Do colleges overlook bad freshman year?

Applying to College
1

<p>Hi, I am kind of confused about importance of freshman gpa because I recently meet my friend who is matriculating columbia and his freshman gpa was extremely low. He told me that he literally just played during his freshman year and did not took his work seriously. He barely passed some of his class by copying his friends work. This is his gpa for for years:
Freshman: 2.86
Sophomore: 3.85
Junior: 3.98
Senior: 4.0 (only for first semester)</p>

<p>I know that he had huge upward trend, but as you see his freshman gpa is really low compared to his other years. Do you think that college just thought that he is a fast learner or they just overlooked the freshman gpa ? </p>

2

<p>You might want to aim for Stanford if you’re in that situation yourself…</p>

3

<p>@Catria‌ that is not me ligit, my stat is in my other post. I was talking about my friend for real. </p>

4

<p>There are many factors that play into this. A hook (URM, Legacy, etc.) could mean the difference between admittance and rejection. His first three years of high school averages out to a 3.56 gpa. Although VERY unlikely, it is possible to be admitted, even to an ivy.</p>

<p>Columbia is known to be one of the <em>more</em> holistic of the top-tier schools. Perhaps something stood out to the adcoms that made them crave your friend. </p>

5

<p>From what I’ve heard, a poor freshman year is a bit less harmful on a college app than a poor soph or junior year because students are transitioning, might not know the importance of grades, could be focused too much on social life, etc. </p>