Messed up freshman and sophomore year

<p>So first couple of years of high school i was a slacker and lacked motivation, that's probably my main excuse. Ended up with a 2.7 cumulative gpa over those 2 years which is pretty depressing for me. But this year (junior year) i've been working really hard and have a 3.9 for this semester. Also have been active around school getting a lot of community hours and started a club and joined many more. If hopefully i get a good SAT score and continue with this high GPA, what are my chances of getting into top unis like UCB or something like Stanford or Harvard?</p>

<p>While it is true that freshman and sophomore grades don’t matter as much as junior year, your 2.7 for those two years is a major hit to your college application. If there’s anything good to take away from this, you’ve shown improvement, something that colleges do like. If you’ve been taking a lot of difficult classes, that’s another positive. And maybe you’ll get 2300 on your SAT and/or 35 on your ACT. However, the team that’s down 35-0 at halftime loses the game 98% of the time. My point is, the odds are against you. Don’t count out any of the good schools yet, but just know that a sub 3 GPA any year looks really bad, at least for top universities.</p>

<p>Make sure that in your essays on applications to talk about how you changed. Colleges do look at the circumstances that you went through, so no matter what the prompt/topic is, somehow talk about what changed and how you are better now. Though the odds are against you, there is a possibility that they’ll like how your outlook on education changed.</p>