Chances at T14? Forum

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hopkins21

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Chances at T14?

Post by hopkins21 » Sun Apr 12, 2020 4:09 am

I got to johns hopkins and graduate in the fall 21’ instead of the spring. Since my graduation is off cycle for law school applications I was thinking of doing a 2 year contract in the Army. Does anyone know if military service appeals to T5.
My current GPA is 3.7 but I have 3 semesters to get it up.
Im Latino & First-Gen. I have yet to take the LSAT, does anyone know any good prep courses or summer programs?

Sackboy

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Re: Chances at T14?

Post by Sackboy » Tue Apr 14, 2020 5:16 am

Military service is seen as a solid soft. It's nothing exceptional, but it's positively viewed. It's probably not going to impact your application too much more than any normal job.

Also, would you be enlisting, because I'm not sure two-year officer contracts exist? If you are enlisting, that's kind of a waste of a college education. You could have enlisted at 17.

T5 is not a real distinction. For law schools, the hierarchy is (H)arvard(Y)ale(S)tanford, (C)hicago(C)olumbia(N)YU, and the lower T13: HYS, CCN, lower T13. Those are the buckets you should aim for, because they actually mean something, unlike "T5." Those buckets reflect the actual relative employment power of those schools in prestigious big firms, clerkships, and other positions. Your 3.7 is a fine enough GPA for the lower T13, CCN, and maybe Harvard. It all depends on what you get for your LSAT. LSAT+GPA make up 95% of the equation. If you get a 160 LSAT, you'll be lucky to get into any T13 school. If you get a 175 LSAT, you'll have a fun time counting all of your scholarship money at any of CCN + the lower T13 (Harvard doesn't give merit scholarships).

You don't need a prep course or a summer program to prepare for the LSAT. IMO, that's just a huge waste of money. Buy the PowerScore Bibles and the Actual Official LSAT Pretest books, and you'll be on route to score 170+ with a disciplined study regime.

decimalsanddollars

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Re: Chances at T14?

Post by decimalsanddollars » Tue Apr 14, 2020 10:44 am

Agree w/ Sackboy's analysis, including and especially as to tiers of law school (except I'd clarify that Yale and Stanford are sort of a notch above Harvard, within that top tier).

As to your military plan, you should absolutely work between college and law school, as it will improve your application, strengthen your financial position going in, and make you look better for job applications during and after law school. I don't know that the military would be the best job to do, but you should research and evaluate that option alongside others. More specifically, I would hesitate to enlist for a short time unless you can realize military benefits at the end of it, like the GI bill for example, that would help pay for law school and other things later on. I don't know much about how all this works, but you should absolutely figure out how it works before committing years of your life to it. Note also that certain bigfed jobs will show a veteran preference; the main component of this is simply whether you served (and how you were discharged), but some programs will also care about rank attained etc.

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