Course Withdraw

[Ace King]

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Hi everyone,
This is my first post on here, but here is my story...
I used to go to the University of Massachusetts - Amherst my freshman year, where I got some pretty good grades, managing to pull off a cumulative GPA of 3.909 out of a total of 33 semester credits (with no 'W's). I am now a transfer student as a sophomore at the Ohio State University - Columbus, where I have not been doing as good as I used to. I dropped my second sequence of general chemistry with a 'W' during my first quarter of the year, which left me 1 or 2 credits under a fulltime student of 12 credits. I am now in my second quarter and I am once again thinking about dropping my math class with a 'W', which will again leave me as a parttime student by about 3 credits. So far the only grades I've got is a B+ and an A from my first quarter (plus the W), and now my cumulative GPA just went down to 3.65. Not only that, but I am also suffering in another class (besides Math) in my current quarter, so I am expecting the GPA to go some lower. Just wondering whether or not I should drop my math class, as there is a good chance that I could fail it or get a 'D', and how will dental schools look at this.

PS. The math class I am currently planning to drop is a first sequence of calculus, b/c I took the lower division math back at UMass, taking precalc first and finishing the first sequence. When I trasnfered to OSU, I swithed to the higher division, taking precalc again and am now on the first sequence.
PSS. And also, there's really no good reason as to how I could explain these 'W's

 

[doc3232]

Some will come in and tell you that they had 3 Ws and it was not mentioned.
Some will say they were brought up.

IMO, a B is better than the following W, but 2 Ws isn't that bad.

 

[Frederico Albin]

B will look better than a W, but if you think that you will score less than that, I would just take the W and move on.... remember that your GPA is the most important...

 

[drpsuedonym]

You don't want your transcript littered with W's, but Cs and Ds count towards your GPA and drag it down, whereas a W doesn't do anything at all. To explain the W's all you have to say is that it conflicted with other responsibilities. I personally would drop the math class if you think you're going to fail it and focus on getting A's in everything else. Then over the next couple of semesters if you have some extra space, take filler classes that don't sound like filler classes or that you know you can do well in. Like my senior year, I took a chem class that counted as a GE and was the easiest sceince class ever. I got an A by only going to the exam review sessions (but being a bio major of course helped a lot). Another class was with a really hard professor, but I knew the type of work was something that I was really good at, so another A without too much effort. So basically be smart about what classes you take and choose your courses with an eye towards keeping your GPA high. One of my friends is taking the harder version of some of the upper div science classes (mol bio, genetics, biochem), and her GPA is taking a hit. When adcoms look at her app, they're not going to see that she took the harder classes, and she might miss the first cut they make based solely on numbers. Sorry I've started to ramble, but good luck!

 

[xhamburgersamx]

It's OK to have a few W's very early in your college education but as you get into your 3rd and 4th year, any W's will look terrible. If you have scattered W's throughout your transcript, it probably correlates to difficulty handling professional school.

I got into a lot of schools with a lot of C's

 

[sophie1203]

i attended ohio state university and received 2 W's. i currently have been accpeted to tufts unviersity and wvu. i was only asked about it at wvu. i wouldnt worry about it as long as you have a good reason to get a W and when you re-take the class you get an A. just my advice.

 

[eldirty]

I have a few Ws on my transcript and it never came up in any of my interviews.