Military Admissions Bump?

MattDegz14

Question is the title. Basically, how big of an advantage is being in the military when applying to law school? Is it viewed favorably? Currently on active duty in the US Army.

Matt Sorr

Being in the military is viewed very favorably by law schools. It is one of the stronger "soft factors" (meaning a factor in law school admissions that isn't something quantifiable, like your LSAT score and GPA). Schools love to boast the amount of active duty people and veterans in their incoming class. I think it's mainly because military members are viewed as well-trained, hard working, mature, resourceful, cultured, etc. Also, more altruistically, I think law schools just generally like to support the troops. With this being said, it's difficult to quantify exactly how much of a "bump" you receive from active duty status, just like it's hard to quantify any other soft factor. It surely helps, and being active duty beats out most other softs on the margins, but your LSAT and GPA are still king.

Remember, though, LSAT and GPA are nearly always more important than soft factors (maybe unless you have a Medal of Honor or something else extremely rare), so all you can do is maximize your soft factor "desirability." Military service goes a long way towards doing that. I by no means intend to reduce military service to a simple factor, because it's obviously much more than that, but in terms of law school admissions stats that's how it's viewed.

Selene Steelman

Hi @MattDegz14. Former admissions officer here. I agree with the response from @"Matt Sorr". In general, admissions committees are extremely interested in candidates with military service. How much buoyancy a candidate's application gets from past military service could depend on the nature of the service and how significant their service is to their application narrative. The committee must still consider GPA and LSAT, but prior service could be a very strong distinguishing factor for an applicant. Good luck!

samhsmith1998

@"Selene Steelman" said:
Hi @MattDegz14. Former admissions officer here. I agree with the response from @"Matt Sorr". In general, admissions committees are extremely interested in candidates with military service. How much buoyancy a candidate's application gets from past military service could depend on the nature of the service and how significant their service is to their application narrative. The committee must still consider GPA and LSAT, but prior service could be a very strong distinguishing factor for an applicant. Good luck!

Did you have any experience with FLEP, and how it may impact admissions?

Selene Steelman

Hi @samhsmith1998. The FLEP is a separate process from the application review process for law school admissions. The admissions committee will review the applicant and consider their service history as part of the holistic review process, but funding matters do not generally affect the committee's final admissions decision.

jameelyusuf1994

Being in the military can give your application a boost, but don't become complacent.

How much of a boost you get is going to depend on a lot of factors such as the rank of the law school, branch of military, and your specific job within the military. For example, if you're applying to Harvard and Yale, you're competing with the best of the best veterans. Harvard and Yale are going to have a lot of service academy grades with 3.9+ gpa's and 170+ LSATs. Also, cross your fingers that the school you're applying to doesn't have a lot of vets who have the same job and are from the same branch.

I think being in the military definitely helped me overcome a low gpa when I applied to Georgetown for my MBA. However, my GMAT was well over the class average. I think the better question to ask is, what specifically about your military experience will help add to the upcoming class? Georgetown has a very global perspective, so in my video essay I talked about my international deployments.