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First off, let me preface that I'm already scheduled to take the Feb LSAT.

Here's my story. I'm a 30 yr old non-traditional student with a uGPA of 3.94. I have a Masters and currently have been working for the Federal Gov. for the past 7 years. I took the Sep '16 LSAT and did horrendous with a 158, my PTs were upper 160's lower 170's. For reasons I won't go into I'm trying to go to UGA, so I don't need a 180 or anything.

I already have apps submitted to UGA and a few other schools for negotiation power, but I told all of them to hold off on any decisions until my Feb score comes back out of fear of getting dinged. Not sure if I made the right call since I know of a few others with worse or similar stats that have already been accepted. It would be nice to know if I was in and the Feb score would just be for scholly leverage, but to be dinged automatically means sitting out a cycle.

Should I just tell UGA to go ahead and make the decision or stick with my original course of action. Thoughts?

I would wait. Even though your application will be decided on late, I think a school would not hesitate to take you if your LSAT is above their median with the GPA you have.

However, scholarship money may be close to gone by then, which could be the case whether you tell them to decide now or not. I would keep the possibility open of waiting another cycle.

Yeah, that's the conundrum. The scholarship money is key, without a healthy scholarship I can't justify paying sticker or nearly sticker when I know I can do better on the LSAT. On a positive note, I did hear back that I received a promotion today at another Fed agency with a decent salary bump, so it might be worth waiting the cycle out and saving some additional funds. That means I'll be 32 by the time I start which is a bit of a downer.

Thanks for the advice!

Depends on your confidence of your performance on your future LSAT. If you truly think you can do better with an upward score of 165+ let them hold it. If you're not that confident, let the go ahead.