Hi guys I am new 
I just wanted to know if there any similar students regardless I just need advice. I wasn’t the best student in HS, I got by. Sad thing is I attended one of the elite high schools in NY and I feel as I had disgraced them. Anyways I went to a CUNY after graduation and sadly I was not ready for college and it hit me like a bag of bricks. I almost got kicked out, so I transferred out after 3 semesters before I got academically dismissed. It was a learning experience for me. So I started school at BMCC and changed as a person. I told myself that I would be a more serious student and dedicate myself to my studies. I earned a 3.7 GPA my first semester taking English 102(A), Calc 1(A), Speech(A), Macroeconomics(B-), I was never that good at the social sciences haha. Anyways I declared my self as a civil engineering major which I never expected becuase I was scared of the STEM field at one point. I also joined the Honors class program as well as invitation to Phi theta Kappa. I am getting ready to transfer out after the Spring of 2016 because I want my financial aid to go towards there rather than run out here and I decided not to repeat what happened in high school. I want to attend a tier one university. I would love to know what I can do improve my chances, meet any students who went through something similar, any positive advice. I am looking into schools like Columbia, Cornell, Brown, UPenn, Purdue, Johns Hopkins, Stony Brook(not my biggest worry), University of Washington. I am still looking into a few more schools. I want advice in what I should keep doing, chances, How I should explain to these schools what happened and anything else you can think of. Thank You
P.S Just though i should state that i was lucky enough to avoid academic dismissal