No one here can tell you your odds…we can’t see the majority of your application…we don’t know how your profile and app compares to your HS peers, or what UVA’s pool of applicants will look like. These are critical pieces of information. Your test scores will not ‘make up’ for your GPA. It is an advantage to not be from NOVA. Additionally, your course rigor, essays, ECs, and LoRs will be important factors in UVA’s decision.
Your HS counselor is the best person to categorize UVA and the rest of the list…have you spoken with them? What do they say? Do you have Naviance/Scoir that show scattergrams of past admission results from your HS?
Yes, I talked to my Counselor and they didn’t have a scatterplot to show me but they said that they can’t predict my chances and that UVA takes kids with high gpas one year and lower gpas the next.
Don’t get anxious over this. Although GPAs matter, you do have the perfect 36 ACT superscore, which raises UVA’s testing profile. Being a public institution, they are concerned about protecting an overall rank (being top-25 one year vs. being top-30 the next) & the public universities rank.
It’s not GAME OVER if you end up deferred in the ED or EA round. As stated by UVA admissions: “In many cases we want to see how deferred students are doing in the classroom during their senior year.”
If you end up with a 3.5 GPA this semester, it would be consistent but not an improvement. The higher, the better for the February mid-year report.
By getting deferred & then admitted in the spring (which IMO you will), you’d be able to compare multiple financial aid offers - what the overall four-year cost of each option will be.
OP, you have a shot but as you know, and as others have said, your grades are low for UVA and in most cases high test scores don’t make up for low grades. No one here can tell you whether you’ll be admitted and at this point there’s nothing more you can do to increase your chances except do your best on the essays and the rest of the application. Instead of perseverating on your odds of getting in, which are unknowable, do what others have suggested. Find some additional schools to get excited about! Really genuinely consider other schools with an open mind and without comparing them to UVA, which as @tsbna44 said, is not perfect and likely to have lots of downsides. If you can adjust your mindset to the idea that there are multiple schools that could be a really great fit for you, and then apply to some of them, then you’ll have a much better year. When decisions come out, if you get into UVA, great! But, if not, you’ll have set yourself up for success by having applied to other schools that you like and know will be a good fit.