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55 Successful Harvard Law School Application Essays: What Worked for Them Can Help You Get Into the Law School of Your Choice

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This is a good book to read if you are interested in seeing sample law school admissions essays. In general, these essays are written at a high level of quality to which many law school applicants would aspire.

However, the title of this book is somewhat misleading. These essays are not necessarily "successful" in the sense that they definitely helped the writers to get into law school; these essays were submitted to the Harvard Crimson newspaper by their authors, not identified by Harvard admissions officers as exceptional essays. Therefore, although these are the essays of successful applicants, it is hard to say to what extent the essays factored into admissions decisions. Based on the quality of the essays compared to the quality of the applicants (most of whom are practicing lawyers with profiles posted online), I'd guess that other factors played a much stronger role in the admission of many of these candidates.

The quality of the commentary provided in this book is also questionable. The reviewers are undergraduate student reporters, not admissions officers, and in many cases their commentary is at odds with that provided by admissions officers on law school web pages and in interviews. Further, the commentary is provided by multiple different reviewers, and each has a different idea of what constitutes a good essay. If nothing else, one might recall this diversity and feel comforted later, when some school unexpectedly offers up a rejection letter -- admissions committees probably have opinions just as diverging as those of Harvard undergraduates. In any case, I wouldn't use the opinions of these students, good writers though they undoubtedly are, as a guide on how to craft a great essay for the very specific purpose of law school admissions.

what i liked most about the book was the commentary provided by the admission viewers as to what could be changed about the persons essay, or what they liked about the essay. this allowed me to develop a broad idea of what mine should look like.

It is a great book for people to get a general idea about law schools admissions essays. The book contains abstracts from essays and shows the diversity of students and their intellectual high level! I love it! I am Russian and I plan to enroll into good school so I ordered this book and I think it is a good asset to have and to study!The book was in good condition and promptly delivered.
55 Successful Harvard Law School Application Essays: What Worked for Them Can Help You Get Into the Law School of Your Choice