Jobs-Matrix Resources - Lesson Three: Why Exceptional?

The Admissions Essay Prep Leader shares essay writing strategies and samples that will help you gain entrance to your first choice law school. For more free essay writing advice and for help with your admissions essay, visit EssayEdge.com.

Writing about your experiences in the law field supports both the Why I Want to Be a Lawyer theme and the Why I Am Qualified theme, so it is always a good idea to spend time on the experiences that qualify you as a potential law student.

Direct work experience is always the best, of course, for a number of reasons. For one, it proves your motivation to the committee. For another, it shows that you have the potential for being successful in the field. Perhaps most importantly, it shows the committee that you understand the profession and know what you will be getting into upon graduating. One type of applicant that the committee keeps a wary eye out for is the kind who wants to go to law school but doesn't have any realistic idea of what lawyers do beyond the glamorized images seen in television and movies.

But you do not need to have had an internship at a law firm to show that you are qualified. Your experience might be political, such as the convention you volunteered to help organize or the campaign you helped raise funds for. Or it can be academic or issues-based, such as the thesis you wrote on law and the Internet. The rule here is, if you have it, use it.

If you have a lot of experience, the bulk of your essay may be spent on this theme rather than on the Why I Want to Go to Law School theme. You should try to relate your qualifications back to your motivation at some point, though, even if it is only a reference. Often, people will do this in a single, concluding sentence. This can be a powerful approach as long as your passion is clearly demonstrated through your description of your experiences. Look at this essay for an example. The writer spends all but the last paragraph of his essay describing his dedication to activism, first by lobbying to have the Confederate flag removed from the Boy Scouts, and later by actions taken as student body president. He doesn't make a verbal tie-in to his motivation until the last few sentences of his essay:

For some candidates the problem will not be that they don't have enough direct experience to write about; they have too much. The danger inherent in wanting to include all your experience is that space is limited and you can either end up with an essay that is too long, or one that consists of little more than a listing of your activities and accomplishments.

It is all right to include all the experience you have had somewhere in your essay but keep it short and do it in the context of a story or a personal account using colorful details. After all, you can attach a resume that will list all your jobs and promotions. The essay has the much more important job of bringing these experiences to life.

Also, resist the hard-sell approach. The admissions officers at top schools read so many essays written by extremely qualified applicants that writing a self-serving "I did this, I did that" essay isn't going to wow them; it will simply make them yawn. You are much better off with a humble attitude. Let your experiences speak for themselves and focus on making your essay personal and interesting instead. Having someone objective read your essay before you send it in will help you discern the kind of impression you are making.

Note: This essay appears unedited for instructional purposes. Essays edited by EssayEdge are substantially improved. For samples of EssayEdge editing, please click here.

At the age of eighteen, I never expected to receive so much attention. After two years of trying to persuade the local Scout council to abandon its widespread use of the Confederate battle flag, my letter to the National Office paid off. Newspapers nationwide reported that my letter spurred the Boy Scouts of America to issue a policy restricting use of the flag. As a conservative white Southerner whose family moved here in 1635, I had to explain that this policy was not just politically correct, but that it made sense.

Nine years ago, I was inducted into the Order of the Arrow (OA), a selective Scout organization designed to encourage leadership and community service. My seventy-member induction class included twenty black Scouts, but I never saw more than one or two of them at OA events. I became concerned that the OA was not developing leaders from one-third of our state's population, and wondered why blacks returned so rarely. I remembered the pervasiveness of the Confederate flag on induction weekend-decorating mugs and T-shirts, hanging from flagpoles and in the dining hall. While I knew the flag was not the root cause of the problem, I decided that its removal would help keep black Scouts in the OA.

Therefore, as editor of the regional OA newsletter, I published an article critical of the flag. Several black Scouts quietly confirmed my suspicions. One Scout recalled that his mother, seeing the flags in the camp dining hall, pulled him aside and whispered, "I don't think we're welcome here." More typical was the response of a prominent Scout leader, who angrily demanded to know why any debate was even necessary since "we only have two blacks in the lodge anyway." I could not believe how thoroughly he had missed my point.

Though my local efforts were thwarted, I still believed that Scouting should abandon the flag. One year later, my letter to the National Office prompted the new policy and ignited a storm of public debate. Critics blasted my disrespect for Southern tradition, misinterpreting my desire to help the South as an apology for the Civil War. I am proud of my relatives who fought and died for the Confederacy, but it is not their image that the flag represents when it is used at twentieth century Scout meetings, football games, and NASCAR races. Scouts began using the flag in the 1950s, about the time Georgia and South Carolina raised it over their State Houses. The flag is a response to unpopular Supreme Court justices, not invading armies.

Ironically, [school's] student newspaper has charged that I lack compassion and only represent white male fraternity members on a fraternity-dominated campus. The newspaper did not endorse me for student body president because I refused to give unconditional support to every cause, including de-emphasis of Western curricula and mandatory hiring quotas for black faculty. The editors downplayed my leading role in establishing the first main campus housing for a black fraternity, a woman's selective group, and a multicultural organization, because they believed that the fraternities should have been kicked off campus instead. Nonetheless, I was the first person to be elected without their endorsement in twenty years because students recognized my commitment to the entire community.

The battle flag has slowly disappeared from Scouting, and [school's] campus better reflects the school's diversity. While integration is still a distant goal, these changes are small steps in the right direction. I sought practical improvements through independent thinking, perseverance, and tenacity in the face of fierce criticism. A legal education would give me tools to better use these abilities. I am not headed to law school on a mission, but I see law as an opportunity to contribute as we build our future.