Scotty,
1. I'd leave any GPA comments/excuses for an addendum and personally I think these should only be included if the reason is sickness or the death of a family member or something else major. I wouldn't include any comments on this in the personal statement, be confident about your 3.6
I majored in Psych which I don't think won me any points, but it wasn't a big detractor either. Law schools will get the GPA average of your school and your major, so if you have a 3.9 but the average is 3.8 that will obviously not impress as much as a 3.6 where average was a 3.0. Prestige of school certainly matters, and again, I don't think mine gave me a boost or hurt me. I did an internship at a small firm in college, did 3 years of mock trial and a year of moot court, but again, the impact of this stuff is minimal.
I got a lot of fee waivers so I applied to like ten of the top `15. Got into two. got waitlisted at two and didn't pursue them further. Rest were rejections.
I ended up going for BC with a pretty sizable scholarship and it has worked out for me thus far. Ended up at the firm I liked best in the city I want to be in long term, saving $100k over some higher ranked schools.
3. Cornell....someplace warm...does not compute.
Some searches on law school numbers for people with LSAT of 164-166 and GPA of 3.5-3.7...
Berkeley 21 rejected 0 accepted.
Cornell
4 accepted, 9 rejected, 1 waitlisted
UC-Hastings 16 accepted, 1 rejected
BC 15 accepted, 9 rejected, 7 waitlisted.
(above excluded URM)