<p>I disagree that no one will care, but I do agree that you shouldn’t do it for the purpose of getting into top tier schools.</p>
<p>What gets you into top tier law schools is your GPA and LSAT score. A 3.5 is on the lower side for a top tier law school. Georgetown Law’s 25th percentile was a 3.43. At Chicago, it’s a 3.65. NYU’s is a 3.5, and UVa’s is a 3.51. GWU only had median, which is 3.6. (American’s is much lower, at around 3.1.)</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins does not have a law school. It has a combined JD/MPH program, where you receive an MPH at JHU and a JD at another school (usually Georgetown). They also have a JD/MA program with Stanford, where you get the JD at Stanford Law and the MA at SAIS. You have to be admitted to both separately, though, and Stanford’s Law School is on par with Harvard’s and Yale’s - the 25th percentile GPA is something around a 3.7.</p>
<p>My point is, you are already in the bottom 25-30% of admitted applicants at most of the law schools on your list. So you need to do really well on the LSAT. Law school admissions is numbers-focused. The median score at most of these schools is likely around a 165, so you need to aim for at least that, but I would say at least a 170.</p>
<p>Military intelligence will be looked upon favorably. BUT it won’t offset the GPA and LSAT scores. At places like Georgetown, NYU, and UVa, many of the applicants will have post-undergraduate experience (most top law students do these days - check out the class profiles of the top law schools) in addition to very top scores and GPA. You are a pretty average applicant - in fact, you are a kind of below average applicant. If you actually do graduate with a 3.5 and a good but not spectacular LSAT score (like around a 160 or below), you have very minscule chances of getting into law school even if you were a military intelligence officer.</p>
<p>Being in the military is a pretty big commitment; you shouldn’t join it because you think it will help you get into grad school. You should do it because you want to be a military intelligence officer, at least for a little while.</p>
<p>The MA is different - a 3.5, your extracurricular experiences (ECs normally don’t matter, but SGA is nice for international relations type stuff) and your summer internships give you a good chance of getting into a good MA program. The military experience would enrich that, but again, I wouldn’t suggest doing it if it will just help.</p>
<p>Also I wouldn’t recommend getting a JD from American. The JD market is really awful right now, and even top law school grads are having problems finding jobs. American’s law school is ranked #56, which is pretty low for law schools. And on top of that, it’s expensive. You could go to cheaper law schools that are ranked higher - like UNC-Chapel Hill ($37,066), University of Georgia ($35,480), or University of Alabama (in the top 25 and only $32,920 a year, which is a steal for a top 25 law school).</p>
<p>Nowadays, the wisdom is to go to a top 25 law school - really a top 15 law school. And if you can’t get in…don’t go at all. Obviously if you get into Penn or Harvard, you fork over the cash, but I certainly wouldn’t pay $46K at the #56 law school when you can go to a top 25 law school like UA, UMN, or Notre Dame for cheaper, or to Emory, GWU, or Wash U for the same price.</p>