Hey folks,

I am applying to Gtown, NYU, Florida tax llms. What do they want to see in the personal statement section? I have decent work expirence in tax and great law school grades in the subject. I am really nervous because I do not want to get dinged from any of these programs due to a bad personal statement.

well, I have included the following main items in my personal statement:

- background (professional, academic, extra-curricular)
- reason for your interest in the programme/university
- ...

It should be a "personal" statement, so everything that you think might be useful to mention may be included...

I would give you the same advice that has been mentioned above.

I'm also applying to these programs.

Where are you from?

Regards,

Augusto

I have no experience in tax law and havent even taken a tax class. I do, however, have real good grades and school involvement, i.e., law review, leadership positions, etc. (so I am hoping that is enough to get me in)

Should I dedicate a lot of my statement as to why I am interested in tax despite my lack of experience?

As a side question, like the OP, I am planning on applying to just NYU, UF, and Georgetown. How much trouble will I have getting in w/ no tax experience? Also, do these schools offer any kind of jump start program, where I could go in over the summer and take a couple of intro tax classes?

Thanks!

I am a 3L at a school ranked 50-75. Top 25%. No LR but on a journal. 3.9 in tax classes so far. By the end of this term, I will have taken a total of 7 tax classes at school. No accounting expirence. Work expirence in tax this past summer.

Any more suggestions about personal statement? I was I really want to stand out because I am nervous about all the defered 3Ls who are looking to kill a year at NYU/Gtown/Florida.

For the UF, personal statement becomes a factor only if you are outside top 25%. So you want to throw everything you got why you want to study tax.
As far as GULC goes Personal statement has to have a theme on how you will be able to contribute to academic diversity. The current class of 2010 at GULC had experiences ranging from bartender to professional tennis player.
I got nothing for NYU

Strialer,

So are you saying that if you are top 25%, regardless of law school ranking, tax experience, and law review/journal membership, then you are essentially a lock to get into UF?

If so, is that the case at GTLC and NYU as well?

As a general rule, neither NYU, GULC nor UF will admit more than two people from the same JD program for the upcoming academic year, meaning that personal statement does come in play if there is more than one candidate meeting the admission criteria. Of course, there are exceptions

Here is the story for you. Three applicants from the same JD program applied to the same Tax LL.M., having essentially the identical stats (i.e. top 25%). So the Admission Committee called the tax professor who wrote letters of recommendation for each of the three applicants and asked him in essence, who he thinks is worthy of being admitted to that particular Tax LL.M. program. Out of three, only two got admitted.

So the morale of this story, you are locked in if you are the only person that applying from your JD program

Check previous posts as to whether tax experience or journal matter in admission process. They do. For UF, class rank is a cut off criteria Due to economy, the number of applications that applied last year has increased at least by 10% (NYU by 20%) as law firms and Big 4 continue to downsize. So you will be going against the people who have both tax experience and grades. Guess who is going to get admitted if academic stats are the same? (rhetorical question)

bump

I don't know to what extent that this is correct. You should not be disencouraged nor afraid from people with experience and certainly not the ones who got fired at their law firm.

I am working in a magic circle firm and I would like to make the following comments:

- Considering the financial crisis, most lawyers with a job will not "risk" to apply for an llm, knowing that it will be more difficult than a couple of years ago to return to their current job. So I don't think that too many lawyers will be applying.

- There is always a reason why people got fired. I doubt whether these people (although they have work experience and most likely a strong academic background) will impress the approval committee. The committee will certainly take into account the fact that they have been fired. I acknowledge that certain people got fired because of the economic crisis, but the most talented among them (and all fired people I know) found a new job in the mean time.

Do not forget that when you apply for an LLM, that you will always enter into a competition with the brightest people all over the world. All these people have similar backgrounds, similar rankings, similar extra-curricular activities. It will be up to you to demonstrate in your personal statement that you (one way or another) stand out between all these competitors, that you are more motivated than the others,... The importance of a personal statement can thus not be underestimated.

Thanks for all the useful help. I am almost done with my personal statement. Does anyone know how fast Gtown rolling admission is? 10 weeks? 12 weeks? I'd like to have a clue if I got in there before the 2010

Thanks for all the useful help. I am almost done with my personal statement. Does anyone know how fast Gtown rolling admission is? 10 weeks? 12 weeks? I'd like to have a clue if I got in there before the 2010

To the magic circle foreigner: many redundancies in this economy were not based on talent, especially at the junior levels. If you work at the US office of a magic circle firm, you've probably survived a few rounds of layoffs. Given your shitpoor writing, you should accept that you were retained because of your connections or language expertise. The former was the sole determinant in junior layoffs at latham and will play a significant part in deciding who survives this fall's v10 cullings.

You said that the most talented of your laid off friends have found jobs; but I don't see how transactional junior associates--especially first years--could hope to secure employment in this economy. Why would an Ad Com take someone like you, who'll have to be H1 sponsored, can't write well, and is top 1% in a country of 30-60million, when he could instead take a double-ivy all american latham victim (read: top 1% in a superpower of 300 million)? They won't. Sorry brah.

I do not work at the US office of a magic circle firm and I therefore do not know the US situation. Honestly, I have no intention whatsoever do stay in the US after my LLM. But I do know the details of the European (continental) situation and it seems the situation has turned back to normal..

Regarding my writing skills, I am sorry for the mistakes but according to my toefl score (110) my english language skills aren't that poor...

Your argument about the 1% in a country of 30 million or 1% in a country of 300 million (a "superpower" according to your own words) does not make any sense at all. It seems you are not that good in mathematics as these numbers are percentages: it does not matter whether you are ranked 1 out of 100 or 1000 out of 100000... it is just the same ranking...

If you would like to disencourage people from staying in the US after their LLM or even applying for an LLM, you have to come with stronger arguments I am afraid.

To spikesf: There are two things that you should note before posting. First, the original question was posted by DOMESTIC tax LLM applicant. So your comment about your experience in Europe, although fascinating, is rather irrelevant to this discussion. Second, if you do feel uncontrollable urge to answer a rhetorical question in my previous post, then your answer should at least add some value to discussion as to significance of personal statement in UF admission process in relation to class rank

To sector7g: As to rolling admissions at GULC, last years first batch of acceptance/rejection letters went out in late November. Some early admission applicants got deferred to March to be reviewed together with regular deadline applicants. In sum, if you are currently a 3L who will be graduating in May of 2010, then you would need to include this fall grades in your application to get a full consideration for the early admission.

Dear gentlemen,
I am currently doing my LLM at Durham University (UK), I will be happy to help you by given the personal statement that I used in my application. Cheers.