黑料不打烊

I am a senior and a few weeks into my first semester of the last year of high school.

I currently have a 3.35 10-12 gpa, but a 3.57 academic gpa; which UC's and Cal States will not bother peeking at. I am taking 4 AP and 2 honors this year to make up for the 0 AP's and honors I have taken freshman thru junior year, however I did take honors English junior year. I took core classes those years with the exception of advanced math classes and the dual enrollment program at my school, as I failed to realize their importance and why everyone was taking them. As an attempt to make up for my past ignorant decisions, I have decided to take as many challenging classes as I could this year. I live in around Orange County so I am looking for schools around this area too. I've been thinking of applying for CSUF or CSULB as I think it should be able to get into them quite okay. Do you think so? I really want to go to more prestigious schools such as: Cal Poly SLO, or UCI. However, I know getting into those schools will be extremely difficult for one with a transcript like mine. I also do not have many extracurriculars either. I am in varsity football, was part of the student section club for a while, and I have to babysit my little brother - at times along with my 3 little cousins as well. Will taking more AP classes this year and maintaining A鈥檚 raise my gpa soon enough for one semester? (which is not ending until a couple months) My gpa is this slow because I messed up my junior year heavily. For the first semester of precalc, I got a D+ after catching covid and a C in English 102 (which is part of my ECA / dual enrollment program). For the second semester of junior year, I came back with a 3.5. I am worried I have failed catching up with some people I know as they have all reached UCI, UCSD, and even UCB - there I am... the failure.

What schools can I realistically go to with that type of gpa? Should I also consider choosing to go to a safety school my first two years and then transfer to a UC after?