Is it possible to recover from a semester of B's?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>Hey guys, I just created an account.
I'm a freshman, and I just had my first semester for my freshman year. And to be honest, not the best.
Oddly, I'm a good student. My past GPA's were 4.0 average. All A's, in all junior high, however, that doesn't really count for colleges (I'm amusing). Just to prove my point; I was valedictorian for my 8th grade year (which isn't much) and won many awards, again in my 8th grade year. I've lived in 4 different countries around the world (Lybia during the rebellion, Mozambique, South Africa, Nicaragua, United States), and have been in the Peace corp for about 2 weeks. (the legal amount of time I could of been in it as a minor). </p>

<p>However, when I got into my freshmen year, I just slipped down hill. My first quarter was 2 A-'s, the rest where B's to B+'s. Then my next quarter was just all B's, no A's, and one C (my first C I have ever gotten, and it was in geometry. (I struggle with the proofs)). The semester grade was all B's, no A's, but luckily, no C's. </p>

<p>I had two honors classes (English and Geometry), bio and history wasn't an option as there was no honors for those clases.
However, I was put into a Senior AP Sociology class due to my performance before. I managed an 88 both quarters. (Studied my butt off for that... )</p>

<p>Anyway, I'm on my third quarter, I'm bringing them up, slowly, but my question is that would colleges view the first semester and judge the grades? Do they look at individual grades or more of an overall GPA wise view? Because if I was to bring my grades for the final semester to all A's, I could get my grades prior to now into the low-mid 90's.
Do they view the work I put into those classes (such as the AP Sociology as a freshman) even though I got an 88?</p>

<p>Anyway. I really hope on going to an ivy league, something like Stanford or University of PA (As those two colleges I have legacy with both. It's just that those first two scared me, and now I feel as if some college (like Harvard or something) will view and say;
"Oh, it seems that Alaskafish got a C in Geometry for his second quarter, but it seems like [other person] got an A, let's enroll [other person] instead."</p>

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<p>Stanford isn’t in the Ivy League and there’s no such thing as AP Sociology. Middle-school grades and accomplishments generally don’t matter for college admissions.</p>

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<p>Both, sort of. They look at your whole transcript and your individual grades, but if your school calculates class rank your overall GPA will matter too. Some schools have an explicitly-stated GPA cutoff for scholarships. </p>

<p>Obviously, the ideal situation is to have straight As all the way through high school, and a lot of your competition will have done this. If you do really well for the rest of high school, some colleges will take the upward trend into consideration. Others don’t consider freshman-year grades at all. </p>

<p>Are you sure you’ll be able to have an upward trend, though? Your classes are just going to get harder later.</p>

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<p>A lot of times when people get rejected from top schools it’s not for any specific reason…it’s just that the other applicants were better. They’re not going to reject you specifically because of single C, but it’s still not a good thing to have.</p>

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<p>Most schools don’t have your quarter grades on your transcript, only your semester grades. So, the “C” shouldn’t even show up.</p>