Also, if I continued an upward trend of As and Bs for junior and senior year of high school with plenty of advanced classes and an outstanding GPA / test scores, would that disregard those awful grades I made from freshman and sophomore year?
There are plenty of nice public schools in Florida that accept you. UF and FSU are very hard to get into, and you might have to do something spectacular to overcome 8 C’s because your gpa will not be able to totally recover. Don’t worry. You will find the right school. There is also the option to go to a community college and transfer after 2 years. UF, FSU and UCF all have community colleges that are right near the schools, share housing, allow students to participate in activities at both the cc and the university.
As far as the C’s, what’s done is done, no sense worrying/stressing about them. Study hard and earn the highest grades you can in your junior and senior years - if you show them significantly improved grades in your last two years, I believe they’ll most likely take that into consideration.
Fall 2016 Acceptance Rate:
U. of Florida - 46%
Florida St. - 58%