explaining Calculus W's

[cystapharm]

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😕 Ok guys, heres my problem. I have both a W in Calc 1 and W in Calc 2. Some people say W's just means something has happened in your life but honestly nothing has happened. I just wasn't getting the grade I wanted and my teacher was an a** so I dropped. However, I retoook Calc 1 again and made an A and have yet to retake Calc 2. Now I have 2 semesters of bad grades in the past to explain at the interview: a freshman semester of 1.5 gpa and 2 years ago I had C's in all 3 science classes that semester, due to real personal problems in my life. How do I expalin these W's? I can't use the excuse that something happend to me again cuz really nothing has!!

 

[cystapharm]

anyone? anything will be appreciated! 🙂

 

[fidelio]

ummm... I don't know.

I mean getting Ws are really bad, even though it means nothing happened. It could also imply that you were getting a bad grade so you dropped to get a W.

And with the addition of bad grades, a 1.5 doesn't qualify for pharm school. the minimum is 3.0 nowadays and gets higher every year. So if that's your freshman score, it'll be hard for you to impress pharm schools who have a competitive pool with people who average around 3.4 to 3.6, meaning half the people who applied have higher than a 3.6.

I don't really know what to say. Hmmm... I can see I'm not helping here. All you can really do is retake classes.

 

[cystapharm]

my GPA right now is 3.35 so I know I qualify for pharm school. My prereq is about 3.12 or so. I am just worried about the W's and how to explain them. You're right nowadays it's hard to get in even with 3.35. I have been getting 3.82 for the last 2 years so I hope that will get me in.
Does anyone have excessive W's they had to explain????

 

[penguins429]

... i had one W for calc II ... never came up in any of my interviews, so i didnt bother bringing it up ... most of my interviewers didn't have any of my stats, so i assumed that it would be better just to keep quiet about it, and try not to show any weakness

 

[cycloketocaine]

my GPA right now is 3.35 so I know I qualify for pharm school. My prereq is about 3.12 or so. I am just worried about the W's and how to explain them. You're right nowadays it's hard to get in even with 3.35. I have been getting 3.82 for the last 2 years so I hope that will get me in.
Does anyone have excessive W's they had to explain????

It's going to be real hard to get in, unless you rock the PCAT and have good extra cirriculars. Lots of schools go by pre req GPA. And lots of W's hurts too. On one of my supplemental's though, there is a place to describe "academic difficulties".

 

[Shadowstar]

Explain to them the situation with your W's but don't blame yourself...don't say like "Oh I messed up cause I partied hard but now I've learned my lesson"...try to avoid that at all costs. Try to explain in a way that will make them sympathize for you...maybe during those semesters you were ill or had hardships in your family or personal life, etc. As for a 3.35 thats an OK gpa...if I were you I'd try to keep getting those 3.85's and REALLY rock on the PCAT. Hope this helps.

 

[penguins429]

Explain to them the situation with your W's but don't blame yourself...don't say like "Oh I messed up cause I partied hard but now I've learned my lesson"...try to avoid that at all costs. Try to explain in a way that will make them sympathize for you...maybe during those semesters you were ill or had hardships in your family or personal life, etc. As for a 3.35 thats an OK gpa...if I were you I'd try to keep getting those 3.85's and REALLY rock on the PCAT. Hope this helps.

i disagree ... if these W's do come up in an interview, or you feel the need to explain them, i would think the worst thing to do would be to make excuses for why it happened ... anyone can blame a bad teacher, personal problems, other situations; but in the end, you're the one that got the bad grades, and whats done is done ... so its up to you to show that you learned from your mistakes, and that it won't happen again ...

 

[cystapharm]

seems to me after reading all these replies that Ws are so much worse than C;'s there are a bunch of poeple complaining about getting Cs and being the end of their pharmacy goals yet they get responses like oh its ok to get Cs just retake the courses etc... I always thought Ws are better because then my GPA won't get messed up. I can easily get C's which is why I kept getting Ws cuz i know the second time around I WILL get As because every W that I've gotten i ended up with As after retaking. So W's are worse than C's? just because it's so far down the alphabet doesn't mean its worse because it does seem that way. gosh I am sooo worried I'll never get in anywhere! 🙁 🙁

 

[fathom]

I have a W for Calc III. No one has asked any questions about it, but it isn't a required class for any pharmacy school.

 

[Zeke1955]

I've said this in other threads... I had 4 W's. Only one (in Calculus I) was due to poor performance. The other 3 were all in one semester. I was 18 years-old, 2nd semester of college, and I thought my oh so cool garage manager job @ Fry's electronics was more important.

One of the W's was ridiculous... I was transitioning from pursuing computer networking to pre-pharmacy and @ 12:30AM the day school started (i.e. no classes attended yet), I dropped a tech class and it was still counted as a W! (would not have been if I'd logged in 31 minutes earlier)

The other 2 W's were because my work sked changed to where I could no longer attend my Bio II lab, so I had to drop Bio II since the lab and class were one and the same. I was also taking a Trig class which I was making a C in at the time of dropping (same as you thought, I just wanted a better grade).

As you can see, I did NOT have good reasons at all! Luckily none of this came up with Texas Tech (interviews are closed file), and I was accepted on the first committee round (rolling admissions). I wasn't worried because after that I had a nearly 4.0 GPA the rest of the way throughout, did well on the PCAT and everything else was in order.

The best advice is to contact the school about it and see what they have to say. Personally, I think you did the right thing. If you're making a C in a course, that means you could easily slide to an F if you don't do well on a comprehensive final exam that may be 30-50% of your grade. F's are almost impossible to overcome!

 

[LECOMorBUST]

One of the W's was ridiculous... I was transitioning from pursuing computer networking to pre-pharmacy and @ 12:30AM the day school started (i.e. no classes attended yet), I dropped a tech class and it was still counted as a W! (would not have been if I'd logged in 31 minutes earlier)

That is pretty ridiculous.

 

[Zeke1955]

That is pretty ridiculous.

Well, yes it was, but I didn't go berzerk about it because I understood the reasoning behind it... In theory an on-line course would commence at 12:01AM that morning, and so just by the sheer fact that you *could* access it, it's like attending. Therefore, not letting them withdraw from it like it never happened is "the same" as not letting me withdraw from that class in the same manner.

All I can say now is "oh well, everything turned out great and now that I'm headed towards a dream, I wouldn't want to change anything leading up to this."