How important is freshman year in high school to more selective universities?

Hi! I have many schools on my list, including safe schools, but of course my top picks are schools like Northwestern, UMich, UCLA, etc. However, I performed poorly academically my freshman year, due to various reasons. I’ve never gotten a C or D, or failed a class, but for my dream schools, my freshman year was not great… My grades both semesters were as follows:

Semester 1:

Honors Biology- B
Honors English 1- B
Math 2- B
Spanish 1- B
Culinary 1- A (required course for graduation)
History- A
Gym- A

not great, at all. almost all Bs in core classes. I managed to improve slightly second semester:

Semester 2:

Honors Biology- A
Honors English 1- B
Math 2- A
Spanish 1- B
Ceramics 1- B (i still don’t know how this happened // required course)
History- A
Gym- A

I obviously did significantly better in my core classes, ceramics just hurt me, but still not great at all. I ended freshman year with a 3.52 Unweighted GPA and a 3.79 Weighted GPA.

However, I really stepped it up sophomore year with harder classes, and better showed my potential. For example:

Semester 1:

Honors Chemistry- A
Honors English 2- A
Math 3 Honors- B (i got a B, but bumped to a harder level, honors)
AP US History- A
Spanish 2- A
Business Law- A
Gym- A

Semester 2 (same thing):

Honors Chemistry- A
Honors English 2- A
Math 3 Honors- B
AP US History- A
Spanish 2- A
Consumer Ed- A
Gym- A

I obviously did way better. I did get a B in math both semesters, but I bumped to a harder level, and it was my only B. I improved in spanish second year, improved in science, English, and I got an A both semesters in my first AP class. I also took the AP US Exam, and got a 4. So, vast improvement.

My unweighted GPA is now 3.68, and my weighted has skyrocketed to 4.10.

This year, I’m keeping up the challenging workload, my schedule is as follows (all AP & Honors):

Honors Physics
Honors Precalculus
Honors Spanish 3
AP Lang
AP Chemistry
AP US Gov (AP Psych next semester)

After this semester, considering my current grades, my GPA is set to go up to about a 4.2 weighted and over a 3.7 unweighted. I know I’ve shown my true potential with higher grades in harder classes, but how much will my mediocre performance freshman year impact my admission chances at selective schools? PS I’m also in NHS, I tutor for Spanish, Chemistry, and Math, I’m in our school Research Club partenered with a local university on a research project regarding the removal of impurities from water using organic matter, and I’m also a student leader for our freshman orientation school program, and in a peer leader program. So, I have more to my application than just my grades. However, I’m just wondering if my freshman year will be a killer, or if my improvement will be looked at as a plus, or what will likely happen… Thank you!

I will only address the California UC’s. UC’s will only use 10-11th grades in their GPA calculation. They will look at your Freshman year grades to make sure you have passed the UC a-g course requirements and Senior grades will be considered also for the completion of the a-g course requirements along with maintaining your provisional admission.

UC GPA calculator: https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

In-state applicants get extra honors points (weighting) for UC approved AP, IB or DE courses taken 10-11th grades.
OOS state applicants get the extra honors points only for AP/IB courses.

The capped weighted UC GPA is the GPA most referenced by all the campuses in their statistical data. UCB/UCLA do post their fully weighted GPA averages for their Freshman class on their websites.

Freshman will not be a killer for a UC. If you are OOS, then the cost of attendance may be the killer at $65K/year with little to no financial aid so make sure UCLA is affordable before applying.