will bad community college grades keep me out of a good grad school?

[Nico Corr]

I went to community college for five years before I transferred to a four year university. Back then, I wasn't sure what I wanted to study, had a hard time juggling full time course load, and working full time. As a result, I got poor grades my first year 1/2- 2 years of community college. My low light was when I got an F in Biology. Over one summer, I did some soul searching, got focused and got good grades thereafter. I left the CC with a 2.5 gpa. Four years later, I am entering my senior year of my four year university degree where I will graduate next fall and currently hold a 3.7 gpa. I want to apply to graduate schools in Foreign policy and am specifically interested in SAIS, Walsh school, SIS and Korbel. Although I am showing an upward trend in my grades, and am holding down a pretty good gpa, I am concerned with how admissions boards will view my community college grades. I figure can graduate next fall with a 3.8, but even then my cumulative gpa will only be raised to about a 3.3-3.4. Given that those bad grades will be four or five years old, will admin boards care more about my current success than my past failures? Does the four year university gpa carry more weight than the CC gpa?

[Edotdl]

I don't think they will matter that much. It seems like not many of your CC courses are being used to fulfill the requirements for your current degree. Therefore,  in a sense, the GPA for your degree is still a ~3.7 and not affected by the old grades since you aren't using those classes. I hope that kinda makes sense. That's just my reasoning though.