Essay Category:
Essay Question:
Personal statement of 500 words
'As pertaining to the custody of the children,' the judge continued, 'the court
has decided that it would be in the children's best interests if full custody
were henceforth awarded to the mother.'
My mother then uttered a long sigh of relief. Although I was only eight
years old, I knew that I had just witnessed a life-changing decision. My
parents
had officially obtained a divorce. I had undergone a month of attorneys'
interviews, courtroom drama, and private dissertations in the judge's chambers,
so I then knew why my mother had sighed. My father's lawyer (or, as I referred
to him, the angry, loud man) had by far overshadowed my mother's more mellow
attorney, and this fact was reflected in the divorce decree. Aside from a
minimal child support payment and a division of the mutual assets, my mother
received next to nothing for ten loyal years of marriage. As our broken family
relocated to a small, two-bedroom apartment, I searched for someone to blame.
Although I was too young to understand the complicated legal proceedings, I
observed how 'the big, important guy' (the judge) seemed to listen more
attentively to 'the angry loud man.' When I asked my mother the reason for this
inequality, she said something about not having the same resources that my
father
had. So I was convinced that 'the loud, angry man' who wanted a lot of
resources
was the cause of my unhappy situation. For the next year, I repeatedly asked
questions about lawyers. While my peers were still insisting that they were
going to be ninja fighters or ballerinas, I proclaimed my future as a very loud
lawyer that did not require a lot of resources to do a good job.
As I grew and matured, I realized that my childish declaration would
require dedication. To adjust to my new school and family situation, I eased
the
transition with extracurricular activities. I especially became interested in
public-speaking, which was reflected in my growing confidence at school and my
outspoken personality at home. The jump from middle school to high school
shifted my attentions from 4-H debates and school elections to more in-depth
experiences. Sophomore year I discovered a rare opportunity in the Boy Scouts
Law Exploring Post. This group provided first-hand insights into modern law
careers and enabled me to directly experience numerous aspects of legal
medicine.
Enticing lectures from the district attorney, personal interviews with private
lawyers, and observational trips to local courthouses not only furthered my
interest in more popular, romanticized courtroom action, but also expanded my
interests to include the more practical applications of the law.
I have found within myself a passion for understanding and upholding the
institutions by which man attempts to govern himself. One day I hope to be a
productive part of the American justice system without losing touch of how
deeply
my efforts can affect a person's life. So now that I have established a clear
path to my goal, I must gather my resources.
Essay Category:
Essay Question:
Personal Statement (no particular prompt)
I met Joe on my weekly visit to the AIDS ward of Cook County Hospital in inner city Chicago. His smeared technicolor makeup, shoulder-length hair caked with sweat, and painful facial contortions lent his visage a bizarre, almost frightening quality. I sat in his cramped room trying to initiate communication, while he emitted only wheezing guttural sounds. When he opened his mouth, I anxiously leaned forward to hear any impending word. Instead of speech, vomit spewed forth, running down his clothes and into his bed, splattering on my face and hands. Repulsed, I called for help and reached to find a towel. As I washed myself clean in the adjacent bathroom, glad to allow the nurse to assist him, the words struck me: Love your neighbor as yourself. A backward glance revealed Joe still laying helpless, gurgling in his own vomit; the nurse was occupied with other more urgent tasks. And who is my neighbor? Surely not him, surely not Joe, a transvestite infected with HIV, stained and dirty. Joe's eyes, full of tears, met mine. I spent the next half-hour at his side with a washcloth and wastebasket. How sobering that having heard over 2000 sermons and Sunday school lessons in my day, I needed a confrontation with someone in great distress who differed radically from myself in order to truly understand the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The experience forced me to realize that loving my neighbor requires transcending social and racial boundaries, crossing borders of class and lifestyle, to serve those my culture tells me to reject. As with the Samaritan who helped his sworn cultural enemy, the call to service impels me out of my immediate community to assist the Other in need. This counter-cultural re-orientation of values is awkward, difficult, and sometimes dangerous, but essential to the preservation of justice. I am alive today because of people who acted upon the truth of the Good Samaritan. My great-grandfather, Isaiah, narrowly escaped the Armenian Genocide of 1914. His family murdered and village destroyed by Turk militia, Isaiah embarked on a perilous journey out of Turkey, across the Middle-East, into Egypt, and ultimately to the United States where he found safety. Isaiah, whose story has profoundly affected my ethnic identity and passion for justice, would be merely an obscure, faceless victim of genocide, discarded and forgotten, were it not for the many strangers who made his survival possible. I think of the 'Good Turks,' as they're called in Armenian parlance, who rejected the treacherous orders of their government and helped Armenians escape from Turkey. I think also of Arab Muslims who were willing to shelter a penniless Christian from Armenia as he fled his homeland. In both cases, the generosity of the Other, whose assistance overcame cultural animosity and religious differences, enabled my present existence. The passion for international justice that drives my desire to study law may be traced back to both an intellectual understanding of the call to love my neighbor and an inner motivation to give to others what others gave to me-that is, life, safety, and freedom. Poet John Donne notes that 'no man is an island; any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind.' If I am to love my neighbor as myself, I should, like Donne, resonate with each tolling of the bell as if it were my own. The cries of those straining under the yoke of oppression compel me to spend my career pursuing justice for my many neighbors. Fervency is necessary, but not sufficient, for liberating the oppressed. Studying law represents the natural culmination of my past experiences and provides the training essential to my future ventures. I expect a rigorous law school education to deepen my love for the rule of law and to hone the skills necessary for expert legal advocacy, thereby giving hands and feet to the force that drives me.
Essay Category:
Essay Question:
Minor: application for public interest scholarship
In my family, service is an expectation, not an exception. My family's credo is modeled on the words of Luke 12:48: 'From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required.' My sisters and I were raised to understand that we are not It - there is a bigger world in which our talents can make a difference. A commitment to public service is not external but is an aspect of my personality, from childhood to high school through college and a year in Americorps VISTA. The Public Interest Law Scholars program both reinforces this commitment and offers the opportunity to learn from and network with others who recognize the primacy of public service. I am certain a great deal of my law career will be dedicated to the public interest. I have made a firm personal commitment throughout my life to engage in diverse service activities. Throughout college, I served as a volunteer with American Red Cross blood drives, the Aids Action Committee of Boston College, a student-athlete pen pal and mentoring program, and an ESL tutoring class. I attended Boston College on a Presidential Scholarship and service was a central tenet of the program - I spent six weeks in the summer living with other Presidential Scholars and working at a homeless shelter and in a low-income housing development. We incorporated the 'great books' of social activism into our 'service learning' - Dorothy Day, Lizbeth Schorr, Plato, St. Paul, and Jane Jacobs. After college, I wanted to reclaim this full-time commitment to public service. I volunteered for a year with Americorps VISTA and worked with ACCION USA, a national non-profit microlender. The goal of VISTA is to develop sustainable solutions to major social problems. To achieve this goal, I worked in the U.S. Operations division of ACCION and dedicated long hours to building an information technology infrastructure that will allow ACCION to grow and reach more clients over the next several years I have chosen law school because law is the human order of society. Positive change cannot take place without a just and peaceful order. I am especially interested in international law and policy. Though I love the U.S. and recognize there are many problems to be addressed domestically, I believe the U.S. is a country to which much has been given. Much is required of us, especially leadership dedicated to the ideal of international peace and prosperity. My ambition is to be such a leader. I want to prepare myself for a career in diplomacy and policymaking, then help educate the next generation of leaders through teaching and research. A law degree is a step towards this goal. The Public Interest Law Scholars Program is another useful step because of the intellectual and network opportunities it offers.
Essay Category:
Essay Question:
Personal statement
When my father began his private pediatrics practice, computers hadn't made their way into the small business world and most patients were not covered by health insurance. Billing was so simple that the same person could office manage, bill, and answer phones - by hand. Ten years later that would be impossible. My father bought a computer network and some medical billing software, and my mother went to join him. When I was old enough, I began to work summers there. This work, which only manages to sneak its way onto one line of my resume, became an important educational experience for me. While I started out just doing some filing, I quickly learned all the positions in the office, especially in billing. I posted charges and generated insurance claims. I processed insurance payments and collected patient balances. I realized I had even begun to memorize procedure and diagnosis billing codes! The most important task in the billing department was tracking unpaid claims. Armed with a heavy report of pending claims I called insurance companies and spoke to representatives. I learned that systems are not necessarily systematic. They are not necessarily accurate, and they are not necessarily efficient. They need to be scrutinized. They require one's initiative to keep them working properly. One summer one insurance company began to pay out a required childhood vaccine under cost to the physicians and I had to draft a letter to the insurance commissioner to get a representative's attention at the insurance company to change the pay rate. Another bought a scanner system to facilitate their claims processing. Unfortunately the software misinterpreted dates of service. Whenever a date was a single digit, for example, in the month, the software would run the first digit of the date into the second digit of the month, and so on, adding a zero at the end to fill the required number of digits. Our claims were denied payments on the grounds that we were claiming fraudulent dates-the year 2010 had not occurred yet! Our solution to the problem hinged on cooperation: we hand-wrote the claims and they manually processed them until the software problem was fixed. The system, left unchecked, could result in deteriorating patient care. One company stipulated in a contractwhich my father refused to sign-that medical assistants must enter the rooms before the doctor and interview the patients. Once they have done so the physician may enter and must direct his inquiries only to the assistants, avoiding patient contact in the name of efficiency. Cases along this vein are more common. For a while, several insurance plans covered well care only for even ages after the first year, so that a vaccine would be covered for a four-year old but not a three-year old. This formula clashed severely with immunization protocols. The Hepatitis B vaccine, for example, must be administered in three doses over the course of a year and a half. Despite their well care coverage, patients were actually left only partially covered. No amount of negotiating could budget the insurance companies. Fortunately the state decided to require most of the vaccinations in question by law, so those companies were forced to change the plans. I know it is strange that working in a pediatricians office would fuel my passion for law, but it did. The lesson that became engrained on my heart, that systems could and must be constantly challenged, reconciled the tension I had perceived between wanting to take initiative and wanting to work in a system of rules. I learned, first-hand, some of the pitfalls of an impersonal system. I gained an appreciation for how important it is for more people to have health insurance, given the rising costs of health care. I put into practice many skills I will need to be a successful lawyer: concise argumentation, clear communication, and knowledge of the topic at hand. These experiences are not the only ones which have guided me towards law, but they are the ones which have tied the others together into an understanding of my own attitude towards law and the challenges I am ready to undertake.
Essay Category:
Essay Question:
Personal Statement
'Thomas...Michael...Smith!' As the hair on the back of my neck stands at attention; I cringe, paralyzed mid-stride; my chest constricts; it becomes impossible to breath. My thoughts race between the 'choice words' of an eight year old and the decisions of my recent past. In a panic-stricken state I dart through memories, desperate to recall what has invoked my mother's wrath. Only a week before Christmas, I am well aware that Santa is watching and I have been attentive to my every move. I had not recently given myself a haircut, loudly exclaimed my discontent at not receiving a 'potato chip' at church, accidentally removed one of my sister's front teeth, put a hole in a wall, or tried to bathe electronic toys. Although the reason is currently unclear, one thing is certain, I have done something wrong in my mothers eyes and I am in for it! Regardless of what I had done, the high jinks of my youth taught me valuable lessons beyond truths like Teddy Ruxben does not like baths, I have power over dry-wall and only barbers should give children haircuts. I learned how to function within the mini-legal system of my family. Seldom did I have a strong case to plead and appeals were rarely heard. Being the oldest, I could not rely on precedent and I frequently threw myself on the mercy of the court. However, each instance yielded personal growth which slowly manifested itself in self-discipline and a more healthy relationship with my parents. This is my inspiration to study law. I can appreciate the intrinsic value of a law school education and do not feel that it is merely a means to some end. Although a legal education provides many appealing opportunities, a specific career goal is not what guides my interest. In a less scathing lawyer joke, Jerry Seinfeld most accurately expresses my mind-set. He describes life as a huge board game in which lawyers are 'the only ones who have read the inside of the top of the box and know the rules." An education that teaches specifics to be used in a lab does not hold the same value for me as one that offers practical knowledge of how to function and work best within society. My undergraduate major which entails advanced philosophy and sciences has instilled in me a comprehensive picture of the world. Combining classes like organic chemistry and advanced moral problems has challenged me to adopt a unique method of approaching problems and finding solutions. The diverse philosophies I have encountered have taught me to identify, examine, construct, and rebut arguments. By synthesizing humanities and the natural sciences I have been taught to read, analyze and argue with precision; skills invaluable to any successful student. Perhaps being grounded and having my mouth washed out with soap did not seem just at the time, but my upbringing helped instill in me values essential to a good legal professional. I was taught that my actions bring serious consequences, both great and harmful. A profound sense of personal responsibility was the result. My extensive Catholic education has honed my sense of mutual respect and integrity and I have become increasingly conscious of those who do not have a voice in today's society. The true test of my values has not been in the classroom, but on the field. As a student-athlete I was provided an education far beyond what I learned in the classroom. I quickly discovered how to balance the various aspects of my life successfully. In a highly competitive environment my success has shown my superior work-ethic. My duties as captain of a division 1A sports team challenged and expanded my capacity for responsibility and accountability. My peers inadvertently taught me that true leadership primarily entails listening and serving. In addition, through serious sports injury and extensive rehabilitation I learned I have the perseverance and fortitude to face adversity. My childhood antics strengthened my character and provided valuable insight into community life. In retrospect, I can see that opening and rewrapping my presents well before Christmas is not something that would please my parents. However, on Christmas morning I did learn that there are many children who are not as fortunate as I am.
Essay Category:
Essay Question:
General statement
'I think it's a good topic. You'll learn a lot.' At the sound of those words, I breathed a sigh of relief. My seminar professor was notoriously demanding, and I worried what he might say about my proposed topic: education in political structures. At the time, I had no idea how true those words would be. From this essay, I would learn much more than the conclusions that I presented; I learned important personal lessons about overcoming difficulties through hard work, critical analysis, and practice. This understanding would come to broaden my horizons and direct the course that my studies now take. Though I began this project with apprehension, in the end I enjoyed it, particularly as I began to see that the relative obscurity of the topic demanded that I reconsider my approach to the problem. Because little directly relevant literature was available, I had to look to unexpected sources for guidance. I investigated the historical development of education in democratic contexts, read education journals, and even familiarized myself with philosophical treatises on the importance of a free press. Using intellectual frameworks developed from political science, history, and philosophy, I was able to refine a set of testable hypotheses that did indeed hold up under statistical scrutiny. By prompting me to seek alternative solutions to research problems, this project enabled me to develop creativity in my problem-solving technique. The task forced me to think critically and originally, ultimately improving the way I approach problems. However, this process of re-evaluation demanded patience. At times, I was tempted to change direction, but I am glad I continued with this project. Had I abandoned this essay topic in favor of a less complex subject, I would not have had the same sense of accomplishment. Taking on a project that seemed nearly impossible at the outset and seeing it through to a successful end was extremely rewarding. Working through the difficulty showed me what can be accomplished by committing myself to finding a solution, to developing novel approaches to investigation, and to applying conventional practices in new ways. I showed myself that patience and hard work can make seemingly impossible situations possible, which has been a meaningful lesson, knowing that I will not always be able to choose the tasks I wish to take on. This understanding of how I can approach my work has influenced me greatly, both in and out of the classroom, as I have begun to work with projects that are more challenging yet are increasingly rewarding. I have been able to immerse myself in academic pursuits that continue to broaden my horizons, which has, in turn, brought me to involvement in a wider range of activities. Through this, I have been able to find the types of academic projects that I most enjoy. I have found that the most rewarding projects are those that challenge me in different ways. I enjoy being prompted to reassess my approach to my work, which forces me to draw on and synthesize various outside sources as I draft my own arguments. The process of construction is an engaging experience for me. This is partly what draws me to the study of law, as I believe it would offer me the opportunity to explore critical analysis, the intricacies of arguments, and the interweaving of materials to support and defend conclusions which I have come to enjoy as an undergraduate. This single course project, seemingly simple on its face, has shown me the value of continuing to challenging myself and has prepared me for future such projects by giving me the tools necessary to continue through difficult tasks.
Essay Category:
Essay Question:
General personal statement
As I stepped off the plane and the sun glared in my eyes, I immediately realized that my jeans and college sweatshirt were not appropriate attire for Mexico's steamy July heat. While the sweat began to cover my brow, I became acutely aware that I was thousands of miles away from my safe existence in small town Indiana. Understanding the foreign language being spoken around me was a difficult task, but despite my apprehension I knew that this was the first step towards my quest for independence. Moving to Mexico required me to leave the comfort zone that my parents provided. Prior to this experience, the thought of actively partaking in the lives of those less fortunate had not crossed my mind. My limited perspective was the result of not being exposed to culturally diverse environments. From my experience in Mexico I have come to realize that I have gained a new perspective, developed a stronger sense of responsibility, and strengthened my desire to practice law, all of which will enhance my potential as a law student. Before visiting Mexico, I had the misconception of arriving into a city where donkeys roamed the streets that were filled with poverty stricken individuals. Upon my arrival in Monterrey on the campus of Tec de Monterrey, to my surprise I observed what appeared to be a typical college campus. It was not until traveling further south outside of the city limits that I truly witnessed the existence of a poverty-stricken Mexico. While in that environment, I observed a disparity of wealth that appeared to be impossible by American standards. There has always been the saying: 'The rich get richer, while the poor get poorer,' but even this old adage did not seem to capture the severity of the situation. In one area there were college students living comfortably with air conditioning, running water, and various other amenities, while two streets away there were families of seven living in a one room shack with an outhouse and no electricity. It was very common to see several generations of one family begging in the streets. Filthy children would lie on the street corners starving while their mothers begged pedestrians for pesos, and the grandmothers would sit still with a cloth over their faces in order to protect themselves from the scorching heat radiating from the midday sun. The problem, as I view it, arises when the growing sentiment of the upper class is under the impression that impoverished individuals lack in success because they are lazy and choose to live the way that they do. The fact remains that it is very difficult to advance up the socioeconomic ladder in many foreign countries. In most cases an individual is either born rich or poor, and despite socioeconomic membership it is plausible that the circumstances afforded to future generations may remain the same. In Mexico there is a noticeable lack of social programs that adequately assist and educate the people, and the quality of education is wholly dependent upon one's social class. Average citizens do not receive a quality education and are not provided with many opportunities to improve their well-being. Witnessing the inequalities in Mexico allowed me reflect on my native country. Although I live in a country that has a strong economic system, there are still individuals, such as those in Mexico, who are uneducated and underprivileged. I found myself having a strong desire to advocate for persons who were thousands of miles away from my home, and even more so for those persons at home who at one time I failed to consider. I began to see how limited my perspective on cross-cultural environments had truly had been. As I gazed out of the airplane window while returning to Indiana, all of the thoughts, feelings, and emotions that were inspired by the past year of my life raced through my mind. The desire for me to carry my new found passion and use it to assist others has become unwavering. Since returning from Mexico, I have been working as a tutor for Hispanic children who have just arrived in the United States from Mexico. Their lack of a strong educational background is evident as they not only have to learn English grammar and reading skills, but they have to review their Spanish grammar and spelling as well. Although I enjoy tutoring my students, my dedication to making a lasting impact on the lives of many directs me to the study of the law. I believe that it is a country's responsibility to ensure that all of its citizens have access to a proper education. A career in law is an essential tool that will assist me in achieving my goal of working to build a more egalitarian society. I am determined to stand up for the rights of various races and cultures that may not necessarily obtain a 'fair chance' in our society. Not only do I now believe that it is my duty to assist the less fortunate, but I feel a strong obligation to do everything I can to ensure that they are given the same opportunities that everyone deserves.
Essay Category:
Essay Question:
The essay was a personal statement, in response to a very open-ended prompt, something to the effect of, "Tell us something about yourself not apparent from the rest of your application."
In the third drawer of a rusty filing cabinet in the Arizona Daily Wildcat offices sits a jumble of dog-eared papers and worn out notebooks. I don't look at them much anymore, but they're mine, accumulated over the course of last spring, when I was a senior writer for the Wildcat, reporting on some of the most complex stories the University of Arizona's student newspaper has ever needed to cover. Over those four months, I wrote more than 50 stories on issues like the 40 percent tuition hike UA students faced, or the administrative restructuring of the university that will result in program closures and dozens of layoffs. To report these stories, I conducted hundreds of interviews and pored over dozens of documents, many written in the language of bureaucrats, and synthesized this information into digestible bits for the Wildcat's diverse group of 50,000 readers to understand. Journalism has filled the most significant portion of my time during my undergraduate years, and as a result, I've learned valuable skills like deadline writing and information synthesis that I believe set me apart from many law school applicants. Unlike many undergraduates, who have the option of spending days or even weeks writing papers for their classes, I have been forced to write often complex news stories in hours or even minutes to meet the deadline for daily publication of the student newspaper. I left the University of Southern California, where I spent my freshman year, for Arizona, after deciding to save my money and get an education closer to home. I dove right into journalism there, applying for a job at the Daily Wildcat, a place that has been a second home for me over the past two-and-a-half years. The Wildcat was desperate for experienced editors, and hired me off the street as assistant news editor, a move that raised eyebrows among skeptical senior staff, who had never seen a Wildcat neophyte be named an editor so quickly. I guess I proved them wrong, as it took me only a year to ascend to the highest rung of the Wildcat ladder. By the fall of my second year at the UA, I was the paper's editor in chief, leading a staff of 100 people charged with the task of putting out a daily paper. I put in 50-hour weeks at the newspaper, in addition to taking a full load of courses. In the process, I managed to earn A's in all my classes, doing homework during downtime at the Wildcat, and spending Saturdays typing papers at my computer or researching assignments in the library so I could be free to focus on my important job during the week. During the year-and-a-half I spent working mostly behind a desk in my editorial positions, including as editor in chief, I had a secret ambition to work as a reporter, to descend from the top rung of the Wildcat hierarchy to the journalistic trenches. I wanted to conduct interviews, write under deadline, and explain complex issues in ways my readers could understand. So I spent last spring as a reporter, accumulating notebooks and papers in that filing cabinet drawer as I covered issues like tuition and the role of race in university admissions. I recall one day during that semester when I was late for an English class because I had been in a meeting with the university president, listening to him explain his plans for including race as an admissions criterion as the university becomes more selective in who it accepts. I spent that afternoon putting together a story explaining the president's ideas in the context of the national controversy over race and admissions. The next day, I visited the English professor whose class I had been late to, and he commented that he had noticed my name in the newspaper throughout the semester. 'You guys do good work,' he told me. 'There was a great story in today's paper about admissions policies.' He hadn't noticed my byline that day, so I had the great pleasure of pointing it out to him. 'In fact, that's why I was late to your class yesterday,' I said. 'I was with the president, doing work for this story.' Since then, I've once again taken the Wildcat's top job, the first person in at least 25 years to serve two terms as editor in chief. Working there has exposed me to real-world work situations, and I've been forced to think critically in ways that few undergraduates are. As I write this statement, it's been about a week since I visited Huntsville, Texas, where I helped design a curriculum for a master's degree in criminal justice journalism at Sam Houston State University. In one day, our group of professors, professional journalists and student newspaper editors turned a blank sheet of paper into a blueprint for a 36-unit program for mid-career journalists and criminal justice professionals looking for a more detailed understanding of their fields. It was another exercise in critical thinking that allowed me to understand the importance of being able to quickly synthesize diverse ideas and opinions. As many people do, I sometimes doubt my thinking abilities. I've made stupid mistakes in all aspects of my life, and as a journalist, my mistakes are often public. Nothing's more humbling than misspelling a word in a front-page headline. But largely because of my journalistic experiences, my undergraduate experience has been a journey of intellectual maturation, and I feel prepared for law school. Anytime I doubt myself, I can look in that rusty filing cabinet drawer.
Essay Category:
Essay Question:
Personal Statement
April: the month both 'Alisha' and I were born. That is the only similarity our lives have ever shared. Born the fourth of six children to a mom addicted to drugs, Alisha never had the opportunity for a childhood. At age eight, she was rescued by the Dekalb County, Georgia Department of Family and Children's Services (DFCS). Emotionally and sexually abused, she had lived a life nobody should ever know. Being removed from an abusive home improved her life, but her life could hardly be called normal. Over the next nine years Alisha lived in five different foster homes. She would experience but a taste of stable family life before DFCS would uproot her and force her to start over again. At age seventeen, Alisha's mother visited her, which precipitated a series of emotional problems that quickly erased any chance for another family foster placement. Once again DFCS moved her, this time to the Dekalb County Emergency Shelter. The emergency shelter, cold and unfriendly, is designed to hold children for a very short time until other foster placement becomes available. Supervision is scant, and consequently the shelter has become a haven for drug dealing and other illegal activities. Last year, a significant percentage of the deprived children housed in the shelter for more than six months were charged as delinquents for a crime committed inside the shelter. Alisha's clock was ticking. She had already lived there for three months when the Dekalb County Child Advocate Attorney's office appointed me to serve as her Special Advocate. As I do with all cases when a child is in the shelter, I started Alisha's case by looking for a new foster placement. She needed a home where she would receive the necessary support and services to help her prepare for her future. Contacting her caseworker proved to be no help; overworked and under funded she had no time to devote to a child that appeared to be safe in the shelter. Alisha's best hope rested in the judge. He could order her placement changed at her hearing in one month, but only if another placement was available. Before then I had to find someone or someplace willing to take her, a task made easier when the child is eager and determined to do well. A very quiet and shy girl, Alisha did not want to talk when we first met. I told her about myself to get the conversation started. When I mentioned that I attend Georgia Tech, a very uncommon and exciting comment came out of her mouth: she said she really wants to attend Georgia Tech after high school. I was shocked. To graduate from high school is a rare accomplishment for children in foster care, but for her to have her sights set on attending a top national school was beyond impressive. As we continued to talk, she told me she hated the shelter and would do anything to get out. I knew then she would do her part, but a stable and loving home and the support and services of DFCS were going to be essential ingredients in making her dream come true. I quickly began the uphill journey of securing the services she needed and deserved. I succeeded in convincing Deveruex, a respected group home with extensive mental health services, to accept her into its residential program. At the hearing, I advocated to the judge that Alisha needed to be referred to DFCS's Independent Living Program, where she would take classes to learn the needed skills to live on her own. In order to demonstrate to the judge the inadequacy of Alisha's care, I documented my frustrated efforts in dealing with an unresponsive DFCS. Overall, I stressed that to continue living in the emergency shelter would destroy any chance of the successful future to which Alisha aspired; it was imperative the judge move quickly to begin services to help her. Fortunately, the judge accepted my recommendations. To celebrate her new home, I took Alisha to my university's campus. It was an unbearably hot and humid day, but as we toured the campus the only thing she talked about was all the classes she wanted to take and how much fun she would have as a student. The sad reality is that it is much easier to rescue a dog than a child. Two years ago, I founded a non-profit rescue organization for dogs. I was alarmed by the high number of dogs being put to sleep in various animal shelters where we volunteered. There was a great need to rescue them and also educate the public about this unique breed. Over the next year, we established over twelve foster homes and succeeded in saving the lives of more than forty dogs. When a lack of funding forced us to combine with another rescue organization, we kept in touch with the foster families and still rescue and place dogs whenever possible. After dissolving the non-profit, I began my work with the Dekalb County Child Advocate's Office and as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA). Through both of these child focused organizations, I have met and helped dozens of 'Alishas.' It did not take long for me to realize the importance of my work to these children, making the decision to devote my life developing and improving juvenile programs throughout the rural South a truly natural one. To receive an education that emphasizes serving the public interest, especially focused on children, is very important to me. With its strong Children and Family Justice Center and extensive range of courses offered in public interest, plus its generous Public Service Fellowship loan repayment program, [insert school name here] impresses me as such a school. Also, I believe my experiences in founding and running a non-profit organization, combined with my hands on work in juvenile justice, will allow me to contribute greatly to [school name]'s entering class. Thus, I apply to become a member of the class of 2006 at [school name].
