F1 expires 3/25, waiting for law schools: surrender F1?

Thanks to anyone who reads this, I know it's long but any help is appreciate:

My situation: Canadian citizen living/studying in the US. I came to the US with my family in 2001 on an E2 (investor) visa and completed high school and a BA in California. My parents own a home and businesses here and this is where my life is. My parents are still on E2 but when I turned 21 I had to change to F1 visa. I graduated with my BA in May 2009 and I have applied to law schools for starting enrollment in Fall of 2010. For my "year" between undergrad and law school, I took a prep class have my I-20 sponsored. The course ended Jan 23 so +60 days = March 25 for when I must leave the country.

I will be hearing back from law schools over the next few weeks (most schools will notify me buy April 150 but not before my March 25 date when I need to leave the country. I have gotten accepted at my safety school which I have no intention of attending, but, I'm wondering if I should initiate the process of having them sponsor my I-20 so I can buy time.

It seems like my options are
a) Find some other school to enroll in for a few months to buy time (example: a commnity college for a few classes)
b) Surrender my student visa, come back into the US as a Canadian tourist and then re-apply for another student visa with whatever law school I get into.

I had a few specific questions. If you could offer any insight, it would help me greatly


1) If I do not leave the US by March 25, is this a huge problem? My I-94 says valid for duration of status, I'm assuming I go out of status on March 25
2) Should I enroll at my safety school and have them start the process to sponsor my I-20 even though I am doing that just to buy time while I wait back from my other schools over the course of April?
3) Should I leave the US before March 25, come in again as a tourist and wait it out, then re-applying for another F1 visa sponsored by my law school. Would it be okay to do this? Would the USCIS deny my tourist visa or my new F1 visa for any foreseeable reason?
4) I currently have a part-time internship. If I surrender my student visa and return to the US as a tourist, can I keep working here? My internship ends in May 2010.


The thing that complicates everything, if I don't get into the schools of my choice:
I will likely be re-taking my Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) in June 2010, which means, I will be waiting it out for another year before going to law school. For this scenario, I will most likely just take community college classes for another year.

Any insight on any of this would be greatly appreciated.