Harvard

or Yale Acceptance Personal Statements:

It was just about this time last year that I began to put real effort into my personal
statement. So, for those of you who find yourselves at the PS writing stage now, I hope
this helps. I know this thread was a great resource for me while I was writing.

GPA: ~3.95
LSAT: ~175
Admissions Decisions: In everywhere I applied

This is a story about stories. Its a story about my grandfather, a master storyteller,
and me, his apprentice. Its a story about the last and most important lesson he
taught mea lesson not about how to tell good stories, but about the good that
telling stories can do.

My apprenticeship began just moments after I was born. As my mother tells it, my
grandfather plucked me from her tired arms in the delivery room and immediately
commenced my first tutorial: cradling me in his left arm, his right keeping time with
the rhythm of his tale, my grandfather charmed the medical staff with the story of
how I came to be named [name]. Over the years that followed, I spent hours taking
mental notes as I watched similar scenes unfold. Neighbors we ran into at the
grocery store, waiters taking our order at restaurants, friends who came over to
playall of them were audience members as far as my grandfather was concerned.
And no one ever walked away from one of his performances disappointed, least of
all me.

As I entered college nearly two decades later, I thought my apprenticeship had come
to an end. I was no longer the small child sitting spellbound at the foot of my
grandfathers rocking chair, no longer the gawky teenager asking for advice as I
wrote stories for my school newspaper. By then, I had grown into someone with
whom my grandfather could sit on his porch and swap stories, equal-to-equal. After
eighteen years of lessons from my grandfather, I thought I had become a storyteller
in my own right.

So when I got to [college], I sought out a venue in which to practice my art. And I
found it in collegiate mock triala trial advocacy competition for undergraduates.
This, I told myself, was what my grandfather had trained me for; if I worked hard
and put his lessons into practice, I was certain that Id find success. And I did. But, to
my dismay, racking up victories, winning individual awards, even the storytelling
itselfit all left me feeling unfulfilled. My most painstakingly prepared, most
passionately delivered closing arguments brought me only a shadow of the joy that
my grandfather radiated while telling his stories. I couldnt understand or explain it,
but something was clearly missing.

Thats when my grandfather came through with one final lesson for his apprentice.
It started with a panicked phone call from my mom. My grandfather was sick with

cancer, she said, and he didnt have much time left. From then on, I spent as many
weekends as possible by my grandfathers bedside. In all those painful visits, it was
never clearer that he was slipping away than the day when his hospice nurse asked
to hear one of his famous stories. Naturally, he agreed, jumping into his favorite
about the hospital hed helped build in England while in the Air Force. But he had to
quit halfway through. Mid-telling, he realized he no longer had the strength to finish;
he realized the disease that had stolen his health was now stealing his stories too.

As he trailed off with the heavy hurt of loss spreading across his face, I took his
hand. And I did what he had spent years training me to do. I told a storyhis story.
For the first time in months, I told a story not because I wanted a trophy or a plaque.
I picked up where my grandfather left off and finished his story because I loved him
and couldnt stand to see him hurt anymore. When I turned back to him to ask
whether Id gotten all the details right, his cheeks were shining with tears. He
squeezed my hand hard, smiled, and winked as he said, Now that's a story, [name].

Thats when it clicked. Thats when I realized why mock trial felt so hollowwhy
the stories I had been telling brought me only an ounce of the satisfaction that my
grandfathers stories brought him. With no real client to fight for, with only trophies
on the line, I was telling stories just because I wanted something out of them. But my
grandfather told his stories because he knew they would mean something to others,
to the people with whom he shared them. As I sat there holding his hand, I thought
of all the times he had brightened someones day with a story, of all the smiles and
laughs his storytelling had inspired. That, I realized, was my grandfathers real
legacynot the stories themselves, but the good he had done with them. And in
finishing his story to spare him more pain, I was finally starting to live up to that
legacy.

My grandfather is gone now. But his lessonsespecially the final oneremain. And
ever since I helped tell his story, Ive been striving to live those lessons. I lived them
as I continued with mock trial, telling stories to help my teammates reach the goals
theyd worked so hard to achieve. I lived them as I volunteered at [college town]
Legal Aid, relaying my clients stories to win them the assistance they needed. Now, I
plan to live my grandfathers lessons as an attorney. I can imagine nothing more
fulfilling than standing in front of a jury, telling the stories of those who have
suffered injury and indignity, faithfully, convincingly, passionately. And when Im
done, when Im returning to counsel table after telling the tale of someone whos
suffered, Ill look to the back of the courtroom. I know he wont be there, but Ill
hope to see him anyway. My friend, my mentor, my grandfathersmiling, winking,
and then silently mouthing, Now thats a story, [name].


Stats: 3.68/180
In: Harvard, Stanford (attending), Columbia, Chicago, Berkeley, Michigan, Georgetown
Out: Nowhere!


A lot of my acceptance letters commented on my personal statement; re-reading it I
think there are some problems, but it served its purpose. I don't think this is the final-
final draft, so there may be a grammatical error or two.


Maria Teresa was stirring a copper vat full of boiling, light-yellow cream. A sweet-
smelling steam obscured her face as she explained how to heat goat milk to make
cajeta, a traditional Mexican caramel. While outlining the recipe, passed down from
her great-grandmother, she hinted at her aching back and the many hours she
spends in the kitchen. Still, her face was radiant when she spoke of adding rum or
vanilla to those century-old recipes to subtly change the flavor. In her words, I heard
a refrain later repeated by other candy-makers I would interview around the globe:
success requires hard work and a willingness to take risks and tweak traditional
recipes for new and innovative results.

Over the past ten years, I've demonstrated these same values. At MIT and in the
workplace, hard work and the ability to surmount obstacles, to think through
problems, and to develop solutions are mandatory. In college, whether waking up at
"Oh-dark-thirty" for Air Force officer training courses or staying up all night to
program a ball-gathering robot, there was never enough time. Struggling to
understand was normal - thermodynamics, my kryptonite. One dropped class, two
years, and many late nights spent finishing problem sets eventually led to success in
a subject I thought I would never understand.

These lessons served me well later, when the pressure was intense to design,
program, test and certify an operating system for the next generation of general
aviation cockpit displays. Avionics software development is a bit of a tightrope walk.
On one hand, you must upgrade the code to meet new requirements. On the other,
every change must be weighed with the corresponding expense of certification, a
costly process required by the FAA to ensure all critical aircraft software is safe.
Every day, I made decisions that set this balance. Despite the challenge, I was not
happy. As a woman I found the atmosphere difficult. In nearly four years, I worked
with another female engineer only twice. I wasn't marginalized, but I was isolated.
With no one to turn to for advice on balancing life and career and left out of many
male-only bonding experiences, the aerospace industry was not a permanent option.

In spite of these misgivings, my decision to leave a secure job to travel was
unexpected to many people. Engineers are taught to abhor risk and to design and
test it away, instead aiming for stability and safety. Yet, I left for 18 months of
uncertainty. Something Id dreamed of became possible when a documentary film-
maker chose to sponsor me on my travels. My entry was selected from hundreds in
an combination essay/interview competition because my reasons for travel to
learn all that I can of the history, production, and consumption of candy
internationally were interesting and innovative and above all, unique. My earliest
memories include trying chewing gum for the first time and starting up an

elementary school candy business; the memory of boot camp that has remained
most intensely alive to me is the sweetness of an ice cream sandwich after weeks
without sugar. I travel not just to see new sights and meet new people, but also to
explore a fascinating, delicious, and at times unsettling aspect of human history.
From the use of slave labor in sugar cultivation to international corporations forcing
the closure of local businesses and pushing eating habits that lead to diabetes and
tooth decay, candy can have an unsavory core. However, it can also bring comfort
and celebration, no matter where we are. This balance of the good and the bad has
long been part of the history of candy.

While traveling, I focus on writing and on viewing what I see with a reporters eye. I
will have covered more than thirty countries by the time the trip is over, and each
day brings forth something new to explore. In Belize, I made chocolate from the
seeds of the cacao plant, grinding the beans by hand and roasting them on a roaring
fire. Seeing Chinese and American imports crowding traditional Nicaraguan sweets
out of the market led me to a deeper understanding of the effects of globalization on
candy markets. In Mexico, the impact of Spanish convents on the development of
candy mirrors the more obvious colonial influences of the past 500 years. Studying
sweets has given intellectual depth to my travels and a more humanistic way of
looking at the world after nine years as an engineer. Additionally, with solo, low-
budget, independent travel comes patience, a valuable global perspective, and the
knowledge that risks and innovation can pay off in big ways.

Perhaps it is silly to compare the experiences of candy-makers with a future law
student's. Still, success in any endeavor is usually brought about by a combination of
hard work, craftsmanship, and finding the right balance between what has worked
in the past and what should be changed for the future. The law is no different. With
my background in engineering and software development and a long-standing
interest in the impact of technology, Internet law is a natural fit. The laws in this
field are newly developing; the balance between the old and the new is still being
set. How do traditional rights to privacy and freedom of expression extend to the
Internet? Who owns the data online, and who determines how to disseminate it?
How can we apply laws to a medium as global as the Internet, where boundaries of
jurisdiction are unclear? I want to combine the tools and techniques I've learned
over the past twenty-seven years with a law degree to help answer these questions.
Like Maria Teresa, I want to work to set the balance.


07-08 Cycle

GPA: 3.96
LSAT: 170

Accepted: Emory ($$$), UVA ($$), UPenn ($$), NYU, Yale
Waitlisted: Columbia, Harvard

Rejected: -

Attending: Yale

After my last day teaching English for the summer at an orphanage in Lhasa, Tibet, I
meet a friend in a teashop behind the Potala Palace. He hands me an envelope and
warns me to be careful. If the Chinese get hold of it, he tells me, it will mean prison
or worse for him.
On the red, printed lines, in black ink, my friend has addressed the envelope and its
contents to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Inside he has stuffed two pages describing
his parents imprisonment for their actions as political subversives, his childhood
as an orphan, and the deplorable state of affairs in the Tibetans occupied homeland.
He prays that the great leader of the Tibetan people will one day return.
A day later, on my way home, I travel back through India, where I had previously
studied for a semester in the capital of the Tibetan exile community. I meet briefly
with Tibetan friends whose families in Tibet have given me money, clothes, and
letters to deliver to their relatives in exile. They ask me about their homeland and I
tell them that the Chinese are erecting more buildings than ever, the new Beijing-
Lhasa train has brought floods of Han Chinese immigrants and tourists, and armed
guards march on the roofs of buildings near their holiest temple. On the other hand,
I tell them, the elders still ceremoniously circumambulate the empty Potala Palace
and young adults speak of political revolution.
My Tibetan friends nod their heads to acknowledge their contemporaries and tell
me about a hunger strike and demonstration for Tibetan freedom that they plan to
stage next month in Delhi. Their efforts remind me of the Tibetan Buddhist ideal of
sacrificing oneself for others that I have come to embrace, however clumsily, since
living with the Tibetan refugees in India. Their talk of demonstrating calls to mind
late hours in America campaigning for the Tibetan cause, images of screaming
Tibetan protestors with Tibetan flags painted on their faces inspiring my work.
Two days after leaving Lhasa, I arrive home in Atlanta, GA, one week before the start
of my last year in college. I hurry to the Tibetan Buddhist institute where I work and
greet the twenty-six monks living just outside the city. They thump me on the back,
shower me with ceremonial silk scarves known as khata, and ask for news of Tibet. I
offer them blessing cords from the holy temple of Lhasa, show them pictures of the
Tibetan capital, and gossip with them in Khamke, a variant dialect of the Tibetan I
have been studying in school and abroad.
Looking at a photo of the Jokhang temple, two monks tell me about participating in a
demonstration staged at that very site protesting the Chinese rule in Tibet before
fleeing their country for fear of their lives. One monk tells me, quoting monk activist
Jampa Tenzin, The Tibetan cause is a cause for truth, and when you are fighting for
the truth you cannot wait for someone to tell you to fight. Moved by his conviction,
I promise him I will never stop fighting for Tibetan freedom.
In late October, two months into my senior year of college, His Holiness the Dalai
Lama arrives in Atlanta for a three-day stay. I meet him on the first day during his
audience with Students for a Free Tibet, a group for which I have served as
president for three years. Bowing before His Holiness, I offer a khata of the highest

quality and, speaking in Tibetan, I present the letter I have carried out of Lhasa.
Looking into my eyes, he takes the khata from my hands, raises it slowly to the
crown of his head in a gesture of blessing, and places it around my neck.
The Dalai Lama opens the letter and reads excerpts aloud to his entourage: we
Tibetans suffer under brutal Chinese rule, we dream of your return and a free
Tibet. Taking my hands in his hands, the Dalai Lama tells me, Thank you. Then
he turns to address Students for a Free Tibet about the work that remains to be
done for the Tibetan cause.

Yale (personal statement) 250

For two months I waited with Sarah. Every day I came to her room and sat by her
bed. Together we watched the August rain fall outside her window and listened to
the nurses chatter down the hall. Sometimes Sarah spoke to people I could not see.
She held on tightly to my pulsing hand and mumbled towards the shadows in the
room.

I had begun visiting Sarah when an ambulance driver rolled her gurney into a room
at Hospice *****. As an intern, I took on the responsibilities of feeding her meals and
reading aloud the Hallmark cards her family had sent. I spoke with her visitors while
she was sleeping and adjusted her legs to prevent bed sores.

In the liminal stage between life and death where Sarah resided, I became attuned to
the moments in which I could make a difference. When her feet turned black, I
consoled her as she cried. If she reached out to me, I held hands with her for hours.
As she slipped further into a world which I could not see, where shadows were dead
relatives and nurses invisible, I continued to come every day and sit by her bed.

On the last day I visited her, when the waiting was over, the value of my careful
attention became clear. Sarah looked around in terror, her eyes darting around the
room. I offered her my hand and she immediately grasped it. Recognizing my grip,
she relaxed. Then she let go.


Non-traditional - 6 Years out of undergrad
LSAT-175
GPA-3.82

In: Harvard, Columbia, NYU, UVA, Northwestern, Georgetown, GW, George Mason
Out: Yale
Attending: Georgetown

They were the model Catholic family; out to protect Gods will at all costs. He was
the adulterer; fathering two children by another woman.
They were the image of the grieving family; tears, hugs, and sorrow at each negative

turn. His image was more fitting of a used car salesman; flowered shirts, thin,
receding hair, and a look of pain that seemed to appear only at the most opportune
times.
They were the Schindler family, Robert, Mary, Bobby and Suzanne. He was Michael
Schiavo. I was a television news producer covering this landmark right-to-die case.
With the crowd of protestors growing larger by the day, Congress passed a law
granting federal jurisdiction over the legal and medical questions surrounding Terri
Schiavos life. It was a significant turning point. Family impressions, protests, and
television interviews no longer determined Terris fate. Now it was about attorneys,
judges, and most importantly, the law.
There were no cameras in Judge James Whittemores courtroom. Everything the
public would know about these critical arguments would come from the
recollections of the 20 journalists witnessing the proceedings. As I watched,
listened, and took notes about every detail I could capture in my reporters
notebook, I became intrigued not only by the specific arguments and reactions, but
by the broader strategies employed by the various attorneys. I found myself
analyzing their tactics and thinking about how I would have argued the case if I
were representing the parties.
With Terris parents out of legal options, I returned home to find a buzz swirling
through my condominium about a builders plans to redevelop the property
adjacent to ours. It was a proposal fraught with problems: unsafe traffic patterns,
excessive density, and property rights violations. The developer sought to use our
land to meet its landscaping obligations for the new project. We hatched a strategy
to convince the county board to address our traffic and density concerns while not
compromising our ability to address property rights through the legal system. I was
the designated closer at the public hearings, speaking last and utilizing my debate
background to rebut any damaging comments from previous speakers. We
succeeded in garnering county support for several important safety changes.
However, the fight over property rights continues and Ive taken a leadership role in
our efforts, first as chairman of our congestion committee and most recently as a
member of the Board of Directors.
The condominium issue could hardly be more different from the Terri Schiavo saga.
One was literally a life or death situation which attracted the attention of the world;
the other merely dealt with property rights, finances, and construction issues.
However, the passion displayed by the participants in both cases taught me an
important lesson about the necessity of law. Disagreements are an element of
human nature and even seemingly minor disputes can erupt into major conflicts.
The law helps prevent hostilities in the first place by setting a standard for various
behaviors. When those standards are breached, the law provides recourse and
resolution.
So why would I want to disrupt a prospering career in journalism for the
opportunity to study law? It comes down to whether I want to be the person
covering difference makers or the person making a difference. In five years as a
journalist Ive been fortunate to have had a front row seat to history, coordinating
interviews with the likes of Former President Bill Clinton, First Lady Laura Bush,
and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while covering an inauguration, several

hurricanes, and social chasms such as the Schiavo case. These unique experiences
helped me realize that I want to be on the other side of the fence, in a position to
exert influence as an advocate rather than a neutral observer. I envision myself
taking the passion I have seen in both the courtroom and the county board room
and helping channel it into resolutions that can only come through knowledge and
appreciation for the prevailing law. With this application to __________ I am taking the
first step toward realizing my calling as an advocate, a difference maker, an
attorney.


LSAT: 173
GPA: 3.92 overall
Accepted: Yale, Harvard, Chicago ($$$), Columbia, NYU, Virginia ($$$), Northwestern,
Vanderbilt ($$$, withdrawn), Notre Dame ($$$), UIUC ($$$), UNC Chapel Hill ($$$),
Cardozo ($$$, applied when I was going to apply to every fee waiver school and wasn't
thinking about those LSAC $12 adding up).

I'm not really proud of the first statement; HLS had a two-page limit, and since I
recycled it for everywhere except UNC (for which I combined information from my NU
DS and some UG admission essays) and Yale (for which I added information about my
interest in academia), I didn't really get to incorporate all the information that I
wanted. Please forgive any overlooked typos.

General Statement
For as long as I can remember, I have desired to understand the world around me.
When I was younger, an interest of mine was language. At about six years of age, I
attempted to teach myself various languages, from Italian to Japanese, and although
I did not have much success, this interest remained with me. Upon entering high
school I studied Spanish and later French, which exposed me to the cultures in
which they are used. This exposure has given me a greater appreciation of the
worlds cultural diversity.

During my senior year of high school, I participated in the dual enrollment program,
taking classes at a college near my home. One of my favorite classes was
Intermediate Spanish, since the topics discussed therein often required a great deal
of critical thinking. One unit discussed religion, which tends to be a rather
controversial topic, due to the intimate nature of religious belief and the almost
universal conviction that ones own beliefs are correct. Nevertheless, I found class
discussions interesting because they helped me to see the connection between
culture, language, and religion. Adherents of the same faith often differ significantly
in their religious expression based on their respective cultures; in class, we saw this
in the syncretism of Roman Catholicism with the religions of the Caribbean and
South American peoples conquered by the Spanish and with the religions of the
imported African Slaves. Moreover, I saw how culture and religion frequently
interact with language. These discussions created an interest in the study of religion.

Thus, upon matriculating at Florida A&M University, I continued my studies in

religion, which have caused me to better appreciate those who do not share my
beliefs.

In December 2003, as a freshman at Florida A&M University, I celebrated my
eighteenth birthday. As presidential campaigning during the primaries began, I took
great interest in the candidates, since the 2004 elections were my first opportunity
to exercise the right to vote. This right, however, came with a responsibility: I had to
study the issues and to make an informed decision. As I studied candidates and
ideologies, I developed an interest in political philosophy. Like religion and
language, my interest lay in my desire to understand the world around me; the
various political philosophies and legal systems have a pervasive effect on the
societies in which they are practiced, and therefore understanding the law is
integral to understanding the world.

As important as understanding and learning about the world around me is applying
the knowledge acquired to help others. One value instilled in my childhood was the
importance of giving back to the community. Growing up in Minnesota, I attended a
summer program at a park near my home and eventually volunteered and worked
with this same program, which helped to provide a safe environment for children in
the area to play and develop their creativity through arts, crafts, reading, field trips,
and other activities. Additionally, upon developing a degree of proficiency in
Spanish and French, I have used my abilities to assist others by tutoring throughout
high school and college. Seeing the impact of such activities has only further
reinforced my awareness of the need to use ones abilities to the betterment of
others, which I intend to do through the pursuit of a legal education.

UNC Statement
Growing up, I did a lot of moving around. I was born in Chicago, and before moving
to Minnesota, my family moved between Illinois and Iowa. In Minnesota, I lived in a
neighborhood that was rather diverse: although many individuals think of
Minnesota as being a lily white state, the area that I lived in, the south side of
Brooklyn Park, near Minneapolis, was very ethnically diverse, particularly because
of the large number of immigrants from Asian countries, Africa, and to a lesser
extent, Latin America. Growing up in such an environment gave me an appreciation
that I would probably not otherwise have for people of other backgrounds and
worldviews.

After my sophomore year of high school, my family moved to Fayetteville, Georgia.
Living in the South further broadened my perspective and shattered my perception
of white Southerners as racists and rednecks. Upon graduating in 2003, I
matriculated at Florida A&M University. Although born in Chicago and raised in a
neighborhood with more African-Americans than is typical of Minnesota, I had
never been in a situation in which we black people were the majority, and this
experience has been fulfilling as I have seen students from all parts of the country
and who represent the plethora of black cultures. I therefore believe that having

found myself in so many different social atmospheres has provided me with an

outlook open to different perspectives, which will be useful as I embark upon
studies in law that require one to think critically and examine information from a
variety of viewpoints.

While in Georgia, one of the more rewarding experiences that I had was the
Governors Honors Program (GHP). In my freshman year of high school, I was able
to fulfill my lifelong dream of learning a foreign language by taking Spanish classes.
After a rough start, I began to excel in the Spanish, and the next year I skipped from
Spanish II to Spanish III. After moving from to Georgia for my junior year, my
Spanish IV teacher nominated me for GHP. I put a lot of effort into trying to make it
into the program, and it was wonderful to know that my efforts had paid off when I
was accepted for the summer 2002 session of the program in Valdosta, Georgia.

As a Spanish student, I met other young people who had the same interests that I
have. In the class, I was able to take me [sic, should clearly be "my"] studies further
than I could in school. In class, we produced several of our own songs and a lot of
artwork. Additionally, my Spanish class, along with the other four classes (Latin,
French, German, and another Spanish class), performed a cabaret for all the other
students. (Many students commented that they thought it was better than the
improv performances of the theater majors!) For my final project in Spanish, I
wrote a song in Spanish, about the court painter Diego Velzquez.

In my minor field, I was a Science student. In Science, the students had weekly
competitions. Thus, every week, I (as well at the other students) had to perform
creatively, whether it was to create the farthest traveling rubber band car (with
limited resources) or to created, with a few pieces of paper and some straws, a
structure with the longest free-fall. These activities allowed me to meet many
different individuals from around the state, and to appreciate the different
perspectives that each brought.

Outside of our studies, the other students and I had many opportunities to
participate in activities and have experiences that we probably would have had at
home. There were concerts every week in different genres of music: jazz,
woodwinds, strings, percussion, dance, and various other forms. The art students
had an exhibition in which they presented their paintings, sculptures, drawings, and
other works to both the program participants and the public. The Communicative
Arts (English) students had two coffee houses in which they presented poetry,
songs, and other forms of verbal entertainment. The Dance major performed two
nights, showing a mastery of many types of dance, from ballet to African dance. The
Theater majors performed two improv sessions, and had a major production
which they performed late in the program.

The Business students (who consisted of Technology and Executive Management
majors) had a fair at which the technology students presented a computer
animation cartoon that they had spent the summer preparing and the executive

10

management students presented their own work. The students of Mathematics and
Science had similar fairs; the Science majors presented us their research (of
everything from mosquito repellents to black holes). The Mathematics students
presented their own projects as well, which demonstrated the importance of
mathematics in every aspect of life, from card games to computers. Social Studies
students also gave a presentation of their studies, which concentrated primarily on
wars. Some of the students even presented a documentary that they produced in
which they interviewed veterans of several wars.

The GHP experience changed my life in many ways. Despite the number of years
that have passed, I continue to keep in contact with several of the friends that I
made five summers ago. Meeting all the other brilliant students through the
program also humbled me; in my experience, it had been rare that a peer of mine
knew more than I did. The program also helped me to appreciate the cultures of not
only the Spanish and Latinos, but also of people worldwide. The lessons that I
learned and the memories that I acquired in the Governors Honors Program will
remain with me for life.


I had been waiting to post my personal statement until I heard back from every school,
but I'll go ahead and do it now I guess.

GPA: 4.10 (Columbia)
LSATs: 171, 178
Major: Economics-Philosophy (Not a double major, a single dual major)

In: Yale, Stanford, Columbia, NYU ($25k, $25k, $12.5k), Virginia ($23k per year), Boalt,
Georgetown, UCLA, BU ($40k per year), USC
Hold: Penn
Still Waiting: Harvard


I am a thinker, but not one to think out loud. I love myself, but am not in love with
the sound of my own voice. I want to be loved, but not at the cost of not loving
myself. I want to know everything, but realize that nothing can ever be known for
sure. I believe that nothing is absolute, but I can absolutely defend my beliefs. I
understand that chance is prevalent in all aspects of life, but never leave anything
important to chance. I am skeptical about everything, but realistic in the face of my
skepticism. I base everything on probability, but so does nature...probably.

I believe that all our actions are determined, but feel completely free to do as I
choose. I do not believe in anything resembling a God, but would never profess
omniscience with regard to such issues. I have faith in nothing, but trust that my
family and friends will always be faithful. I feel that religion is among the greatest
problems in the world, but also understand that it is perhaps the ultimate solution. I

11

recognize that many people derive their morals from religion, but I insist that
religion is not the only fountainhead of morality. I respect the intimate connection
between morality and law, but do not believe that either should unquestioningly
respect the other.

I want to study the law and become a lawyer, but I do not want to study the law just
because I want to become a lawyer. I am aware that the law and economics cannot
always be studied in conjunction, but I do not feel that either one can be properly
studied without an awareness of the other. I recognize there is more to the law than
efficiency, but believe the law should recognize the importance of efficiency more
than it does. I love reading about law and philosophy, but not nearly as much as I
love having a good conversation about the two. I know that logic makes an
argument sound, but also know that passion makes an argument sound logical. I
have philosophical beliefs informed by economics and economic beliefs informed by
philosophy, but I have lost track of which beliefs came first. I know it was the egg
though.

I always think very practically, but do not always like to think about the practical. I
have wanted to be a scientist for a while now, but it took me two undergraduate
years to figure out that being a scientist does not necessarily entail working in a
laboratory. I play the saxophone almost every day, but feel most like an artist when
deduction is my instrument. I spent one year at a college where I did not belong and
two years taking classes irrelevant for my major, but I have no regrets about my
undergraduate experience. I am incredibly passionate about my interests, but
cannot imagine being interested in only one passion for an entire lifetime.

I love the Yankees, but do not hate the Red Sox. I love sports, but hate the
accompanying anti-intellectual culture. I may read the newspaper starting from the
back, but I always make my way to the front eventually. I am liberal on some issues
and conservative on others, but reasonable about all of them. I will always be
politically active, but will never be a political activist. I think everything through
completely, but I am never through thinking about anything.

I can get along with almost anyone, but there are very few people without whom I
could not get along. I am giving of my time, but not to the point of forgetting its
value. I live for each moment, but not as much as I worry about the next. I consider
ambition to be of the utmost importance, but realize that it is useless without the
support of hard work. I am a very competitive person, but only when competing
with myself. I have a million dreams, but I am more than just a dreamer. I am usually
content, but never satisfied.

I am a study in contradiction, but there is not an inconsistency to be found.

12