Military School

[vmi guy]

I will graduate in the Spring of 2011 and plan on attending LS. I know it is still early and most schools do not accept applications at this time, however I do not believe in procrastination and know that my gpa and LSAT are not the best. This is why I have a few questions.

LSAT: 154
GPA: 3.01

Will schools take into account the rigorous first year most military school freshman endure and the effect it may have on gpa?

Will attending military school such as VMI/The Citadel hurt or help an applicant?

Chances at attending Miss or Elon?

Thank you for your time.

[Cicero]

You should have a very good chance of getting into Elon. It's not accredited (provisional) though and is pretty expensive. If you can afford that rate and want to stay in NC, you may want to apply to Campbell. If you don't have a preference for a particular state, then there are a number of accredited T-4/3 schools where you'd probably get in, and some with scholarships. You should check out Law School Numbers (www.lawschoolnumbers.com) and the GPA/LSAT search (http://officialguide.lsac.org/UGPASearch/Search3.aspx?SidString=).

[BikePilot]

Your GPA will get normalized by LSAC to take into account more/less rigorous programs of study and I think law schools generally rely on that normalization.  They might give a very slight bump for the military school background, but don't expect much beyond whatever LSAC gives you.  I'm sure it won't hurt anything at the vast majority of schools.  You might have marginally better luck with schools that have a fairly large military presence or are somewhat conservative-leaning, but that's just a guess.  I don't know anything about either of those schools specifically.

For now you'd be much better served busting your butt and getting the gpa and lsat score up