Want to see? Try the first session of any of our upcoming courses for free.

Note: If you haven’t yet read Allison Bell’s post on LSAT motivation, I highly recommend you check it out here. This post is inspired by both a comment from my lovely wife and that post.

At the end of Allison’s post, she mentions finding a study partner (or partners, plural—small group or paired study is very, very effective). I’m hoping to follow up on that post with some ideas on how to make these group study sessions more efficient. Read more