You will be fine. Although you may need to do a little bit of a mental restart, there are many excellent schools that will be available to you notwithstanding your freshman-year grades. You will be able to show a very positive trend, good LACs and, according to your expectations, some strong SAT/ACT scores. Rather than dwelling on a couple of bad grades, you should focus on the future and the possibilities that are open to you. Find a college search site or tool that you like. There are lots, but the one we started with was College Board’s Big Future site, which allows you to check your own interests, possible careers, etc. and search for safety, match and reach schools that may be a good match. At first, try to think broadly and challenge your own assumptions about yourself and your preferences. Don’t limit your search to just your “states of consideration,” for example. That way, things may come up that you haven’t even thought about yet. And in the end, there’s no harm in trying for UF, if that is still your preference. I’ve always felt it’s kind of the luck of the draw - if your application is well-presented and whoever reads your application sees the positive story, you never know what may happen. You should also be talking with your guidance counselor,who would be in the right position to address the bad grades and COVID issues in the GC reference. You yourself should try to put all that behind you and just move forward.
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