So I go to a college prep (One of the best in the country; not saying boastfully), and so far this is what my grades and tests have looked like
Freshman Year
FSA (Florida Standardized Assessment; most likely irrelevant) - 4 (English), 3 (Math)
AP World - 4
Classes
English I Hon C
Chem I Hon C
AP World B
Alg 2 - C
Spanish 2 - B
Gym - A
Soccer - A
Great Books (Prep for AP Lang/Lit) - B
So far into Sophomore Year
Classes
Spanish 3 Hon - A
English 2 - C
Pre-Calculus/Trig Hon - B
Weight Training - A
Physics I Hon - F (Most difficult class in my opinion)
AP Psych - B
AP European History - C
AP Human Geography - D
Everyone in my grade’s told me physics and HuG are the easiest classes, but the majority of the C’s I made are petty mistakes and I think I can bring 'em up the next quarter or so. But are my grades up until now pretty much garbage, or do I have a chance of getting into a college like UF with a Bright Futures scholarship?
Given your grades to this point, I am very surprised that they let you take AP classes as a high school sophomore. These are essentially college classes that you are taking 3 years early.
I don’t think that the high school that you are attending is doing you a favor, or that it is “one of the best” for you.
The school itself forces us to take AP Euro, but AP Psych is a recommended class for the sophomores here. As for HuG, the range differs; I found the class to be interesting, but I personally dislike the teacher,
From the way you put it, I’m assuming there’s no chance of a full ride at all?
“From the way you put it, I’m assuming there’s no chance of a full ride at all?”
Please remember that I am a stranger on the Internet, and just giving my opinion based on my experience and your post. Thus take my post as only one opinion.
At this point I am not thinking about university. I am thinking that you are at the wrong high school.
I wouldn’t go as far to call your grades total “garbage”, but they are poor right now. If this continues, your UW GPA will be probably nowhere near a 3.0, and your weighted (on a 5.0 scale) will likely be well below a 3.5. You have only gotten a single A in all of your core classes freshman and sophomore year, assuming you keep the A you have in Spanish 3. If you temper your expectations, you could get into a mid-tier university, but at this rate, you can basically forget about selective schools like UF (middle 50% last year had 4.3-4.6 UF GPAs) or FSU unless your extracurricular activities are nothing short of phenomenal. If I were you, my most immediate priority would be passing AP Human and Physics because failing a class essentially bars you from admission altogether from certain schools.
Even though you say the Cs are due to petty mistakes, if you are getting Cs in standard English 2, then I think it would be best for you to lower the course rigor, as your grades seem to be getting worse as you add more rigorous courses. Perhaps you can take Honors History next year; you seem to be struggling in your social studies courses right now. Also, continue on your foreign language path; I think it’s wonderful that you’ve already gone to three years, and you seem to succeed at Spanish.
Also, being a FL resident myself, I am pretty sure Bright Futures requires a minimum weighted GPA of 3.5 for their FAS award. If I recall correctly, they also use a weighting system that adds .5 quality points to all advanced courses (even AP/AICE/DE/IB, which would normally get 1 extra), meaning your weighted GPA for Bright Futures may be even lower than the one your school reports, assuming your school uses a 5.0 scale. Although, as someone else said previously, I would worry more about surviving high school than going to university in a situation like this.
The fact that it’s English 2 Honors really doesn’t help matters; a C strongly suggests that you are ill-prepared for AP English Language next year, which consists of three different types of college-level essays, analytical multiple-choice passages, and usually a lot of homework, at least in my case when I took it last year. I would suggest you take English Honors 3, as AP Lang is no joke. Perhaps you could take DE Comp I + II senior year, which gives you what you would have gotten if you passed AP Lang with a 4, if you feel you can handle it, but some DE programs have a minimum UW GPA required for acceptance (in my district, a 3.0 UW is required, but it could be different elsewhere).
Also, what is your school’s weighting system? Does it do 5.0 for Honors as well as AP/DE/AICE/IB? If it does, you would have to convert it to a scale that only goes up to 4.5 for ANY type of class taken to find out your Bright Futures GPA, so for Bright Futures, your B in AP World last year (which should be a 4.0 on a 5.0 scale) would be a 3.5 instead, for example.