C-Money

Thanks, I already submitted most of my applications with the HAVE construction, but that's actually the meaning that I intended. I use the word grounding because I use background elsewhere in the essay and was just going for word variation.

My intended subfield is American legal history; I am currently a practicing lawyer. I am applying to Yale, Princeton, Harvard, UCLA, UNC, Wisconsin, Duke, Virginia, Maryland, Glasgow (in the UK) and Georgia... I probably overdid it.

+1

You are only submitting one essay for this application, right? If so, there is no meaningful difference between a "personal statement" and a "statement of purpose." I wouldn't worry about it unless the prompt is dramatically different than your other applications.

I did not apply to Berkeley because of that stupid personal history essay.

I have the following phrase in the concluding paragraph of my statement of purpose: "I believe that my educational and professional grounding in history and law have provided me with the skills, knowledge and intellectual focus to succeed in advanced graduate study..." Should I change the word HAVE to HAS? Technically, grounding is singular, but I'm trying to impart the idea that my educational grounding (in history) and my professional grounding (in law) are distinct. What reads better? Does it matter?