Filling out not-required information on applications

[graham0220]

Hello all!

Looking for some advice on applications as I have heard conflicting things. There are several parts of applications that are not required (no asterisks).. however I am wondering if it is best to always fill this out anyways? I also have a more specific question about this - both of my parents have their JD, when asking for parental information (not required) is it best to list this or could it hurt me more than leaving it blank? I ask this as I have heard several people say that schools don't want people applying simply because their parents went to law school (not what I am doing). I also don't want this to affect any possible scholarship decisions if they think they can give less (or no) money since "my parents could pay for it" (even though I am financing my own education).

Thoughts here? All advice is very appreciated!

[Luke Haqq]

Hi graham0220!

Happy to address your questions.

First, you ask about sections of the applications that aren't required. As an admissions consultant with PowerScore, my impression has certainly been that people often believe the aspects of the application that aren't required to be something that they should definitely tackle. One reason I hear from students as to why they are inclined to do this is because they worry that not tackling such optional aspects might make the student seem lazy or not sufficiently interested enough to complete all aspects of the application.

However, in contrast to this inclination to answer any and all optional essays, I encourage students instead to take a deliberative approach and consider each optional aspect. Indeed, I suggest that they should be somewhat disinclined to answer optional essays as a default. After all, admissions committees read a lot of applications, so it might not come across favorably if an applicant writes all of the optional essays but none of them are especially strong. Those extra pages--again if we assume they aren't especially powerful--might overall hurt the overall application by detracting from something like an otherwise strong personal statement. From that starting point of disinclination to write optional essays in general, I would then encourage you to look at each prompt individually. If you read the optional prompt and a response comes to mind that you'd be excited to write about, that's a great reason to tackle an optional essay! Having a response like that to an optional prompt (as opposed to feeling that one should respond to all of them in general) is an indication that adding such an essay response could strengthen the overall application.

Second, you ask about including your parents' JDs under an optional section for their information. In my view, that piece of the application alone would not likely impact your application one way or the other (nor would it be likely to affect any scholarship decisions). Still, there is some truth to what you've heard, namely, "that schools don't want people applying simply because their parents went to law school." Rather than the optional line for including this information on the application forms, though, this advice is most pertinent to the personal statement. Occasionally, I have worked with students who it turns out have difficulties articulating why they are applying to law school other than that it is what their parents did. If that's all the student can convey in the personal statement, then such an essay is not going to be an especially powerful one. It sounds, however, like that's not the situation for you! As long as you can craft a persuasive narrative about your personal path to law school, then the fact that your parents are lawyers really should have no bearing on the success of your applications.

Hope that helps!