Can anyone recommend to me fairly high-ranking colleges that disregard Freshman year?
I know UC’s do… that’s about it.
Basically, I did bad on my Freshman year (3.5 both years) but i’ve raised it a lot since then.
CA schools are pretty much the only ones that exclude freshman grades form the calculation of GPA, but why are you worrying about this? 3.5 freshman year isn’t a problem anywhere but the most highly selective schools (and even then, it depends on what else you’ve got to offer). Most schools cut people a bit a slack in freshman year knowing that they are just getting into the hang of high school.
If you don’t get into a university, it won’t be because of the 3.5 freshman year. The only way I can think of that having any big impact on your applications is if it somehow put you outside of the top 10% at your high school. In that case, it could affect admissions to highly competitive universities and programs, including some honors programs. Otherwise it shouldn’t be a big factor.