Hey Forum
Im presently enrolled as a sophomore in college(outside the US) and my first semester wasn’t terrific (GPA dropped below than 2). I had the equivalent of straight A’s in highschool (again, outside the US) and a hefty amount of extra curriculars and work experience, but my first semester seems to be the only blemish in my record.
I plan to retake some of my freshman courses but was wondering how improved courses look on a US grad school application. I also have the option of redoing my freshman year with a clean slate over here so it looks like i did those courses for the first time (thus saving me from explaining why i didnt get a good grade the first time).
So, keeping other factors perfectly constant, what would be a better choice: starting over or retaking some courses?
Thanks 
What country, or at least continent? Trying to get a sense of what the system is as to how the US would perceive it.
I’m not sure you have the option to completely redo college as if you didn’t take any classes the first time. If you are planning on transferring, most graduate schools require transcripts from all schools attended to avoid exactly this kind of thing. If your school does grade replacement, a lot of schools still display the old grades on your transcript because graduate schools are interested in this kind of thing.
If you are truly in a system where you can start over with zero trace of your original try at college, that would of course be better - it’s definitely better to have performed well all along than it is to perform poorly and get better. But that would be a highly unusual situation, and I would triple check that this option is what you think it is before you redo an entire year.
If this is Europe, at least, you usually don’t transfer. If you change degrees/universities, you basically start over from scratch as a first year. But US grad schools still might require those original transcripts as well from the program that got tossed.