SemperLegal wrote:gunton224 wrote:As someone currently receiving assistance from Service2School (which but me in touch with a dude who really has his stuff together and has given great advice IRT my PS, resume, etc) AND as someone who received some help from MT Cicero, I have to say that I agree with MT. Unless you're sharing with us the data that supports your more optimistic outlook, I don't see how you can make such bold claims and not expect some push-back. I'm not calling you a liar or anything, I just think that everything available to the masses supports MT's comments, while nothing readily available supports yours. If you have evidence to the contrary, please share, because in the end we're all just vets trying to do the best we can. But for the most part you've given people a lot of hope without substantiating your claims. I hope to God you're correct, that'd help me immensely, but I think MT's criticism was pretty fair. To me, your advice seems to follow a "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take" logic, which is true but LS admissions has a lot of data that we can use to determine our approximate odds and save some time/money. I don't want this to come across as a personal attack and I admit I'm no more qualified than anyone else to give advice, but that's my $0.02.
I think the answer is they are both a little right. Veteran admissions, especially since we already passed peak troop fetishism, varies adcom to adcom, day to day. You have to prepare like no bump, but apply (and pray) that you get a reader on his peak "the troops are heroes made more heroic," "the troops are exploited diamonds in the rough that I can save", or (most accurately, but less advantageously) "veterans add unique diversity and a likely better-than-average work ethic".
Tldr:
everyone should prep and LSAT as though MT is correctit is the most determinative factor (because it is), but apply, ask for waivers, and ignore what they can't change( (gpa) like dubbs is.
Worse comes to worse, you're out $12 and 750 words per overreach where the magic didn't happen.
I'm PMing mdubs right now, but I might not get it to him until after class. The bolded (with my edits) is pretty much correct though. I reached like crazy in my apps. I only object to facts being thrown around that are absolutely wrong. The "below 25th, the GPA doesn't matter" was flat-out wrong (though the schools COULD do it without it affecting their numbers). He has made other posts which seem to say, "you'll scoop a couple T14s, don't worry about it" (not a direct quote, but certainly the theme). I called him out in my recent post for very specific, erroneous proclamations. That's all.
The problem is that it might encourage vets to target slightly lower LSATs. "I'm a vet, a 168=170 for normal folks." Or, it might encourage vets to settle for an LSAT score when they could/should retake. This is my biggest problem with the casual "vets get a bump...trust me" trope. You may or may not get one. Whether or not you use his service, another service, etc., you still may or may not get a bump (even if the bump chances are higher using his service, which I have no way of knowing).
That damn LSAT is the bane of 0Ls lives, and they look for ANY REASON TO STOP GRINDING FOR THAT DAMN THING! We all know this! We know the feeling! When so many vets on here got admitted at about their number, and some slightly outperformed, there's too much downside risk to allowing people who browse this forum to settle for lower numbers.
Once someone has done the absolute best they know they can do with either 3 well-grinded-for takes, a 99th percentile score, or the absolute best they could've possibly done...then and only then should mdubs be allowed to play Eye of the Tiger for them and be the Mickey to their Rocky. Hell, I'll do the same at that point!