I started off freshman year with a 3.1 and it was devastating. I did not know how to succeed at high school, especially when my curriculum is college prep. My prep school is pretty difficult despite taking many honors classes. Sophomore year I got a 3.44 and things were improving gradually. Right now, I am in my 1st semester and I am expecting a 3.58 and I am aiming for a 3.67+ for the second semester. Will I get a little slack for my freshman year failure? Or… will I regret it forever?
Yes, schools take improvement into account. Our future is never set by a handful of grades when we are 14 years old. Your improvement shows growth, hard work, and resilience. Resilience is actually crucial to our success and a significant predictor of success in college. It might even give you an advantage over a nothing-ever-went-wrong student if both of you bombed the first Organic Chem exam of the semester (which is common). You would have experience working through disappointing grades and figuring out how to do better.
When the time comes to apply, don’t be negative or make excuses. Be positive! Positivity goes a long way. It seems like you have high standards for yourself and learned how to do better. That’s great, let schools know how that played out for YOU, and what YOU learned in all of it.
Good luck, keep working hard. By sophomore year of college, freshman year of high school is going to seem far back in the rearview mirror. Sitting in a college classroom, you will have no idea who made a 3.1 and who made a 4.0 freshman year of high school.