Going into junior year with a current GPA of 3.22 UW 3.44 W. Freshman year I just wasn’t very on top of things and there isn’t much explaining that I can do for that, however during the second semester of the year my father went into the hospital and then passed away shortly after, my mother passed away when I was in 6th grade. Regarding ECs, I just finished a paid internship for a medical school researching traumatic brain injury. I also have a lot of the easy ECs like debate, JSA, etc. With my connections and the experience that I got from the internship that I just finished I know that I’m going to get into an internship next year during the summer that is even more prestigious. This coming year I am taking all AP classes and know that I will be doing well in them, I’m just worried that my first two years of high school will weigh me down. Will colleges look past the first two years knowing my circumstances?
Unfortunately, there’s no way you can just ignore your grades from freshman and sophomore year. Even though UCs don’t look at freshman grades, there’s just no way to “look past” your grades during the first half of high school. What you can do is improve your grades this year and show colleges that upward trend in GPA. Also, make sure to do well on your standardized tests. However, I think colleges will “grade” you a bit easier due to your unfortunate circumstances (I am sorry for your losses by the way), so just keep on pushing and I am sure you will be accepted into great schools.
Clarification: UC’s do look at Freshman grades to make sure you have completed the required a-g courses, however these grades are not used in the UC GPA calculation (only 10-11th grades).
My advice is the same as @rishfire123: Work on improving you grades, get some test prep and do address the issues you mentioned that affected your Freshman and Sophomore year.
Remember that there are different paths to get where you ultimately want to end up so be open to possibly starting at a less prestigious college and transferring or consider community college where you can excel and transfer into your top college.