you need to look at the LSN data as really being 3 dimensional. look at the graphs for schools and you'll usually notice a clear line of demarcation where acceptances turn into waitlists and rejections. some schools are much more blatant about this, while some are very fuzzy. this can give you a clue as to the admissions tendencies of those schools.
as for the 3 dimensionality, imagine a hump that exists right around that line between acceptance and rejection. that hump is the likelihood of that student actually attending, so a student who is right at that line or barely above it will probably go to that school or some other school of similar quality because he's reached his ceiling. students to the left would be happy to attend but won't be given the chance in all likelihood. all those people who are to the right of the line are increasingly more likely to get into a better school, so for them the school you're looking at becomes more of a safety. if you look at it this way, you begin to see that a gpa of 3.44 is not at all bad outside of the top 3-4 schools, providing you have what these schools really want, a high lsat score.
HTH.
oh, and alot of people take the december lsat and apply with that. a little earlier wouldn't hurt, but it's the people in february who are screwed. only danger of the december lsat is that you have no margin for error.
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