I would greatly appreciate any insight you may have about my situation.

You’re educated in China and while you’ve received an MA degree from here in the U.S., I will consider you as a foreign applicant in the application process. For you, primarily, this means that I will need to focus strongly on your communication skills – both written and verbal. Law school is intense – writing, reading and speaking are crucial elements. If your language skills are not up to par, the next three years will be difficult. This means that I will scrutinize your LSAT writing sample, I will scrutinize your personal statement, I will take very seriously what your recommenders may say about your English skills.

The LSAT, in general, will need to be very strong. Ideally, the LSAT should be properly studied for and taken once. Reality shows this is not always the case, but you need to keep in mind that every time you retake the LSAT we expect your score to go up – familiarity with the test accounts for this. Now, if there is a noticeable gap between scores, you should tell us why you think that happened – in an addendum and not in your personal statement.

Don’t sell yourself short on what you believe your personal statement will convey to us. Don’t take on the burden of thinking you need to stand out amongst all other applicants. Many times, perhaps even most times, I am more dazzled by the “quiet” statements – those that tell me via the written word about how you think and what you think.

I’d like to hear about how you’re spending your time so it makes good sense to tell me that you’re heading off to live in another culture. You can use your resume for this if you feel the personal statement is not the best place to highlight this. Remember that I want to know what you’re doing and what you’re up to because this helps us to better gauge the kind of member of the SLS community you are likely to become.

I’m curious about one thing still, though. I have fairly high academic credentials, especially for the schools that I intend to apply to. However, when it comes to my personal statement, I’ve been finding myself somewhat limited. Every example I’ve read online has dimmed my hopes more and more. I’ve never lived in an Ethiopian village helping to carry water and I haven’t managed a team of 100 while we turned around a failing business. I understand that these examples are the exceptions, not the norms… but I’m unsure as to how to make myself stand out as an applicant. I definitely have passion, drive, motivation, and a million other traits that every applicant and their dogs claim to demonstrate, but I feel that this will definitely be the weakest part of my application.

Will above-average academic accomplishments in a business program combined with a demonstrated focus on globalization and cultural literacy help to balance out a personal statement that merely meets expectations rather than dazzling admissions officers? As an example, I’ve spent four years learning a less-common language and will soon be departing to spend several months living in another culture. Are these things helpful for an application? And can I list intentions on my statement, or only accomplishments?

I’ve re-read Asha’s comment that you mention and I’m going to interpret her remarks by focusing on her use of the word “all” when talking about science and engineering. I personally believe that science /engineering backgrounds are valuable and most certainly are not viewed here at SLS as a weakness. That said, though, not all science/engineering applicants come to the table with their best foot forward. For example, I don’t like to see an engineering major’s transcript with only (or all – here’s my connection to Asha’s comment) science-type courses. I want to see you branch out of your safe and secure science world and take a walk on the wild side and enter the humanities world, for example. Now, I know the engineering major does not leave a whole lot of room for exploring, but there is room and you should most definitely take advantage of that to round out your academic program of study. Likewise, I like to see the English major take a walk on the wild side as well so this advice does not only apply to the science kids.