Getting a W in a class

[bringinit247]

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I have a W (withdrawal) in both General Biology II and General Chemistry I. However, I plan on retaking both of them this year. Assuming I get A's in both classes, how do you guys think ad-com's will look at those W's. And to what extent do you think W's in general hurt students trying to get into med school? BTW, the reason I got W's is bc I wasn't sure at the time what direction i wanted to go academically.....

 

[Naphtali]

No doubt about it, it's a black mark on your transcript. That said, if you can get A's in both, it's certainly not a deal breaker. You'll be asked about at interviews, but if you can explain it, it shouldn't be a big deal.

I had a W, from an upper level bio course. (And I never did retake it.) Now, I'm a med student, loving life. (Well, loving it slightly less since I found out how I did on test 1. 😀 )

Naphtali

 

[rjmst]

I have 7 Ws

 

[Ranger47]

I would agree you have to do really well. It will factor into your science GPA, but you might be able to compensate with a good explanation. When you do take those classes DO NOT WITHDRAW AGAIN. That will look really bad. They will think you are afraid of those classes.

 

[rjmst]

they factor Ws into GPA???

FU[K!

 

[Ranger47]

My impression was that they factored it in like an F, hopefully I am wrong for your sake. I looked around but could only find one thing that vaguely mentions it on Case Western's website:

"Judicious use of withdrawal (w) from a course in which you are doing poorly, repeat of a course (RPT) in which you received a poor grade, or taking a course for a pass/no pass grade (P/NP) can all help preserve your GPA at CWRU. However, if you repeat a course, the original grade and the new grade must both be reported to AMCAS and will affect your AMCAS GPA's."
http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/chem/undergrad/med4.htm

a couple threads talks about it more hopefully: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=72227&highlight=withdrawal+GPA

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=61559&highlight=withdrawal+GPA

Good luck!

 

[OrthoFixation]

I dont think W or WP will be a GPA consideration. WF is another story altogether.

BTW, I had at least 7 W's and likely more. I let you know where I get in, but I don't think it is that big of a deal.

My school had the same tuition for anything above 12 hours. So I always took one more class than I intended to carry for the full semester. I always found that there was a crappy or ultra strict professor in one class. I usually dropped that one.