I was recently denied admission to the University of Florida and was pretty disappointed. I want to major in biology and go into the health field (like most of the students at UF lol), so my plan was always to go to Santa Fe and transfer to UF, if I was denied. I appealed my admissions decision, but my appeal was not approved.
Now I cannot decide if I should just accept my denial from UF, move on, and attend FSU (I know many people who go there who originally wanted to go to UF but didn’t get in and now love FSU, and say that being rejected from UF was the best thing that ever happened to them), or go to Santa Fe (I only have two semesters left of my aa, so I could do one over summer and one over fall - so I could hopefully transfer successfully for spring) and transfer. My parents keep telling me that if I attend Santa Fe, I’m going to miss out on the “freshman college experience”, but I know that I could participate in UF clubs, go to football games, and actually be a student (hopefully) for spring.
I know that FSU is a good school, but they are most widely known for their business, music, musical theater, and law programs; I don’t know if it would be a bad choice to go there for a program that they aren’t known for. I do know someone who goes there now for biology, but idk.
I kind of want to rush, and I know that technically I could do that in the spring at UF, but I just don’t know.
I feel like the two rejections from UF should be a sign, but I also want to go to the school with the best program for me. Everyone says that whenever something you want doesn’t work out, you usually get something better. I don’t want to miss out on the ‘something better’ because I was so dead set on UF.
I know that I will probably have more opportunities to get involved at FSU (since I was actually admitted), but I feel like grad schools prefer students from the ‘better’ schools over the ones who have more involvement.
FSU roommate requests are due tomorrow, and an old friend randomly texted me to ask if I was going to FSU, and if she could put me down if I am. Is that a sign? lol
So here are my questions - if anyone attended santa fe and transferred to UF, do you feel like you missed out on the ‘freshman college experience’, or no? how is the Honors program/your overall expereince? if anyone was rejected from their dream school and ended up attending a different one, are you now happy that you moved on, or do you still feel some disappointment? and should I take the multiple rejections as a sign that it’s not meant to be, or just as roadblocks on my way to achieving my dreams? is spring rush a bad idea? and could attending a school with a lower ranking hurt my chances at grad school later? lol. please help! Thank you for reading 
I can’t comment on the social aspect of this but I wanted to mention something that I think is sometimes overlooked in the transfer discussion in Florida - even with an AA, you are not guaranteed admission to UF. You’re guaranteed admission to a state university, but not necessarily the university you might want. I just wanted to give you that perspective, because if you’re only two semesters away from being able to get your AA, and UF just rejected you, unless your performance in the past year and the upcoming two semesters is incredibly above and beyond what you were doing in the past, I wouldn’t necessarily count on getting accepted to UF as a transfer.