do colleges look at middle school grades?
Short answer - it depends.
If it’s on your transcript, then colleges will see them. That said, even if a HS class taken in MS, few colleges are going to care what your grades were in the 8th grade. Most students are light years more emotionally and academically mature as 17 year olds than they were 4 years earlier.
If you took high school courses in middle school, then yes, they look at those courses; those courses (such as Algebra 1 and Geometry) also often factor into HS GPA. Otherwise, no, they don’t.