Concerned about "W" on transcript

[Marissa4usa]

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Hey guys,
I'm curently taking a class in History and Systems and Psychology and I have to say that my professor is by far the worst I have ever had. Today we got our exams back. Mean is 57, the Median in the 40's, no A's, 2 or 3 lonley B's, several C's and the rest below (in a class of approximately 40 student). My grade was a 52. Besides taking one question of the exam and accepting two answers as right on one question the teacher is not willing to do any curving.
As of right now my standing in this class is an F (my GPA over the past 2 years has been 3.8 and I'm a very ambitious and focused student) and if (and only if) I get 100's on both my next exams I might be able to get a B+ for the class (an A or A- is out the question since the teacher doesn't offer any papers, make up/extra credit whatsoever). Since I have studied my butt of for this exam (at least 10-12 hours) I doubt that I will be able to raise my grade substantially.
I'm seriously considering dropping out of the class even though it hurts my ego more than anything but I think it might hurt me even more staying in the class. I have, however, some concerns.
What are the professors think when they see a "W" on my transcript, especially when it's in a class that is my major? What is worse: A "C" (or "D" maybe) or a "W"? Should I explain the "W"? How? I doubt that professors like to hear that another professor really sucks at his profession.
I would try to take the class again, however there are very professors who offer that class except my professor and another one who supposedly is even worse. Thankfully this class is not required for me to graduate.
Also, another concern for me is that due to certain circumstances I am only taking 3 classes (including this). I technically signed up for 19 credits but a bunch of them are for research so I'm worried I might leave the impression that I'm lazy and don't like to study.

Any input is greatly appreciated. I know it's probably a silly problem but I'm not sure what to do. I'm usually the last one who gives up and who is not willing to put any extra time towards studying in order to get good grades but I just don't see this happen in this case.

Thanks a lot.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

I'd take the W. I doubt they will ask, but if they do, have an answer ready for them.

I had one on my transcript for Accounting I. I thought it'd be a good idea to take, but after the first exam (where I did well) I was ready to bail because it was so boring. No one ever asked me about it.

-t

 

[paramour]

A few W's, C's, D's, and/or F's will not kill your application, unless it's noticeable that you made it a habit throughout your college career.

 

[Marissa4usa]

A few W's, C's, D's, and/or F's will not kill your application, unless it's noticeable that you made it a habit throughout your college career.

Well, the thing is, it's in my major and an additional concern of mine is that I am in the honors program and in order to graduate I need a GPA of 3.5 and I am worried that a C, D or F might really create a close call.
I also really don't like the idea of having anything less than a B in my major ( that said I wouldn;t mind it so much if it was like English or Anthropology).

 

[danzgymn86]

Marissa, are you at my school??
I got a History and Systems exam back today but the average was a 63, range was 10-86, not sure of the median. No As, 4 Bs. He gave us back 4 points (2 MC questions and said he would "think about" another). He also doesn't give papers or anything, just 3 tests... 30%, 30%, 40% and are cumulative. I also studied like 10 hours for the exam. However, I did talk to him after and he said he curves an additional 5-6 points on top of the 4 he "gave back." Also, he said he looks at trends in improvement and I plan on going to his office hours and basically start studying for the next test now...I think you might have the same class, just at a different time since the stats of the grades are slightly different...I have the class at 2...do you by any chance have this class at like 12:30? And does the prof's last name start with an H?

 

[paramour]

Well, the thing is, it's in my major and an additional concern of mine is that I am in the honors program and in order to graduate I need a GPA of 3.5 and I am worried that a C, D or F might really create a close call.
I also really don't like the idea of having anything less than a B in my major ( that said I wouldn;t mind it so much if it was like English or Anthropology).

Then take the W. As I mentioned a single/a few W's OR C's, D's, F's aren't going to kill you. I have a few W's, as well as some D's & F's on my undergrad transcripts. Granted, they were when I first started out and I had no such grades when I eventually went back, so it obviously wasn't something routine in the end.

If you're unable to get the grade where it needs to be, take the W. It's easier to explain (in my opinion) why you simply didn't have the time for a class so withdrew from it, rather than why you took a D/F for a class. After second thoughts, I'm not sure D's/F's in your last year would be that great of an idea, even if they were your very first.

G'luck~

 

[Marissa4usa]

Marissa, are you at my school??
I got a History and Systems exam back today but the average was a 63, range was 10-86, not sure of the median. No As, 4 Bs. He gave us back 4 points (2 MC questions and said he would "think about" another). He also doesn't give papers or anything, just 3 tests... 30%, 30%, 40% and are cumulative. I also studied like 10 hours for the exam. However, I did talk to him after and he said he curves an additional 5-6 points on top of the 4 he "gave back." Also, he said he looks at trends in improvement and I plan on going to his office hours and basically start studying for the next test now...I think you might have the same class, just at a different time since the stats of the grades are slightly different...I have the class at 2...do you by any chance have this class at like 12:30? And does the prof's last name start with an H?

Yep, that's the one.I don't know what the Median was, I just estimated it based on his diagram on the board. He didn't say anything about a curve to us, he acutually specifcally said that he didn't want to but I will wait until next class to see what he did and what I end up with. It's just not going to be anything above ~65and I'm just very concerned that I might screw myself if I stay in this class and only get a C no matter how hard I study.

 

[ResearchGirlie]

Definitely take the W. Remember that your application is one of many, so often times the reviewers look at the bottom line rather than a detailed inspection of each and every applicant. Your goal is to get past the initial review, and the basic bottom line GPA is one of them (your last 2 years are key).

I can relax and say this now that I'm in a great program, but as students we tend to stress about minor aspects of our record more than the people reviewing our application ever would.

 

[toby jones]

Do you have a class representative? If so I'd have a talk to them. It might be that case that the class representative can talk to someone about her concerns and the university can look into your professors marking practices. I had a similar problem with one of my courses. It was the last course that I needed in order to graduate and the mean mark on the first test was 40%. There were around 80 people in the class and only about 5 people in the whole class passed (got over 50%). The second test was similar (the tests were worth one third of the final grade each) and so we got our class representative to look into the marking practices.

The university stipulated that they needed to scale the marks up for the course (to have something like a two-thirds pass rate). It was taken care of by the final exam being easier than anticipated (if you studied your ass off it was possible to pull 90% hence bringing up your grade considerably). It might be possible that that something like that could happen.

Can you withdraw from the course at such a late date? We could only withdraw after the first two weeks if we had a medical certificate, otherwise we were stuck with an IC (incomplete) or whatever grade we managed to earn. Maybe a 'W' for you is the same as an 'IC' for us?

 

[toby jones]

With respect to your grades on applications... Depends significantly on what programs you are intending on applying to.

 

[Marissa4usa]

Hey Toby,
well the thing is that if I withdraw now a "W" (for withdrawel) will show on my transcript. At my school it is that if you withdraw within the first 2 weeks of the semester nothing shows on your transcript and if you withdraw until the end of october you get the "W"- that's the penalty.

I plan on applying to PhD Programs in Clinical Psychology so it's highly competitive.

 

[JockNerd]

I seriously doubt a W will matter at all. I had two (we called them VWs) and it was never mentioned (although they were in my first and second years). It would certainly look better than a D or worse in your last year. I'd go with others and just drop it.

 

[toby jones]

> I plan on applying to PhD Programs in Clinical Psychology so it's highly competitive.

Of course it is but my thought was that I'm sure it is more competitive in New York than it is in Arkansaw (no offence peoples).

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

> I plan on applying to PhD Programs in Clinical Psychology so it's highly competitive.

Of course it is but my thought was that I'm sure it is more competitive in New York than it is in Arkansaw (no offence peoples).

Clinical psychology programs are a bit different.....many of the best programs our OUTSIDE of major cities. Don't get me wrong, there are great programs in big cities, but many of the best research is coming out of larger state schools, many of which are not in major cities.

-t

 

[toby jones]

Yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't really mean to imply that. I don't know clinical psychology programs well enough to pick examples of programs that are more competitive compared to less competative.

My field has this handy little institutional ranking thing going on (subject of much controversy) but handyish. Is there anything like that in clinical psychology do people know?

 

[paramour]

People seem to like bashing rural states, particularly Arkansas. For the record, their admission rates are in line with other "more competitive" programs (4 to 8%). As TKJ already mentioned, not all of the oh, so wonderful programs are in large cities. I suspect many of those programs may get more applications simply because they are in large cities and people want to live there, not because they are actually better than any other given program.

 

[danzgymn86]

Yep, that's the one.I don't know what the Median was, I just estimated it based on his diagram on the board. He didn't say anything about a curve to us, he acutually specifcally said that he didn't want to but I will wait until next class to see what he did and what I end up with. It's just not going to be anything above ~65and I'm just very concerned that I might screw myself if I stay in this class and only get a C no matter how hard I study.

Haha 🙂 So, in my section of the class, he scaled majorly. My 73 is a B. An 87 was an A. You might want to look into the scaling before you withdraw. 🙂

 

[toby jones]

And number of applications / acceptance rates is a way of ranking programs?

Do you guys have anything like this:

(overall rankings - but there is a section on breakdown by speciality too)

http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/2006/overall.asp

 

[JockNerd]

And number of applications / acceptance rates is a way of ranking programs?

Do you guys have anything like this:

(overall rankings - but there is a section on breakdown by speciality too)

http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/2006/overall.asp

This has been mentioned before on the forum, pretty recently. There's no good way of ranking psychology programs. If you went for specific subfields (clinical neuropsych, social, applied health psychology) you might be able to boil down some sort of vague list that approximates something like "rank" by using the number of publications generated at each institution. Across all of psych that's just plain not possible. Just because a school is #1 in, say, I/O psych, doesn't mean that it's going to be good at anything else or good for any individual applicant. And even using that approximation, you apply to profs in psychology, not schools (at least for PhDs) and the focus and productivity of the individual prof are your best metrics. I've mentioned before that I think there's an easy way to determine "rank" for whatever you're interested in--find the top people in your field, and whatever universities they teach at are your top programs.

 

[toby jones]

The Philosophical Gourmet Report is very controversial in philosophical circles. That being said it has been an instrumental force behind an increasing number of institutions disclosing employment data and in drawing students attention to a number of factors (such as someone being on the webpage but being all but retired etc).

The rankings are made on the basis of a survey of a number of high-profile philosophers where they are asked to rank programs (without the program name being given) according to how attractive they would seem to students (in virtue of the people who are working in the program). There are overall rankings. There are also rankings according to field (e.g., ethics, early modern philosophy, cognitive science, philosophy of language, political philosophy, etc).

The idea then it to consider the overall ranking (realising how appealling your institutional affiliation will look when you hit the job market) and to trade that off against the speciality ranking (realising that that will look appealling too and that it isn't much fun working on a topic in isolation). Sometimes programs that are ranked pretty low generally (e.g., Washington, St Louis) are places that are ranked much higher for a particular field (philosophy of cognitive science in virtue of their having a Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience program).

Couldn't something similar be done in Clinical Psychology? The Philosophical Gourmet Report isn't done on the basis of publications - it is done on the basis of reputation of professors according to their peers.

> Just because a school is #1 in, say, I/O psych, doesn't mean that it's going to be good at anything else or good for any individual applicant.

Yeah. Just because Rutgers comes up high in philosophy in general doesn't mean it is a place you would want to go if you wanted to study Ancient Philosophy. That is part of the trade-off between overall ranking and speciality ranking.

> I think there's an easy way to determine "rank" for whatever you're interested in--find the top people in your field, and whatever universities they teach at are your top programs.

Yeah. The idea of the Philosophical Gourmet Report is basically to capture that wisdom and compile it in a format that is accessible to students and to staff contemplating moves.

One thing... Philosophy can seem like a bit of an 'old boys network' at times. It becomes a matter of much gossip what staff moves are planned because a staff move of an important figure can alter the rankings considerably (e.g., when a small programs ranking is in mostly in virtue of one specialist in the field). I think that Leiter even has some kind of 'has been given an offer by institution x' and 'has been rumoured to have been given an offer by institution x' page. Gossip to be sure but it is surely important to know if the person you want to work with has received an offer from someplace else BEFORE you accept a place with that institution...

There is a lot of controversy about the report. Most notably from Harvard (which Leiter uses as an example of their 'reputation in philosophy piggybacking on the ivy league status of the university as a whole'). There are warnings, however, about looking out for 'up and coming' departments (coming up through the ranks in some speciality and making hirings accordingly) which may well be friendlier and more supportive environments than the highest ranked places (that can be complacent about professors giving adequate time to students). MIT was an example of an institution that has come up through the ranks because of its friendly and hard working environment while Rutgers was criticised severely for the professors having appartments in Manhatten and barely making it in to work. This is changing (according to student reports) now that the Leiter report warned applicants about this situation.

The trouble is that there can be something of a loop... Do well in the Gourmet Report and then the students will come... Don't do well in the Gourmet Report and the students who could help boost the department through the ranks won't come. It has been criticised severely, to be sure.

That being said... I guess I'm surprised that psychologists (with their love of statistics and data) haven't looked at analysing departments...

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

That being said... I guess I'm surprised that psychologists (with their love of statistics and data) haven't looked at analysing departments...

They have, but being able to quantify what makes up a 'top' program is tough. I know one study looked at things in regard to publications. I started a thread about this maybe 3-4 months ago? If you search the forum (using the search feature up top), you should find stuff under "program rankings" or similar terms.

-t