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Kirk Walters:
Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Kirk Walter and it is my pleasure to welcome you to today's webinar Beyond Perfection: Writing About Growth, Setbacks, and Self-Reflection.
Today, what we're going to do is we're going to talk about a part of the law school application process that can feel especially personal, deciding how to address the parts of your record or your life experience that don't really neatly fit into the everything went exactly as planned version of your story. And let's be honest, for most of us that everything's been smooth sailing version, well, it would be shelved in the fiction section of a library.
So if your life has ever included a hard semester, lower-than-hoped-for test score, a gap in your work or in your education history, a change in direction, a personal event or a decision you wish you would've handled differently, you are totally not alone.
Also, you are not automatically disqualified from being a strong law school applicant. Admissions committees are not looking for applicants who have floated through life with perfect grades and perfect timing, perfect judgment, and somehow also a perfectly formatted resume. I assume if such a person does exist, that they are in fact very, very tired. The real question is not whether your record is flawless. The question is whether your application, whether it's helpful to an admissions reader so that they can understand your experiences with clarity, with honesty, with maturity and with the proper context.
So over the next hour, we're going to approach that question and that goal in two ways. First, we'll spend about 30 minutes in conversation with our outstanding panelists who will help us understand how law school admissions offices actually interpret shortcomings, understand when an addendum or an explanation is or is not helpful and understand how applicants can avoid the extreme of either over-explaining or saying just nothing at all.
Then in the second half of our time together, we're going to shift into a practical workshop. There you're going to have a chance to think through that issue or those issues in your own application and decide whether it or they need to be addressed, consider, if they do need to be addressed, where it belongs. And then we're going to start to begin drafting a concise explanation that focuses on that context on accountability, growth, and readiness.
So our goal today is not to turn every challenge into a dramatic courtroom monologue worthy of Law & Order. Rather, it's really to help you make thoughtful choices about your application materials. And by the end, you should hopefully feel more prepared to decide what needs context, what doesn't, and how to speak about difficult experiences in a way that's forward-looking.
Before we get there though, I do have a couple of quick notes. So in just a little while, we are going to open up a Q&A function so that you can ask any questions that you have during our conversation. Now, especially in light of this topic, we know that many of you are going to have a lot of very specific questions about your unique situation. However, we are limited in time and so we may not be able to address your individual situation, but what we will do is try to take the individual and make it more applicable generally. So do please put whatever questions you have in the chat, know that we may group and condense questions together to make sure that our answers and our time together are the most useful for everybody on the call.
The final bookkeeping note that I have for you is that we have prepared a quick poll. We use these polls to give us a sense of where y'all are in the application process. This helps us tailor the conversation so that hopefully it can be the most use to you. Okay, so there it is.
While you'll take a second just to complete it, I'm going to go ahead and welcome our panelists to the webinar stage with us. So today we have Danielle Saavedra, Assistant Dean of Admissions and Director of First Generation Resources at Texas Tech University School of Law. And we also have Katya Valasek, LSAC Director of Prelaw Advising. Hey y'all, how are you?
Thank you so much for being here. I am going to start the grilling off with the just regular level of intensity and ask the hard-hitting question. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself? What's your background? Where are you from? Danielle, if you don't mind, I'll start with you.
Danielle Saavedra:
Sure, absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity to join you all this afternoon. My name is Danielle Saavedra. I'm originally from El Paso, Texas. I did my undergrad in San Antonio and ended up at Texas Tech in Lubbock for law school. After a short time in private practice, I ended up coming back to the law school for what was supposed to be a short favor and 10, 11 years later and tens of thousands of applications that I read later, I realized that I absolutely love law school admissions and getting to work with students on their law school journeys. And just a fun fact about me, I am a serial hobbyist. I have a hobby of everything and I'm not very good at any of them.
Kirk Walters:
I love it. I love it. And I love also that you... Also, having been in law school administration for a while, I often did the Gilligan's Island theme song, a three-hour tour turns into, so I love it. Katya?
Katya Valasek:
Well, I'm feeling the pressure because I did not prepare a fun fact about myself, but let's start with the boring stuff. I'm Katya Valasek, the Director of Prelaw Advising here at LSAC. I am in my sixth year here working with prelaw advisors and prospective law students. I came to LSAC after almost a decade in law school admissions. So I also have experience reviewing files. And I went to law school, I went to Michigan State for law school. I got my undergraduate degree here in New Jersey. And I am totally freaking out. I have no fun fact, so we're just going to let it stand at that. It's that panic when someone asks you what you do for fun and you don't realize you do anything for fun, but I am thrilled to be here.
Kirk Walters:
I know you personally and I can attest she is a lot of fun.
Danielle Saavedra:
It is correct. Yes.
Kirk Walters:
Awesome. Okay. So to get us started off, I want to address just the misconception that there are these going to be perfect applicants out there. So a lot of people assume that one week semester or one disciplinary issue will become the defining feature of their application. So I'm wondering from your perspective, how do admissions readers actually evaluate imperfections within that kind of holistic larger application file?
Katya Valasek:
Danielle, I don't know about you, but in my experience reading files, people who think they have a perfect application tend to sometimes be not as stellar as they think they are. I mean, every application reviewer I know knows that life happens to you, right? There are bumps along the road. There are pivots you have to make. When we are young, we sometimes make bad choices that have an impact on what we have to share about our life story, but those twists and turns are often what makes an application really interesting to work through. Danielle, you're still doing this work. Is that what you still see?
Danielle Saavedra:
Absolutely. The number of applications that we see that are perfectly spotless, stellar are far and few between and truthfully on the lesser interesting side sometimes because it's kind of like, yes, we know. Sometimes those trials and tribulations that students have gone through push them to grow. And so we can see how they respond to difficult situations because difficult situations are abundant in law school and practice as a lawyer. And so it's kind of helpful for us to see how they may have responded to a difficult situation in the past.
And as Kirk said, we are doing a very holistic review and what that means is we are not just, "What's your LSAT? You're in. You're out. What's your GPA? You're in. You're out. You got a ticket, you got arrested? You're in. You're out." It's not that cut and dry. And so looking holistically at every part of the application and who this person is and who they're putting forth to the committee, it makes a big difference. And different situations can have different outcomes for your admissions decisions as well.
Kirk Walters:
Awesome. So I'm curious what your thoughts are of if there are times when somebody not addressing, leaving some things unexplained in an application file, if that actually raises more concern for you as the reader than if somebody just owned and said, "Look, yeah, I had to take a leave of absence or I had a really rough semester when my grandma passed." These types of unanswered questions, do you find them sometimes more distracting and more off-putting than what the potential issue itself might've been?
Danielle Saavedra:
My committee tends to, and I always tell students to think about it like this, my committee is going to create a narrative if context isn't there. And so including an addendum, including some kind of explanation is your way to control that narrative because you might not want whatever the committee is imagining may have happened during that time. And it could be as simple as one or two sentences just to explain whatever it was that happened. I had really poor grades starting school. I was in the wrong major and I found my passion, moved on. We can see the transcript showing that the grades improved. But yeah, I think controlling the narrative is a real benefit that students have during the application process.
Katya Valasek:
And I think there's two buckets that this missing context can be placed into. One is a disclosure or an addendum that the application asks for. And so whenever that is missing, that was a bigger problem for me because not only does it feel now like you are trying to hide something, but you also can't follow directions, right? So it's either you're willfully trying to keep something from me and then my brain, as Danielle said, is creating a story or you can't read what the instructions were on the application. The optional ones, yes, it may raise a question, and I think we might get into this a little bit later, but there are sometimes where disclosing too much or saying too much also raises a question. So this is where that tension comes between what's the narrative you're trying to say and how are you using these pieces of the application to still highlight your strengths in dealing with potentially difficult or stressful or sad circumstances?
Kirk Walters:
So Katya, I'm going to use your two buckets.
Katya Valasek:
Okay.
Kirk Walters:
So what do you think applicants... So we have bucket one, which is just regular human situations and issues, and then we have bucket two that are things that would raise genuine concern about readiness or judgment. What would you say or what could you say to help applicants understand the difference between those two buckets? Does that make sense?
Katya Valasek:
Well, okay. So sometimes those buckets are interchangeable though because the school I worked at, one of the questions we asked was if there was ever an interruption in your schooling or work history. So if someone took a leave of absence, they would be required, whether it was from school or from work, they would be required to say what happened. So I consider that a pretty mundane life circumstance, but because it was required, failure to do so had a bigger impact. I think with anything that you're disclosing, whichever bucket it is in, what you want or what the applicant wants to try to tap into is the strong how they became a better applicant or a better person or a stronger student, a better employee because of what happened.
If you tap into a growth mindset, which is that instead of saying, "I can't do this," to, "I'm not good at this yet," that sort of thing, if you try to spin the situation to really identify what it is you learned from the application and communicating that, the example Danielle gave was, "I was in the wrong major. I switched my majors. I found my passion. I'm really interested in this," and you can move on. As Danielle said, it can be as short as two sentences.
I can give you an example of the worst addendum I ever received and how completely unhelpful it was. It was an application that had a number of issues with underage drinking on campus, off campus, a concerning pattern and the addendum said, "I received a number of minor in possessions, but I am now 21 and it will no longer happen." Okay, well that is true, but there was no attempt to show, I struggled with peer pressure from my friends. I had an issue when I was younger, but I found help. I am now ready to be serious in my career, or I've taken some time off from school and now you can see I've had a successful job at Macy's for the last 14 months, whatever it is. There was no resolution that showed what this person learned from it or how they have adapted beyond that situation. The explanation they gave was just the passage of time which they had nothing to do with.
Kirk Walters:
Know that I'm always here for the T. So Danielle, same. Any comments on that in terms of the juxtaposition or-
Danielle Saavedra:
Yeah. So as Katya mentioned, her school had a specific question on the character and fitness portion and you'll start to find that as you're applying, every law school has very specific questions. And I mean, even specific down to the wording, like one may want to know any tickets you've received, another may want to know what tickets, arrests, citations, so on and so forth that you have been a part of or received. And so making sure that you're reading the application fully and answering it fully is super important. Sometimes with those required answers, I've seen students, they get embarrassed and they don't want to just disclose, "Yes, I got caught drinking underage. Yes, I got caught with something I wasn't supposed to have, or I got caught in a place that I wasn't supposed to be." And the truth of the matter is that we've all been that age once, but the more important part is that you are now at a place where you're taking responsibility and acknowledging that that was a youthful indiscretion and we're getting older and that won't happen again.
And so I think that this is the perfect opportunity to do that. So with required character and fitness, we really do take a kind of everything in the sync approach because what happens is once you get into law school, you have to do the form with the state bar of the state that your school is in and they do a background check and they're making sure that what you put on your application is the same thing that they're finding in their records. And if there are any discrepancies, the problem is not, oh, I had beer in my dorm one time. Now the problem is you lied about it by not putting it on your application in the first place. So just be very careful, be very mindful of those character and fitness questions. Don't be embarrassed. I promise in the tens of thousands of applications, we have seen everything.
Katya Valasek:
Everything.
Danielle Saavedra:
Everything. So much everything.
Katya Valasek:
Even things, stealing the president's golf cart on campus, the university president's golf court. There are some very creative people out there in the world that are finding out when they apply to law school, they're going to have to fess up to the adventures they had.
Danielle Saavedra:
And you know what? Some of them are lawyers now, so...
Katya Valasek:
Yeah.
Kirk Walters:
As somebody who had to make character and fitness disclosures, I can tell you, yes. What you said is so important that I kind of just want to bold it and underline it, that a failure to disclose those mandatory character and fitness responses can come back and bite you after the application process, so when you are actually applying for the bar exam.
Katya Valasek:
After graduation.
Kirk Walters:
Exactly.
Katya Valasek:
Not just after the application process, after graduation.
Kirk Walters:
Yeah. Yeah. And to Danielle's point that the past indiscretion, whatever it may be is one thing, but it is a contemporaneous lack of character and fitness when you failed to disclose. So those mandatory things, they're mandatory. So sorry, I just wanted to bold and underline that just to make sure that people understand that. So there's a tension that applicants often hear, never draw attention to your weaknesses. You don't want to focus on those. But then also that tension of what we're saying is explain anything that could potentially look off. How should somebody be focusing on where that line is of disclosure versus not?
Katya Valasek:
Well, I think a good disclosure isn't a weakness. It actually strengthens an application because it is providing context behind something. And again, it could be something benign like, "My mom had surgery, I had to take six months off of work. That's why there's a gap in my resume." But by adding that addendum, by adding that additional context, you are actually making yourself a stronger applicant in a way by painting a fuller picture of who you are. And to Danielle's point, there are people who've done all sorts of things that have ended up in law school. And part of being a lawyer is being frank and being upfront with your clients about what you're handling, the chances they have with their case, the concerns you have.
So even something that feels really, really, I hate to use the word shame, but something that you regret having happened in your past to own it and to present it in a matter of fact way that just says, "Yes, this happens. This is what I learned from it, or this is why it won't happen again. This is how I pivoted." Showing the ability to stumble, recover, and pivot if need be is a really strong story that you can include as part of your application.
Danielle Saavedra:
Yeah, I agree completely. And I'm going to take a little bit of a different approach to this question because we got a lot of them this year were addendums specifically focused on their LSAT scores or their undergraduate GPAs that basically didn't have any reason for it other than I'm not a good standardized test taker or don't look at my grades, they don't represent me, but that's all that I have to look at. And there's no other context for why the scores are what they are, the grades are what they are. It was just somebody that was, "I'm bad at testing."
I guess the advice is think about what you're deciding to include in those addendum and why. If you're wanting to show, yes, my LSAT scores or my GPA were not where I wanted them to be because I had a semester of illness or I got sick or a family member got sick or this thing happened or there was some concrete issue that has since been remedied and will not be a problem going forward, that is something that's not highlighting a weakness, that's not bringing attention to a weakness. Like Katya said, that's bringing attention to something that you've gone through. We've remedied it. We don't have to worry about it.
If you are putting it forth an addenda that is just, I'm bad at tests, that's going to be a concern to the admissions committee because law school is a series of tests, right? You're taking one big test at the end of the semester for an entire grade. You're taking one even bigger test at the end of your whole law career to get your license. And so if we're starting off at the point where you're like, "Hello, I'm so-and-so, this is supposed to be my first professional impression and I'm not good at tests," that's not helpful to your application and it's going to be something difficult to overcome.
Kirk Walters:
So again, looking at some of the misinformation that applicants often have, sometimes they're told, "Explain but don't make excuses." I'm wondering if you could walk through that distinction, from an admissions perspective, what is the difference between excuse-making and actually providing appropriate context?
Danielle Saavedra:
Sure. I think the excuse, a perfect one is I was 19 at a college party and it got busted. I got a ticket for minor in possession, minor in consumption, but it wasn't my drink. I wasn't drinking. And it's kind of like, well, I mean, honestly, whether or not you were, you got a ticket. So it could have just been I was at a party in college, I was underage, I had a beverage, I got a ticket, I got it taken care of and I didn't let it happen again. And I think that's the distinction is you're trying to push an excuse, you're trying to push the blame off of yourself. Oh, I got written up for too many visitors in my dorm, but they were my roommate's friends and I didn't know them and I didn't want... All of that's ancillary. Just take it, own it and move on.
Katya Valasek:
Right. Right. Any attempt to blame someone else, it was so-and-so, it was because of so-and-so that I was in that situation. I would've had a better grade if my teacher was more understanding or a better teacher, anything where you're not owning your part in it or anything where... I'm trying to come up with a good example of this, but I know I read addenda along the way where what was disclosed didn't fully match what was being disclosed or what I could see. Like their explanation didn't fully match what they were trying to address.
So you want to take ownership, you want to show how you've pivoted, but you want to be as forthright and frank as you can. And that doesn't mean it needs to be two pages long, but you want to head on address whatever the past experience was.
Kirk Walters:
I'm curious if you can talk a little bit about are there signals, are there indicia of some type that when an applicant is writing about it that really makes it clear to you as an admissions professional that their explanation, their contextualization is credible?
Katya Valasek:
I mean, time is something that is very important in any sort of disclosure. If someone struggled for seven of their eight semesters in undergrad and then they say based on one semester that they've figured out how to be a successful student, right, there really isn't enough of a lead time to maybe say, "I've fixed my issues in the classroom," but to maybe just list what they did figure out over the course of what changed in that last semester specifically and acknowledge that they are starting to see improvement.
Another example I always like to give is shoplifting when you're 13 and in high school is something that I would look at very differently than shoplifting in your junior year of college, right? So the age and the time that has passed since an incident occurred add some additional context to the story that's being told. Danielle, did I miss anything? I'm sure I did.
Danielle Saavedra:
The other that I have seen is there was an instance where the student was kind of like in a... I guess it was in an academic integrity issue in their freshman year, right? They disclosed it. They were very honest about it. Whether it was like they didn't do the citation right or they may have plagiarized something, I'm not downplaying it, I just don't remember, but they were so appropriately remorseful about it, not over the top. They had actually gone on, they felt so bad about it and really did take it to heart that they worked really hard the next couple of years. They ended up being a TA for that professor. They were able to rebuild that trust with the professor and that showed quite a bit of growth and turning that into a win for them, but it was very credible because one of... I mean, the letter of recommendation, they put that in there, that that's how they had met. It wasn't under great circumstances but had seen the progress that the student had made.
So if the situation allows it, if a letter, one of your recommenders has seen that progress and seen that growth, that's another way to add credibility to what it is that you're trying to show.
Kirk Walters:
That's awesome. And what a cool story. So inexplicably, we are already at 30 minutes. So on just the final question before we move to some quick Q&A, do you have final advice, any questions, any wisdom that you would like to impart to folks who are trying to either find how to explain or how to present themselves with confidence and accountability?
Danielle Saavedra:
Sure. I would tell them, first and foremost, don't be so hard on yourself. We've all had things happen out of our control that we wish hadn't happened, so you are amongst the majority. I would then say to maybe put yourself in the shoes of the admissions officer. Whatever it is that you're trying to convey, how is that going to be heard and received by a third party, right? Sometimes we get so stuck in our own head and are kind of spiraling and making things bigger, but when we sit down and talk and put it out there, it's like, "Oh yeah, I got a dorm violation because I had asensi in my room and that's not allowed," right? And it's just sometimes removing yourself and thinking about it from somebody else's perspective can be really helpful.
But really if you have any questions, you can always give us a call. We don't know who you are. So if you don't want to say your name, you can just call and say, "Hello, I have a character and fitness question," and then ask it and then hang up and move on and hopefully we got it answered for you, but we won't know who it was. So that's a good way to hopefully get that off your chest.
Katya Valasek:
Well, Danielle took what I was going to say. I just want to echo that at every school it is not computers reviewing applications, it is humans who have lived life and struggled and fell flat on their faces and been caught in situations that they shouldn't have been in. So again, you don't need to be too hard on yourself, as Danielle said, when you have things that you need to explain. Even if it's I chose the wrong major and my grade suffered.
The other thing I want to add is that I hear admissions professionals say this all the time. These addenda, whether they're required or optional, are not being read through the lens of, "I'm looking for a reason to deny this person." They are being read through the lens of, "I'm looking to better understand this person." So I think that if you keep that in mind, it might help guide you in deciding what is something that is additional context.
They're not looking for a reason to put a black X through your name and send you that denial letter. They really are trying to get a full understanding of who you are and what you're going to add to the class. So again, that ability to show growth and the ability to pivot and the ability to learn how to do something in a different way if it doesn't work the first time, those are all traits that they are going to want to have in that incoming class that they're bringing in.
Kirk Walters:
So we've gotten a lot of questions in the Q&A and I think the most important one that I want to pull out really, a number of folks have discussed and had questions that they are survivors of some pretty traumatic assaults. And so a couple of different questions with regard to that. If a person chose to take time off as a result of being a survivor of an assault but doesn't really want to go into much of the details, is a simple one or two line in an addendum explaining that time off? And then the second area are where they are a survivor of a traumatic assault, but law enforcement did not, or the universities did not handle the situation appropriately, should they bring that up? Should they discuss that? Sorry, that's a very difficult one. It's a lot, but bet you, but I feel it's incredibly important.
Katya Valasek:
So right off the bat, I'm going to say no law school wants to retraumatize anyone. So the disclosure does not need to go into the details beyond what that particular applicant is comfortable sharing. I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around the second question that you asked because it was where the situation wasn't handled properly, right?
So I think that that is okay to disclose. It is a fact that the applicant is stating so it's appropriate in the disclosure. But again, trying to keep the focus from just writing a bad Yelp review about the dean of students or the disciplinary council on campus or the police station, I think is the right approach. They can state the fact that that happened, the impact it had on them, but again, then to try to share in any way that they can what they've taken away from it, how it's changed them. I even think it's okay to say this is a trauma that I continue to work to heal from and I'm getting the help. I'm looking for the help I need. Danielle, do you agree?
Danielle Saavedra:
I completely agree. Yeah. You do not need to disclose any more than you are comfortable with. With that being said, you also don't know who is reading your application and what possible traumas that reader has gone through too. I've seen some trigger warnings in application packets. If your writing requires a trigger warning, I would ask that you think about what you're sending out and who you're sending it to, right? These are complete strangers and so it is a very delicate kind of scenario. But as far as sharing if it impacted your grades because of failures of any institution or difficulties with any other part of your application because of failures of systems in institutions, I think that's incredibly appropriate to share. It gives a lot of context that nothing else can. You have the discretion to share as much or as little as you would like. We've read everything so we can fill in the rest.
I actually had a really long conversation with a student many years ago because that was what she wanted to write the personal statement about. And it went on because she went on to become a very strong survivor advocate. She did a lot of work with survivors. And so we worked pretty hard to figure out how to frame the writing that she was sending out to show the growth and to, I guess, change the narrative or change what we were spotlighting at that time. And so it kept coming back to why is it that you wanted to share, not even just this incident, but anything, anything. Why is it that you're choosing to share this? How are we going to share it in the most effective way and the way to get across what you're trying to get across?
So yes, by all means, include the addendum, let us know how it impacted the different pieces of your application and understand that we too are just humans reading your applications. So our heart is going out, it is there and those are difficult to read and to see.
Kirk Walters:
Yeah. Oh, golly. Okay, just one more. How many addendums are too many addendums? Addenda are too many addenda [inaudible 00:39:16]?
Katya Valasek:
It's going to be different for every applicant and every application, and it could vary from school to school with the same applicant. This is one of those very frustrating it depends answers.
Danielle Saavedra:
Yes, the law school answer, it depends. Also depends on the length of them. If it's five just quick do, do, do, do, they all fit on one page, that's fine. If it's three and it's each two pages, that's too much. Kirk Walters:
Just a quick pallet cleansing question. Katya, there's a question, is that a sphinx or a Siamese behind you?
Katya Valasek:
Oh my gosh. This is a portrait of my cat, Jamie. He is a Burmese-Siamese mix. So that is the person who runs the house. I'm just here to open his cans of food.
Kirk Walters:
Awesome. Awesome.
Katya Valasek:
He would have a lot of disclosures about me if he was online. He'll laugh.
Kirk Walters:
Awesome. Well, I apologize for not being able to get to very many questions, but I am so grateful for the information and the expertise that you all have shared. So thank you. Thank you so much.
I hope for those of you who did not have your questions answered, we are going to continue to work through the back channel and try to answer them in text, but I hope we've also shown you that admissions officers are also humans as well. So as Danielle said, even if you don't want to name who you are, go ahead and call. Talk to them. They're people. They're nice people even. So hopefully if nothing else, you've take that away. But Danielle, Katya, thank you so much.
And with that, we will go ahead and turn over to the workshop portion of today's webinar. Here we go. So what we're going to do in this workshop session is we are going to walk through some thought processes that you should potentially follow to decide whether or not you should disclose and if so, how. So our first exercise is really going to be just a thought experiment of does something need context? So what I'm going to do is we will set a timer of two minutes to look through and that thing that you are thinking about in your head of whether or not this is an issue that needs to be addressed in your application materials, what I'd like you to do is answer these four questions.
So the first is, is disclosure required? So does character and fitness, does an individualized prompt, application instruction require me to disclose this? The second is, is it visible? Would a reader of my transcript, my resume, my test history, enrollment, anything, would they be able to see this within the application materials? The third question is, could silence create a reasonable question? Might somebody reading this not having an explanation come away with a bit of a red flag? And then the fourth question I want you to answer is, do you think context would add clarity? And to that, would you be able to explain it briefly in such a way that would help somebody understand the situation more fairly to you?
So I'm going to go ahead and set a timer for two minutes. There's no writing assignment for this one, it's just a thought experiment. So as you're thinking about these things, go ahead and answer those four questions.
All right. I like the dramatic music. Thank you. Okay. So we are going to move on to exercise and example number two. So what I'd like you to do is complete the following sentence prompts. So this is a writing assignment and it's but just one sentence, long sentence. What I'd like you to do is the issue or issues that you were thinking about before, I'd like you to write following this prompt. This issue belongs in blank, and we'll get to there because, and you'll go back to what you had discussed in exercise number one, that it's required to be disclosed, that it's visible, that it could raise a question and that the reader needs to understand blank.
So what I'd like you to do is for the where it belongs, consider whether it should be in an addendum, which is best for those kind of clarifications in a personal statement where it's central to your motivation, if it's in an optional essay where it's responding to a specific prompt, whether it's in a resume or perhaps a letter of recommendation similar to the example Danielle brought up of the person who eventually had that faculty member write on their behalf, or if it doesn't belong anywhere and that may in some situations be the correct answer. So we're going to do two minutes on this one as well just to get one sentence out. This issue belongs in one of these areas because of one of the visibility reasons we explored in exercise one and I need the reader to understand blank. Okay. So we got two minutes on the clock. And begin.
Okay. So for the next writing assignment, and this is going to be the big one for this workshop session, what we're really going to be doing is trying to build that kind of reflective scaffold. So if you've decided that the issue requires or needs, would benefit from some sort of explanation and you kind of got an understanding of what you want it to explain, you now need to have that scaffold to build up the explanation. So what I'd like you to do is need you to write one sentence relative to the issue or issues that you're thinking about for each one of these prompts.
And so I'm going to give you two minutes. I think we have time. I'm going to give you one minute for each of these prompts. Sorry, we're running out of time. And so first prompt for you to write about is a one-sentence statement that briefly explains or says what happened. Okay. So you got one minute on the clock.
Okay. And our next question, one sentence to just anchor that in time. So when did it happen? At what point in your life and what point in your career, or your school? One minute to just write a quick sentence about this. And go. All right. Our third sentence of there will be six, so I'm going to preview that. Our third sentence that you are going to write is what made it difficult? What made it relevant? Explain what the obstacle was with in bare bones, one sentence, no over-explanation, no dramatization. What made it hard? What happened? So you got one minute again. All right. Our fourth sentence is, where does accountability belong? And so consider a choice, a miscalculation, something that you did or said or thought or whatever where responsibility lies. So I'll give you another minute for this one.
Okay. Our fifth sentence is what changed? So can you point to something concrete, a behavior, a decision, a habit, a strategy, anything? What changed as a result of this situation? So you've got one minute on the clock again. And our final sentence, one sentence that will show that that kind of evidence you can point to to say, "This is the evidence of the concrete change in behavior or whatever." Is there a piece of evidence, something that can stand if we're proving the change that you mentioned in sentence five? Okay. One more minute on the clock.
Okay. And now our final exercise is really just another one sentence to write and this is just the sentence that you can use to really evaluate what it is that you are trying to communicate. So a final sentence looking at those six earlier sentences of the main point, what is it that you want anyone who reads your application to understand about this situation? And this sentence is really good for helping frame so many things that you might be considering including or omitting from your application materials to really ascertain what is it? Why am I including this? What do I hope someone takes away from this?
So I'm not going to put a minute on the clock for this because this is, A, we're at time and, B, this is something really to frame so many pieces of your application journey. But again, I'm just going to say it as I take the slides down, one sentence, if you can look at anything in your application and explain, the main thing that I want a reader of my application to take away from this is blank that can really help have that curatorial editorial eye on your materials.
Okay. So I am going to stop sharing my screen. And with that, I am just going to thank each and every one of you for spending your time with us this afternoon. I hope that this has been helpful for you. And I hope that you will consider joining us again for another webinar or looking at LawHub for educational content and support.
So we're throwing up a satisfaction poll for you. Please, the only way we'll improve is if you let us know what we're doing right and what we can do better on. So please take some time and let us know about that. And in the meantime, thank you so much and I hope you have a wonderful evening.
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