Picking up where I left off (Big Rule #1 for writing your law school essays), and continuing with the larger theme of learning how to decode your application instructions:

Big Rule # 2: Identify the Right Essay Type and Stay True to It.

The second most important thing you need to know when approaching your required law school application essays is that you need to pay attention to the essay question and make sure you are answering that question—not that other school’s question, and not the question you wish were being asked.

It is interview season and I'm hearing from applicants across the land that interviews scare them.

Are the character count limitations in some of your law school applications killing you? If you are struggling with instructions that tell you to list your extracurricular activities or honors/awards (including description!) in 500 characters or less, you are not alone. Here are some real examples:

• List your important scholastic or academic honors including scholarships, fellowships, prizes, honor societies, etc.

Have you already sat down to start tackling your law school applications essays? Good! Now's the time.

You may notice that the essay questions tend to be very broad.

I've started filling out my applications through LSAC.

Of all the different parts of the law school application process, the application forms are the ugly stepchildren.

Because many students and parents are "newcomers" to college admissions, they are often unable to distinguish good information from bad information and they get confused by what information they should heed.  Unfortunately for them, bad information abounds.  Just last week I was dismayed to read an opinion column in USA Today that had all sorts of bad information in it about what college admissions officers look for when evaluating applications.

As applicants progress with their work this time of year, I often find myself giving this piece of advice: Keep control of your message.

What's that mean?<!--break-->

You have 100% control over some parts of your application, like your personal statement and your resume.

A great post for aspiring career changers:

I got an email from an accountant in his late 20s a few days ago, who is considering going to law school a couple of years from now.

You have six choices of topics for the personal statement on the Common Application, including “topic of your choice.”  So what do you choose as the topic?  Having read thousands of personal statements over the years, I want to offer some dos and don’ts about topic selection based on my experience as an admissions officer:<!--break-->

1)   Do choose a topic that allows you to highlight something about you that I wouldn’t know otherwise.

As future lawyers, one of the tasks you will get really, really good at (and very, very bored with) is called document review.* Doc review means going through boxes and boxes of documents (or lots of PDFs), often in a windowless conference room, searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack on the chance it will be useful to the case** you've been staffed on.

It's time to put on your doc review hats as applicants, because law school applications will be released in a matter of weeks, and they will require you to make certain disclosures.

Good people can give you bad advice about your applications? Really? Says who?

The dean of admissions at Stanford's business school, for one. "Good People Can Give Bad Advice" is a headline in a post by Dean Derrick Bolton on Stanford GSB's admissions website, and I'm sharing his advice here because (1) it's great advice and (2) it applies just as well to law school and even college admissions.

“Missed opportunity to tell me something that would persuade me to admit.

Here's a question frequently asked by law school applicants, with variations on a theme:

My LSAT instructor says I have to write about public service in my personal statement.

My mom says I have to explain why I switched majors in my personal statement.

My dad says I should write about The Law in my personal statement.

My friend who's a 2L says I have to write about a big dilemma in my personal statement.

As the application season gets into full swing, I field lots of questions about whether a student should apply early.

A [recent] ClearAdmit post discussed addressing gaps in employment on a resume for MBA admissions.

I love July, because I get to write posts that serve both rising 1Ls as well as applicants who are ramping up for the admissions season ahead of us.

Both groups often ask me to recommend reading for the summer, because that's when people have a bit more time on their hands.

There's been a lot of press lately about the poor prospects of many law students and recent law school graduates. Prominent examples include

• Law School Economics: Ka-Ching! (NYT)
• Consumers Finally Figure Out That Law School Is Overrated (Time)
• Served: How Law Schools Completely Misrepresent Their Job Numbers (New Republic) and
• Law Students Lose the Grant Game as Schools Win (NYT).

 I've also written on that subject, including

• "We Should Be Ashamed Of Ourselves"
• Feast or Famine For Law School Grads and
• Advice to Law School Applicants on Sunk Costs, Merit Scholarship, and Transfer Plans

The timing of the most recent NYT piece coincided with a message I received the other day from a former client and one-time law school applicant, updating me about the interesting things he's been up to.

What are the biggest mistakes I've seen over the years in law school applications?

Thanks to a recent interview with Vault's Law Blog, I had a chance to ponder that question. Here was my reply:<!--break-->

[T]he biggest mistake I see is a failure to think -- really think -- about what you are being asked to show [admissions officers] and what you want to say, and then a failure to protect your story from well-meaning but misinformed third parties, especially parents.

I know a lot about U.