Active Duty to Law School:

kme_2023

Good Afternoon,

I'm trying to gather some information concerning the "weight" of a degree from a Service Academy. I graduated from the Coast Guard Academy (Similar to Westpoint) with a degree in Government (Political Science), with around a 2.7 GPA. My first two years were spent mainly in STEM and my previous major, Electrical Engineering. After making the switch to Government, my GPA rose drastically but not enough to significantly cover the damage of my days in Electrical Engineering. All of my grades in Law, Government, and Policy are in good standing. Is my low undergrad GPA going to sink my chances of ever getting into Law School?

To offset my Undergraduate GPA, I enrolled in Graduate School at American Military University (Public Policy with a concentration in Law) in which I currently maintain a 3.9 GPA. (Disclaimer: This is an online school) I have also taken the LSAT and scored a 160.

I will have 8 years of work experience as a Military Officer and work mainly in law-enforcement/policy.

Just looking for advice or other avenues to increase my chances. Any guidance would be appreciated.

Jacob Baska

Hey kme_2023,

Thanks for your question/s! Just chiming in from the 7Sage AdComm perspective.

Speaking broadly, yes, AdComms will take into account your major and the school that you went to for undergrad. LSAC also provides information to law schools about the GPA spread for students applying to law school who graduated from various undergrad schools - one thing I always noticed was that GPAs tended to be lower for students coming out of the service academies.

As far as how to balance out a lower GPA, the big things you can do are:
- Do well on the LSAT.
- Build a great professional resume.
- On your application, clearly articulate who you are and the unique things you'd bring to the law school learning environment.

Serving in the Coast Guard certainly takes care of the second point; the first point is a bit subjective (ie, one school's median is another school's 25th percentile...); and the third one is something you'll be working on this summer.

I hope that helps!