Rating: 
Summary: A good idea of what you can do with your law school essays
Review: ...[This book] was very helpful when I first started thinkingabout how to approach my personal statement. The fact is that yourGPA and LSAT are the most important factors in law school admissions,so the bars at the front of the book indicating the importance of the essay in the admissions process can be misleading. Harvard may give the essay a "10" in importance, but Salman Rushdie probably couldn't write his way into Harvard with a 2.9/159 and nothing else going for him. On the other hand, if your scores are competitive, the competition at HYS is so intense that it is likely your essays, in conjunction with the other parts of your application (recommendations, etc.), that are going to determine whether or not you get in. This book is short, concicse, and informative. The "interview with an admissions officer" put me in the admissions officer's shoes, and the concerns expressed by the ad.coms seemed genuine. This book avoids the "how to," and instead tries to help the reader "understand better the boundaries of tone and content within which [they] can work." This is what I was looking for, and this is what I got. If you are looking for a "how to" book, you will get more mileage from something like "Essays That Will Get You Into Law School." If you're looking for essays that worked for *Harvard*, check out Willie Epps' book, "How To Get Into Harvard Law School." But if you're looking to read a well chosen selection of essays that made a difference in the minds of admissions officers, this is the book for you. I found the grouping of essays a useful organizational tool that helped me better grasp the 'boundaries' of acceptable personal statements. Some of the essays were less polished than others, but (IMO) the quality of the essays overall was better than in say, "Essays That Will Get You Into Law School." Another reason I liked the essay selection is because I found myself thinking "Wow, that's the kind of essay I want to write," or "I wish I had written that essay." Personally, I found that the best and most moving essays in the other books mentioned above were tied to extraordinary experiences or abilities of the essay writer, whereas Curry's book generally (but not always) presented essays that were written by good writers, and did not depend as much on the author's unique gifts or background. There is a limit to how much any book can do for you in the law school admissions process. I wouldn't believe anyone who said "This essay book got me into Harvard!" But for about ten bucks, this book will give you perspective, and hopefully put you on the road to writing a good personal statement.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect for applicants
Review: I am an educational counselor and received all four of the new "Essays That Worked" books recently. These newly revised editions are perfect for any applicant stumped by or anxious about writing a personal statement. The essays are inspiring, and the advice is frank and fresh. The authors did a great job of updating these classics, and I highly recommend them to anyone applying to college, law school, business school, or med school.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect for applicants
Review: I am an educational counselor and received all four of the new "Essays That Worked" books recently. These newly revised editions are perfect for any applicant stumped by or anxious about writing a personal statement. The essays are inspiring, and the advice is frank and fresh. The authors did a great job of updating these classics, and I highly recommend them to anyone applying to college, law school, business school, or med school.
Rating: 
Summary: What I got out of this book is that really anything goes...
Review: I won't begin to write as if I know what law school admissions committees are looking for in an essay. I believe it is common sense that not all schools will review or value the personal statement equally. As a current law school applicant going this alone I bought this book to help give me a clue as to what the PS is all about and I feel the book did that. What it showed me is that you can write whatever you want to write about - just make it meaningful and insightful into WHO you are. I struggled with the format of my essay and after about the 6th revision of the format (nevermind the content :) I came up with a format I would not have even considered before reading the book. As mentioned previously, I am a CURRENT applicant and do not know as of this writing how successful my essay is, but I DO know that I am proud of what I wrote, and feel very comfortable with it - because it is absolutely 'me'. Good luck to us...
Rating: 
Summary: Boring Essays
Review: The book has its helpful points, but the overwhelming majority of the essays in this book are boring and don't stand out in too many ways, in my opinion. I'm having a hard time seeing why the various admissions officers chose to submit the essays in this book--probably because most applicants write boring essays, as even the admissions officers in this book will tell you. I also guess it's because the title of the book is "Essays That Worked," not "Essays That Are Impressive." And I'll bet the essays mainly "worked" because everything else in their admissions files was stellar and they were written in a decent fashion. One of the essays I remember particularly well basically read like a laundry list of things that can easily be found ELSEWHERE in his application, which I specifically remember reading in just about every other book/advice about law school essays NOT to do. There don't seem to be many truly revealing essays (interesting life events), essays that grab at you or cultural essays--all of which, in my opinion, are the absolute best ones. The essays do tell you something about each person's character and most are well-written, which probably contributes to why they worked, but the way in which most of the authors acheived their ends is not exemplary. Their methods are plain, as if they are too scared to really open themselves up or talk about something very personal. I believe you can write much better essays than these. Perhaps the most exemplary and interesting essay in terms of writing style, topic and revelations about the author is the last one in the "Essays About Character" section where a young woman wrote about, what I will call, her conflicts with her mother. Her essay is an example of what I mean by very interesting life events that reveal something about the authors in a much deeper way than the average essay does. The most helpful parts of the book, for me, were the questions in the beginning about essays that were answered by admissions officers and the chart that shows how much estimated importance each of the top schools places on essays. It's truly eye-opening to see how much schools like Harvard and Yale value personal statements while schools like Duke and Boalt place the least amount of emphasis on it out of the top schools listed on the chart (I don't consider Indiana a top school, and their were rated as seeing essays the least important). I would, perhaps, buy the book just for this information and maybe to get an idea of how much better you can do on your essays...and also for the one stand-out essay I mentioned. Even if you're not a minority, I believe the best essays I've read are the ones in the upcoming book by Evangeline Mitchell entitled "Profiles and Essays," a book that is basically targeted at African Americans. Not all the essays are about being Black--in fact, most aren't--so you can still get some good ideas and see good, race-neutral essays. The book is likely officially coming out this fall, but you can probably order a rough copy of it now at hopespromisepublishing.com as I did. The essays I've read in other books are, more or less, boring as well...although Richard Montauk's "How To Get Into Top Law Schools" and Willie Epps's "How To Get Into Harvard Law School" present SOME good essays.
Rating:
Summary: Good and Not-So-Good
Review: This book has good and bad qualities. It segments various "types" of essays such that you will likely see examples of the type of essay you would like to write. This is helpful if you want to write, say, a "why I got bad grades" type of essay. Also, the authors give good tips about what to hit on, and what not to touch. So, in this regard, it's a helpful guide. However, I am an older student and I found the content of most essays to be very naive and difficult to relate to. It's hard to imagine many of these being considered "good" samples by admissions departments, especially by today's standards (some of the essays are from the 1980's). The tips are disappointing too. For example, they offer feedback from admissions officers, but it's very thin stuff; there's no depth on perceptions and perspectives of these individuals. For example, in "Law School Confidential" by Robert Miller, he conducted a candid interview with a Director of Admissions. This level of depth is missing in this book. You get the surfacy stuff that can spawn ideas for your own essays, but not a lot of perspective. So, it was helpful to me but it lacked the depth I hoped for.
Rating:
Summary: Good and Not-So-Good
Review: This book has good and bad qualities. It segments various "types" of essays such that you will likely see examples of the type of essay you would like to write. This is helpful if you want to write, say, a "why I got bad grades" type of essay. Also, the authors give good tips about what to hit on, and what not to touch. So, in this regard, it's a helpful guide. However, I am an older student and I found the content of most essays to be very naive and difficult to relate to. It's hard to imagine many of these being considered "good" samples by admissions departments, especially by today's standards (some of the essays are from the 1980's). The tips are disappointing too. For example, they offer feedback from admissions officers, but it's very thin stuff; there's no depth on perceptions and perspectives of these individuals. For example, in "Law School Confidential" by Robert Miller, he conducted a candid interview with a Director of Admissions. This level of depth is missing in this book. You get the surfacy stuff that can spawn ideas for your own essays, but not a lot of perspective. So, it was helpful to me but it lacked the depth I hoped for.
Rating:
Summary: Boring Essays
Review: This book has some good advice, and the essays are interesting to sample, but this book is definitely past its prime. I regret that I bought it. "Essays That Will Get You Into Law School" by Kaufman, Dowhan, and Burnham was much more helpful to me when I wrote my personal essay for my law school application.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not the best
Review: This book has some good advice, and the essays are interesting to sample, but this book is definitely past its prime. I regret that I bought it. "Essays That Will Get You Into Law School" by Kaufman, Dowhan, and Burnham was much more helpful to me when I wrote my personal essay for my law school application.
Rating: 
Summary: Completely out of date
Review: This book is completely out of date - but perhaps my oil the creative gears - no modern essayquestion addressed - the content on Essayedge.com is free & far better.. Author Ivy League lawyer doing things besides practicing law ..
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