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3.2/highest LSAT 159... I applied for this past fall semester 2010 and this was my outcome

Pace: accepted $14,000/yr
Hofstra: accepted $15,000/yr
Rutgers(Newark): waitlisted/accepted

Brooklyn: denied
Cardozo: denied
Fordham:denied
St johns:denied

I decided to take the year off to work and save up some money, take the LSAT again, and try and beef up my application... The things that have changed are

- I have about 8 months worth of management experience
- I interned with the District Attorneys office this summer while working as well
- I wrote a new and, in my opinion, better personal statement
- I got a really good LOR from my boss

I will also be applying much earlier in the cycle (November), seeing as last cycle I applied to most of my schools after recieving my December LSAT score and than a few others after recieving my February LSAT scores...

I had every intention of waiting to hear from the schools I was planning on applying to for this coming Fall, but Pace has Spring admissions and offered me $10,000 merit scholarship plus a $3,600 environmental law scholarship (environmental law is a big interest of mine). I hate my current job but am trying to make the most unbiased decision I can and not let that motivate my decision. If I go to school now to Pace in the Spring, I will have graduated a year earlier because it is an excelerated 2 1/2 year program, but if I wait till the fall it will set me back a year, as originally planned. I really liked Pace when I went to visit it, but I am just worried about its "reputation" and "ranking." Any advice is much appreciated, thanks.

Pace isn't worth that scholarship. Not worth paying for those job opportunities.

get another job and wait a year.
You are studying for the LSAT. Stick to your original plan, and apply in October with your new lsat score.

To be honest, the only meaningful thing you can do to drastically better your chances in a single year is to retake the LSAT. I know that is tired advice and not practicable for everyone (I took it just once, despite all advice to the contrary, and was incredibly lucky my cycle ended as it did. I will emphasize that it was pure luck.) I think that if you can wait and retake again, a mid 160s score would give you a wealth of options.

If you are interested, here is some salary data for Pace:

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It is from the class of 2008, and these students went through OCI in 2007, before the start of the great recession. Things are likely a good bit worse now. You can look at other schools on the LST website to see how they compare for employment/salary data, and this should give you a sense of where you want to be aiming. If you can get a full ride to a lower ranked school, this is a credited strategy for many, but you will likely need higher numbers to give yourself that option.

What do you want out of your law degree job-wise? What's your expected debt from each school, including cost of living and opportunity cost? Are there substantive differences between the schools that you care about outside of job opportunities?

Can't really answer the question without a sound understanding of those elements, in my opinion.