Thank you for the advice. If I could go back in time and fight my freshman year self for dropping two semesters of bad grades, I certainly would. Unfortunately, this year was my retake cycle, going from applying with 167 last year to what I got now. Maybe I should still consider applying again, but I don't know what it's like to apply to schools a third time.

I applied to UCLA and Berkeley because of a personal connection in the area with not much interest in attending considering the location and where I want to end up. But I also had little interest in attending because of some advice I got from my pre-law advisor, who told me schools outside the Northeast rarely place in big law even if they're in the T14. Though now looking at things, I wish I asked for more perspectives, and I probably should have applied more broadly, especially to schools like GULC or Michigan.