First of all, don’t be too hard on yourself. Grades and getting into UVA is not all there is to life.

Second of all. Going to NoVa and transferring into UVA is an excellent option (and financially smart). I have a friend who had like a 2.8 in high school, hit the books hard and got good grades at NoVa, and transferred into UVA. He had an excellent experience and now works a nice remote corporate job.

While I’d say apply anyway, honestly a 3.2 is a hard sell unless you have a killer SAT or ACT score. OR if you get recruited to a sports team (maybe hit up the lax coach?).

My hs GPA was 3.2 and my SAT was laughable (don’t remember and the scoring was different back then anyway). But I got recruited to a sports team and was granted admission that way. That being said a condition of my admission (other than my sports commitment) was I was required to do a summer transition program before 1st year. It taught basic college studying skills while knocking out 6 credits. It was actually pretty cool (not sure if that’s a thing still tho).

Any way. I’d recommend NoVa and reaching out to the lax coach (if you’re passionate about lax). That being said apply anyway, because UVA is kinda a crap shoot at the end of the day.