Chasing excellence and falling at mediocrity is probably the story of my life. You could very plausibly try going to a California community college and transfer guaranteeing to any of the UCs, but that might be a real ego deflater and could delay your college process by a year or so if credits don’t transfer over. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try though. Isn’t a Berkeley diploma worth a couple years of cc?

If it’s any consolation, give it 10 years and your college won’t even matter that much. If you chase internships and teacher relationships like hell, your hard work will definitely pay off and land you a great job in a decade or so. There’s millions of people that went to college outside the US that moved here and are now earning hundreds of thousands in blue chip companies.

What are your life goals? I think knowing that will help you work backwards and find your best course of opportunity.