Screwed up Freshman Year. Anything I can do?

I’m about to be a Junior this coming year. My first semester of high school I did really well with six A’s and two B’s. I had some personal issues my second semester, and my grades tanked BIG time. Two D’s, three C’s, two B’s and one A. This past year, I got six A’s and two B’s both semesters.

I know I screwed up that semester, and unfortunately my school doesn’t allow you to retake a class in summer school for grade replacement. Can you think of anything I can do to improve my GPA? If I ignored that semester, I’d have about a 3.7/3.8, but that semester is killing me.

I’m not so much worried about getting into colleges. I don’t plan to apply to any Ivy league schools or T20’s. My reach school will likely be Georgia Tech (although it’s also my dream school), and I’m fully aware that it’s a reach for sure. I definitely have an upward trend in grades that I think will help in the long run, at least at most of the other schools I’m interested in.

The biggest problem is that some of the more realistic schools that I am applying to hand out great Merit aid, but my GPA is coming up very slowly, and it’s gonna be a struggle to get it where it needs to be when I apply for colleges in a year. It will definitely happen after senior year, but some schools only consider through junior year. I’m taking four AP classes and three Concurrent Enrollment classes next year, so my unweighted GPA should be decent, but most schools don’t seem to count that for scholarships.

I got perfect score on the PSAT 10, and I took the SAT in April as well (1540). If I do that well on the PSAT 11, I could have a real shot at a National Merit Semi-finalist, but can I possibly make finalist with a sub 3.5 GPA?

I guess I’m curious what others have done in this situation, or if I’ve just screwed myself. If I took a couple of academic classes at the local community college over the summer next year, (since I’m already taking CE classes there this year) do most schools let you count them toward your GPA? Obviously I’d need to check with my own school, but it’s summer now. Just wondering if anyone’s been able to do that, or had any other ideas.

Thanks.

The more classes you take (at your own school) and get A’s in, the higher your gpa will go. From here all you can do is keep getting A’s. If you have 7 semesters of all A’s, the one bad semester will fade but it will never go away.