Question Regarding Personal Statements

[StressedLlama]

I'm applying to multiple law schools in Ontario and am currently working on the personal statement requirements for each school. I was just wondering, for those who are also applying to various schools, are you guys keeping your personal statements for each school more or less the same (with slight adjustments in content and length of course)? Is it a good idea to do that or should each personal statement for each school be fairly unique? I just wrote up my statement for Osgoode and was thinking of combining most of it to form my personal statement for UofT. I'm not sure if this is a good idea though. Is it a lazy strategy? Should I be thinking of a new way to write a personal statement for each school I'm applying to?

Any advice would be appreciated!  

[Thrive92]

42 minutes ago, StressedLlama said:

I'm applying to multiple law schools in Ontario and am currently working on the personal statement requirements for each school. I was just wondering, for those who are also applying to various schools, are you guys keeping your personal statements for each school more or less the same (with slight adjustments in content and length of course)? Is it a good idea to do that or should each personal statement for each school be fairly unique? I just wrote up my statement for Osgoode and was thinking of combining most of it to form my personal statement for UofT. I'm not sure if this is a good idea though. Is it a lazy strategy? Should I be thinking of a new way to write a personal statement for each school I'm applying to?

Any advice would be appreciated!  

Although this really depends on you and your ability to be able to compose a PS to fit as broadly as possible to multiple schools, this is ill - advised as some schools may look specifically for why you are applying to their particular school.

Personally, I would recommend you write a PS catered to each individual school, with extra effort in what draws you to that particular school.

[TobyFlenderson]

17 hours ago, Thrive92 said:

Although this really depends on you and your ability to be able to compose a PS to fit as broadly as possible to multiple schools, this is ill - advised as some schools may look specifically for why you are applying to their particular school.

Personally, I would recommend you write a PS catered to each individual school, with extra effort in what draws you to that particular school.

It is fairly common for people to write a “base” version of their PS that gets sent everywhere, with different paragraphs at the end explaining “why X school”. As long as you provide the information that the school asks for, there’s little point in writing entirely different statements for each school.

[GGrievous]

I borrowed bits and pieces from each of my statements, but each one was a different statement. Each school asked for different lengths, highlighted different requirements. So, no, I wouldn’t just write one and swap out the name it’s addressed to, but I would and did copy and paste chunks into each.

[Piffle]

58 minutes ago, TobyFlenderson said:

It is fairly common for people to write a “base” version of their PS that gets sent everywhere, with different paragraphs at the end explaining “why X school”. As long as you provide the information that the school asks for, there’s little point in writing entirely different statements for each school.

This was the case for me. I had a bunch of “base” paragraphs totalling ~3000 characters that were the foundation of my PS, and which I copied and pasted for each school. I then used remainder of the character count to satisfy school-specific requirements.

I think it's a perfectly fine strategy to do this -- a smart strategy, even -- and not what OP would call "lazy" in their initial post.

Remember that any given school can't see the PS that you're submitting for another school, so no need to worry about reusing what you've written.

Edited September 6, 2021 by Piffle

[Khrisse]

I agree with what’s been said. As long as you’re responding to what each school is asking you to speak to, re-using some base material makes a lot of sense to me. The reasons you want to study law and your school / life experiences are not gonna change from school to school, but your reasons for being interested in that school will. So if you adjust accordingly (and are super careful not to mention the wrong school!), I think you’re fine. I’m totally using the base material and tailoring strategy, myself! 

[scooter]

I think it's similar to how you would tailor your resume for a specific job. A lot of it will be the same, but you want to make sure you're hitting the points that each school is looking for. Overall, I think they are looking for very similar things in terms of assessing you as a candidate (your ability to succeed academically, the contributions you will make to the classroom and school community).

However, I think Osgoode is the outlier in that they make you split it up into 2-3 different short essays (depending on if you fill out the last optional section). I would be careful about just combining your Osgoode essays into a single personal statement. It may not flow as naturally as you'd want, might be better to just start from scratch. But then you could use that as the base for any other schools you apply to besides U of T.

[Thrive92]

6 hours ago, TobyFlenderson said:

It is fairly common for people to write a “base” version of their PS that gets sent everywhere, with different paragraphs at the end explaining “why X school”. As long as you provide the information that the school asks for, there’s little point in writing entirely different statements for each school.

 

3 hours ago, Khrisse said:

I agree with what’s been said. As long as you’re responding to what each school is asking you to speak to, re-using some base material makes a lot of sense to me.

 

5 hours ago, Piffle said:

This was the case for me. I had a bunch of “base” paragraphs totalling ~3000 characters that were the foundation of my PS, and which I copied and pasted for each school. I then used remainder of the character count to satisfy school-specific requirements.

OP I would not discount these advices above, but consider the fact that if you go the "hard" way to writing the PS (which is what I have advised you -- different PS for different law schools), the effort really shows even if you don't seem to feel that way and the recipient will appreciate it more than the other applicants with PS of "generic and broad law - related content. two or three sentences specifically tweaked about the specific law school. generic and broad law - related content again".

There is no doubt that adcom of each law school in Canada reads well over a thousand of PS every year from applicants; it does not take them long as they read yours to think that this applicant really put in some effort and catered solely to this law school compared to "ah yes. another applicant with a PS that aside from a few mentions about our law school in name, is universally acceptable in other law schools".

Again, I'm not saying to discount these advices, but I am asking why take the risk? It may take an additional hour or two per law school to individually write your PS specifically for each school, but I am confident that the effort will show and make you stand out compared to other applicants of being more serious and determined to get into the recipient's law school.