CHAPTER 7: ADDENDA & OPTIONAL ESSAYS

WHEN TO WRITE AN ADDENDUM ESSAY

The addendum essay can be used to explain something that law schools might perceive as a weakness, or it can address a disclosure about which the school requires more information. You’ll see questions about academic and disciplinary problems in college as well as run-ins with the law, and have to explain anything that applies to you in an addendum. A prompt may require you to disclose past offenses even if they expunged from your record or you were a juvenile, so read carefully. Your S2S ambassador can help you dissect the disclosure questions on your applications and figure out 1) whether you need to disclose at all, and 2) if so, how best to explain what happened.

Aside from required addenda, there are also additional subjects that you may want to address. For instance, you could explain why you canceled LSAT scores more than once, or why there was a downward trend in your GPA. Whatever the topic, if you do choose to write an addendum essay, here are the major guidelines:

Keep it brief and don’t whine. A few paragraphs is usually long enough.

Explain the issue, but resolve it by showing that it is no longer a problem. You don’t want admissions officers to worry about a recurrence in law school.

Be open and honest about what happened. Explain the situation in a direct and mature manner. Accept responsibility and demonstrate that it’s in your past.

Use good judgment about what information you provide and how you frame things. Don't just say you received low grades freshman year because you partied too much. Explain that you were not prepared for the rigours of undergraduate life freshman year, and that you worked diligently to improve in subsequent years.

OPTIONAL ESSAYS

Many schools will also give you the chance to write “optional essays.” The most common optional essay is the diversity essay, but you might also see essay questions about “Why our school?” and “Explain your career goals.” These essays tend to be shorter than the personal statement (usually one page). There is no harm in not writing one of these, but if done well they can add value to your application and show schools that you care enough to do the extra work.

In particular, if the school gives you a “Why our school?” question, you should absolutely answer it and put some real thought into it. If you don't, you signal to the school that you may not care much about them and may not really want to attend. Typical reasons for wanting to attend a specific school are location (desire to live/practice in a certain region), professors who specialize in something you are interested in, great placement in an area of the law or particular employment community (JAG, immigration, criminal law reform, mergers & acquisitions, whatever), specific clinics or extracurricular programs that you care about, and the veterans community. If you choose to answer this question, research all of these things so that you can speak intelligently about them in your essay. And use your S2S network of current law students who can help you with school-specific information.