One of the requirements for all UVic Law applicants is the submission of a personal statement. The simple guidelines can be found here. We’ve also published some helpful blog posts with tips to write a strong personal statement (Tips and Tricks: Personal Statements and Clarification on Personal Statement Guidelines). We also hosted a webinar with current students that gave helpful tips on writing personal statements. However, we still get a lot of questions about how to write a strong personal statement. This is part of a series explaining more of what the expectations are of a successful application, as well as some tips and things to avoid. This installment discusses what some of the expectations are in Part B of a strong personal statement.
We ask our applicants in Part B of their personal statements to:
…”using an outline format, list any other activities or achievements that you want the Admissions Committee to know about. You may wish to include your academic achievements, employment experiences, extra-curricular endeavours, community involvement, or other life experiences or personal attributes that you have not previously highlighted in your application.” UVic Law Admissions
Great, but what does that mean? Let’s break it down a bit.
Recall that when we holistically review your application, what we see of you is what is contained in the four corners of your application. That is, our entire picture of you lives in your transcript, LSAT score, application, personal statement, and possibly other statements or references (if not applying in the general admission stream). Your LSAT score is an objective score. It lets us know how well you did on that test on that date, but it doesn’t tell us much else about you. Your transcript gives us a bit more insight, but it is again an objective view of how well you performed in particular classes over a particular period of time.
On the other hand, the personal statement tells us subjectively more about who you are. It, more than the other application pieces, is capable of aiding you in storytelling. This is intuitive for Part A of your personal statement, as it’s a personal narrative. Keep this in mind, too, though, when writing Part B. We are looking for a coherent story that shows that you are a well-rounded applicant who has a high likelihood of success. Part B is meant to paint a demonstrative picture of just that. Using your achievements, endeavours, involvements, and activities, we want you to complete the picture already started by your LSAT score, your transcript, and Part A of your personal statement. It’s meant to supplement Part A, rather than function as a stand-alone document. A good question to ask yourself when sitting down to write Part B is, “what else do I want the Admissions Committee to know about me?” Remember, it’s not about law school, it’s about you! That is, we really want to know more about you than a superficial recital of the things about you that you think we want to know about you. Instead, we genuinely want to know about you.
Why do we ask you to use an outline format? Outline format is really nice when you are reviewing a list of things, like achievements or experience. Asking for an outline format tells you that we want a mix of bullet points and concise (hint: brief) narrative. It’s visually easier for us to review. It also tells you that we do not want a resume. We don’t want you to simply cut and paste your CV with the title “Part B.”
What we really want, however, is a list-ish. We don’t want you to just list a few accomplishments and/or activities and move on. We want you to tell us why your experiences are relevant to either your attendance at UVic Law or how they shaped your desire to attend UVic Law. Some people choose to accomplish this by using indented points to describe a few related experiences, then include a sentence or two underneath them that ties them together and explains their relevance. Some group experiences, organizing them in a logical way. Pro tip: we like to read these; they make the logical parts of our brains very happy.
We expect that many of your life experiences are not law-related. Students do not typically begin studying law and committing to law jobs in high school. A variety of experiences that make a student well-rounded can be valuable and might be things that taught you values or skills, that created an opportunity for growth or resilience. Maybe something you have done showcased an already maturely formed skill or value. If you are listing something that is not law-related but provided transferrable skills, we want you to tell us what those are. What are the things you learned, the takeaways, the things you are proud of? How will those things make you a stronger student and a better legal professional?
Even for the law-related bits of your life, if there are any, we want you to provide some context. What led you there? What did you take away with you from it? How did this solidify your path to law school?
Is there a word count limit? There is not, but we do ask that applicants use a reasonableness standard. We didn’t not include a word count limit so that applicants would use that as a loophole to include every bit of information they could not fit in Part A. Generally speaking, four to five bullet points is not enough for Part B. Six pages is too long. If we were to tell you how long it should be, I would say between a page and two pages, but there is some leeway on either side. We just want it to concisely tell the whole story.
Is there a good way to organize Part B? There isn’t one right way to organize Part B, and we don’t want to hinder anyone’s great ideas or creativity. One way that seems to work for a lot of people is organizing the outline into categories like education, work experience, and volunteer work. For others, it might make better sense to organize by subject matter (i.e. government experience, environmental experience, etc.). Still others have organized information into charts or divided it chronologically. Again, we hesitate to give instructions that box in our applicants.
Remember, we will not jump to conclusions for you, so it’s best to say things explicitly, rather than ask us to complete the picture. If you are making a stylistic choice when writing, make sure it’s a choice that connects the dots for us. Please do not leave unanswered questions within the information included in your application.
What’s with the fun facts? I know, it seems like an odd choice to include that you can sing the alphabet song in 27 languages on your law school application. Note, though, that this would be something we want to know. It helps us get a clearer picture of who you are, and inclusion of fun facts can be an unexpected source of humour, insight, or poignancy in your document.
Note that fun facts are not a requirement. Many applicants have successfully applied to UVic Law without the use of fun facts.
Pronouns and preferred name: as part of our commitment to make space for and include a variety of applicants, we invite you to include your pronouns and/or preferred name on Part B of your personal statement. This is entirely optional. However, if you do include them, we will carry them through the admissions process and ensure that the Faculty is aware of them as you begin your law school career. They will not be shared beyond the Faculty, which means that it will not affect communications from the rest of the university. We hope pronoun and preferred name usage becomes common practice for UVic as a whole. However, until it does, we are happy to provide that practice in the Law Faculty.