Recovering from freshman year-- any hope of a good school?

Applying to College
1

<p>Hey everyone, I'm currently a junior in high school, and I admit, I screwed up badly first year of high school; I went from an ok middle school to a nationally top ranked high school (LAMP, mont. AL) and didn't put in the work required to make it there, so I had to transfer the next year to a fairly well known and respected Private school. I am really concerned about how colleges are going to see me with my mediocre GPA because I botched the first year.</p>

<p>In my freshman year, I ended up with a 1.6 GPA (yeah, pretty terrible)</p>

<p>Latin 2
English 1
Biology 1
Geometry 2
History 2
No APs/Honors</p>

<p>The next year, I started recovering back from it, but since I was on academic probation in the private school I couldn't take any honors, getting all B's across the board, while at the same time picking up another language
Algebra II 3
French I 3
Chemistry 3
History 3
Latin II 3
English 3</p>

<p>And in my current year so far, I have 2 AP classes, ending up with a 3.5 unweighted average and a 3.8 weighted average
AP English-- 3 (+1)
AP Chemistry 3 (+1)
Algebra III w/trig -- 4
History-- 3
Latin III-- 4
French II-- 4</p>

<p>I'm looking to major in chemical engineering, and I really want to go to a good school that has some specialties in it, or is well known. An example would be University of Delaware, which is one school that I'm particularly interested in.</p>

<p>My guidance counselor hasn't really told me much about my chances with colleges yet, as I haven't taken the SAT or anything, but she did tell me that based on last year, I could be a contender for a National Merit Scholarship in the PSAT.</p>

<p>And a few last questions: would the colleges be able to see that I have progressed in my learning and grades? Would it help me at all? What are my chances to getting into a well known school?</p>

<p>Thanks in advance!</p>

2

<p>Most schools do give credit for an upward trend - and some don’t look at or give much weight to freshman grades precisely because they know students are adjusting that year to the greater demands of high school. Guys especially are cut a bit of slack for slower maturation. Don’t anguish about this - you can’t change it and it won’t impact your ultimate goal of getting into a reputable school for chem E. Just make sure you study for your SATs/ACTs and get good letters of rec from teachers who know you well enough to vouch for the fact that the 9th grade transcript isn’t the ‘real you.’</p>

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<p>You have all kinds of chances to get into a known school. Alabama is known and a strong school which is ABET certified in Chem E. [Accredited</a> Program Search](<a href=“http://main.abet.org/aps/Accreditedprogramsearch.aspx]Accredited”>http://main.abet.org/aps/Accreditedprogramsearch.aspx) A key component of school selection is cost. Bama would (probably) be less costly than any OOS public U.</p>

<p>As far as the PSAT, your score there is independent of your grades. However, if you do make NMSF your grades are considered in whether you move on to NMF.</p>

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<p>Thanks for your help, I’m just getting very nervous with a lot of the other posters mad that they got a 3.8 gpa instead of a 4.0 (which would be incredible for me if I got that GPA unweighted)</p>