All these things are opaque and you never know. I heard that there is a Prof at Princeton who teaches legal and constitutional history, and that he is a tough prof, and if he gives a recc to law school, you are very likely to get into H or Y law. This suggests that there is awareness of the context of a kid’s achievements outside of GPA and LSAT. Certainly in the old days if you went to the peace corps, it was considered easier to get into a top law school. But who knows?