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I'm in a tricky situation. I'm a Belgian citizen who speaks English as his native language and has grown up in international schools in several (7 countries) all my life. I went to college in the states. In my first year of undergrad I did really well and was getting a 3.8 and had my hopes on attending a top law school, but I messed up.

I took 6 years to get my bachelors. I got a 0.0GPA one semester (my 4th) and withdrew from the next 2 consecutive semesters after that. The 0.0 was my own fault due to too much freedom and honestly just not going to any of my classes/exams and just me being an idiot in college and being around the wrong people... At the time I simply didn't know how to say no to others. I knew I messed up but things didn't get better the next semester hence my Withdrawal from my 5th semester. In my 6th semester I was actually doing well academically and my grades were coming back on track, however I suffered from a mental breakdown related to a childhood trauma that I had forgotten about for my entire life and never told anybody about. The truth is that I had gotten mollested as a child and I forgot about it, but for some reason one night that semester everything just came back to me. This breakdown put me in hospital for over a week and the school basically told me I could not finish the semester there and I had to go back home to "recover", only one of my professors allowed me to complete the coursework alone at home for that semester and I got an A in that course (Logic), all others did not. It is a possibility that my "year of rebellion" preceding the mental breakdown was related to the mental breakdown, but I can not be sure of that. My 7th semester I was still recovering and only studied part-time at a school near my home because I felt it was best for me. In the end I transferred to this school near home to finish school since I was still recovering and quite depressed from all the recent events. The first couple semesters at my new school near home I was getting around a 2.5 GPA because I was so depressed from all the recent events causing a serious lack of motivation. My final 3 semesters I think I finally recovered from the mental breakdown and past events and I did well and got dean's list twice bringing my GPA up to a 3.2 at my new school and around a 3.25 cumulative.

The thing is my new school was a small one that only offered business, communications and international relations majors. I chose business and I got into a reputable masters program for business economics this fall, probably the best in my country with a good reputation in Europe. However it was immediately apparent to me that firstly, the classes which I found easy, I did not particularly enjoy. And the classes I did enjoy I was actually struggling to keep up with the material as they were more math intensive, which has never been my strength. In addition I realized that I didn't want to end up working in Finance, consulting or a large multinational organization and that I still wished I could do law school, and ultimately use law to help people. Finally I also realized that I wanted to go back to America since it has thus far been my favorite country to live in and since socially and culturally I feel much more at home there (although I do realize how huge and diverse the country is). This is when I basically had a long talk with my parents and close friends and decided to drop out of my masters program here in order to go after my original dream of law school. I dropped out of my masters after only a couple of weeks of study so there are no consequences to my records.

I now find myself in a tricky spot. I signed up for the December LSAT, but I am not sure if I have enough time to raise my score enough to get an LSAT score I'd be happy with, my diagnostic was a 147 and I definitely want at least a 165 minimum. I think I can get over a 165 or even a 170 if I'm given the time to study, I just don't know if 8 weeks is enough. I also haven't started writing any of my personal statements, nor asked any of my professors to write me a recommendation letter yet since I basically started the whole process just over a week ago... I'm not even sure which schools I'll apply to and I won't be sure until I have a good idea of what my LSAT score will be. Basically I'm worried that I don't have enough time to raise my LSAT score by December as well as complete the entire application process by March and was thinking that maybe I should postpone my applications to 2017. This would allow me to take more time to study for the LSAT as well as gain some valuable work experience that I could add to my resume before applying to law schools. It would also allow me to take more time in sending out my applications yet I'd be able to send them in early as soon as the application process commences. I realize that since I got a rather unremarkable GPA, my LSAT is even more important now. I now know that my dream is still to go to a law school and I won't let my previous mistakes or fumbles get in my way. Although I would of course prefer to apply to schools for next Fall, but if that means having to apply to worse schools or lowering my chances at the schools I'd be happy attending then I would be willing to wait another year before applying to law schools.

I'm welcome to any opinions/advice.

It is not too late to start, but you will serve yourself better by postponing for 1[+] years so that you can be prepared for the LSAT and distance yourself from your low UGPA (with work experience of course). While you are studying, you can ask for LORs, draft PSes, and research (reasonable) schools that you'd like to attend based on your practice scores as you go through your study methods. If you are able to score well in December, you will likely only be a bit behind in applications, but you may miss some important scholarship deadlines.