What colleges don’t look at your Freshman Year? I have heard CMU and Michigan don’t look at them.
California UC’s/Cal States and Stanford. It is not that these colleges do not look at your Freshman year grades but for the UC’s and Cal states, Freshman grades are not used to calculate your UC/CSU GPA.
We were told that colleges generally don’t care so much about freshman grades. They realize that for many kids, transitioning to a new school or into a more rigorous environment involves an adjustment. In addition, they realize that the students they are accepting senior year are closer to what they’ll get than the student 3-4 years ago. What that suggests is that if you’re worried about your freshman year grades and can bring them up, you’ve got the right story.
If a school is considering your class rank (and if your high school reports it), poor freshman year grades could impact that.