My first personal statement was a tidy narrative about volunteering at a food bank, the lesson I learned there, and how I have applied that lesson to overcome subsequent obstacles in my life. I write this second version in haste, and with an urgency and sincerity not in my original, but made possible and necessary by an event that has occupied my every thought: the birth of my son eighteen days ago.

It happened like this: my wife lay on a table; the nurses told me not to look, but I looked and saw a ten-inch opening in my wife’s belly, red and dark and held open by clamps; I somehow managed not to pass out; I strained to make sense of what I heard from the twelve or fifteen doctors and nurses hovering around us; then—before I was ready—I heard him cry. I had known this moment was coming for nine months, but knowing it was coming turned out to be like knowing a tsunami was coming—it did nothing to lessen the ultimate impact. Like most people, I thought I had done and seen quite a bit in my life, but nothing compared to or prepared me for that moment.

My reason for sharing this story is not simply because it was a very intense experience, but because having a child—and now raising him—has changed my life in ways I was absolutely not prepared for. I did expect the child to change my life, but I had a vague expectation of it being as a switch getting thrown, and with it a new perspective coming suddenly into focus. I expected to walk out of the hospital with the perspective and eyes of a “parent”. That didn’t happen. What did happen—and what continues to happen—is somehow more mundane and more incredible: having and raising the baby has made old lessons suddenly real and intimate.

What do I mean by this? For one, I mean that everything I have ever learned or thought about duty and responsibility has been given new weight by the requirement of waking up several times throughout the night to tend to the baby. Like every new parent before me, I have learned that a baby is a being of constant need, and that when he cries, there is no one else who can take care of him, soothe him, or provide for him whatever he needs. He permits no deferment, no minimally viable effort, no putting off of anything until tomorrow. Caring for this baby has reordered my concept of responsibility: when I think now of responsibility—of the times I’ve tried to escape it, or to defer it, or the times I’ve made myself proud by living up to it—I automatically think of him and of my profound desire to always be there to provide and nurture him; of my fear of ever failing him.

I’ve discovered firsthand the many further effects a baby works upon his parent. Some are expected: a new capacity for love (and patience); tests of grace under pressure—like when he is hungry, wet, and just generally annoyed by some baby ailment, all at once. Others I did not expect, such as the constant tests of prioritization and preparation—did I bring diapers to the restaurant, and do I change him or soothe him first?

And the baby puts things into focus. I have wanted to attend law school for more than ten years. I have put off applying until now for many reasons—because I needed to provide for my wife while she was in law school; because I nursed doubts about my previous academic record and how it would appear to an admissions committee; because at certain points my career would suddenly become more interesting or rewarding because of a promotion or a raise. Having this baby—and in fact, even having a pregnant wife—made small the doubts and hesitations that nagged at me, because a child, in addition to being a thing in need of rearing and nurturing, is also a thing for a parent to live up to.

I suppose that the topic of child-rearing is a bit of a paradox for a personal statement: on one hand, so many people do it that it can hardly be considered a remarkable or unique endeavor; but on the other, it is such an important and demanding task, that it comes to dominate all of the parent’s thoughts and efforts, and ultimately comes to define the parent. For me it has done so by making real my concepts of responsibility, love, and patience, and by asking me to live up to my own intentions.

Why It Works

This personal statement is some kind of impossible balloon: weighed down by an anvil of meta-commentary, it flies. Normally, I don’t go in for the “I was going to write about X” business, and I’m usually insistent that you have to tell a story. But this one has so much urgency, so much heat, that it’s absolutely riveting. I love it.

First-Time Parent models the single most important quality of a personal statement: sincerity. It helps, of course, that the author is thoughtful and highly skilled, but what sells the essay is the fact that he is not in fact trying to sell you anything. Does he sound like someone playing “Guess what the admissions officer is looking for?” Absolutely not. He sounds like someone saying what he needs to say, in the process explaining why he’s applying to law school.

That doesn’t mean the essay is perfect. The author could have smuggled in a bit more of his biography. In particular, he could have explained why he wanted to go to law school in the first place. The fifth paragraph is also a bit aimless. Still, this draft is so good that a revision is as likely to make it worse as it is to make it better. I wasn’t surprised to learn that the author, despite some major liabilities in his academic summary, was offered scholarships from every school he applied to.

Strive for sincerity, not perfection.