My good friend went through a vaguely similar sort of dilemma ... well, vaguely. He had really wanted to go to Harvard, and wound up at the University of Michigan (not exactly crappy). He thought seriously about applying for transfer admission, and sometimes the rules are different for transfer students and your chances are better. He ultimately decided he was happy at Michigan and went to med school elsewhere etc, and more or less has lived happily ever after.
But you should ask yourself... what will be different when you apply as a transfer student? Will your "crappy" temporary university's acclaim be any better than your high school's?
See, say you have a 3.9 or 4.0 or whatever GPA at your HS, and a 1400 or 1500 or whatever you got on the SAT, your personality and interests, and whatever else you do with your time speaking for you. I don't know how SAT scores work with transfer apps, but even if you took it again, you're probably not going to be that much higher. If you work hard, how much room do you really have to improve your GPA vs. your HS GPA? Will you have any time for extra-curriculars or leadership that will appeal to NYU? Your personality presumably won't change much.
So what is it that realistically you can improve about your value equation in the upcoming year? That's where I would start in thinking about this. If you can present a better value equation to NYU in a year, go for it. But otherwise, don't set yourself up for a second rejection plus a year of anger and bitterness....
