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Though I have a pretty good idea of what the consensus will be, I want to verify that I'm doing the right thing. Here's my situation:

3.8 from a top private school, 159 LSAT on only attempt. Full disclosure, I didn't study really at all but I thought I could be content with this score.

I applied this cycle and am looking at the following offers:

$50,000/yr Cardozo (could live rent free so COA ~$30000)
$41,000/yr CWRU w/ $3000 additional 1L ( could live rent free so COA ~$45000)

I also got $20,000/yr at W&L, $5,000/yr at CUNY, and in at Arizona. Haven't heard from Fordham, ND, Temple, OSU.

I graduated in 2015 and only wanted to take one year off but the more I thought about it the more I think I'm selling myself short. I registered for June and plan to actually really study this time and hope for the best. Could I potentially negotiate $$ if I do, or should I wait another year and reapply? I know that depends a lot on my score, but I genuinely don't think I could do worse than 159 as it was a pretty poor showing.

Thank you!

The only thing you should do is concentrate on studying for your retake. You should get an LSAT that matches you GPA and see what happens in the next cycle.

FWIW I got a 158 on my diagnostic LSAT (effectively after studying as much as you did), and pulled that up to a 173 with ~4 months of non-exhaustive studying largely through an online course. Given your GPA, if you pulled your 159 up, I think you could easily score 168-170.

The real world difference that would translate to would be a significant amount of money at a top 14 school. Or you could handicap your career, throw away any meaning working for that 3.8 will ever have, and pay 30K to attend a school with just OK (and many very bad) outcomes. It's totally your decision how much you don't want to actually study for the LSAT for a couple months though.

If you don't want to re-take the LSAT, I can't imagine any situation in which it would be rational to attend Cardozo costing you 3 years and 30K instead of choosing a different career path coming out of undergrad with a 3.8.

Don't let that GPA go to waste, sit out and kick ass in June!