Whats the big idea?

[ZeaL6]

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In all honesty I've seen many people recently posting about W's/ What's the big idea? Why do adcoms care if you took W's? I know I've personally taken 2 W's in my college career, one in Bio1 because I was immature and couldn't drive to school and make it by 8 a.m. everyday (freshman with 2.9 GPA first semester, don't judge my upward trend!) and one in a theater class I dropped because I wasn't a fan of the class itself. I can tell you prior to taking the W I had A's in both classes, and am asking SDN, why is it bad to take a W? It doesn't necessarily mean you were failing the class.. Any responses appreciated.

 

[Mt Kilimanjaro]

In all honesty I've seen many people recently posting about W's/ What's the big idea? Why do adcoms care if you took W's? I know I've personally taken 2 W's in my college career, one in Bio1 because I was immature and couldn't drive to school and make it by 8 a.m. everyday (freshman with 2.9 GPA first semester, don't judge my upward trend!) and one in a theater class I dropped because I wasn't a fan of the class itself. I can tell you prior to taking the W I had A's in both classes, and am asking SDN, why is it bad to take a W? It doesn't necessarily mean you were failing the class.. Any responses appreciated.

 

[DrEnderW]

I think your withdrawals aren't the norm. Most people withdraw when they realize there's no hope of salvaging a good grade. Whether it is true or not, Ws appear like you weren't able to handle the load or the class was too difficult. That's the impression, regardless if its true or not.

 

[sinombre]

In all honesty I've seen many people recently posting about W's/ What's the big idea? Why do adcoms care if you took W's? I know I've personally taken 2 W's in my college career, one in Bio1 because I was immature and couldn't drive to school and make it by 8 a.m. everyday (freshman with 2.9 GPA first semester, don't judge my upward trend!) and one in a theater class I dropped because I wasn't a fan of the class itself. I can tell you prior to taking the W I had A's in both classes, and am asking SDN, why is it bad to take a W? It doesn't necessarily mean you were failing the class.. Any responses appreciated.

Re-read the first bolded part. That pretty much answers your question.

And adcoms will have absolutely no idea what you had in a class that you withdrew from.

 

[ZeaL6]

Re-read the first bolded part. That pretty much answers your question.

And adcoms will have absolutely no idea what you had in a class that you withdrew from.

I understand what you're saying, but even so if I still managed to pull myself out of it and obtain a 3.7 gpa and have 4.0 semesters with 18 credits with 8 a.m. classes, I think it should be forgiven, should it not?

 

[sinombre]

I understand what you're saying, but even so if I still managed to pull myself out of it and obtain a 3.7 gpa and have 4.0 semesters with 18 credits with 8 a.m. classes, I think it should be forgiven, should it not?

Yeah, I doubt it will really hurt you at all if everything else is good. I was just pointing out why adcoms don't view W's favorably.

 

[deleted357625]

In all honesty I've seen many people recently posting about W's/ What's the big idea? Why do adcoms care if you took W's? I know I've personally taken 2 W's in my college career, one in Bio1 because I was immature and couldn't drive to school and make it by 8 a.m. everyday (freshman with 2.9 GPA first semester, don't judge my upward trend!) and one in a theater class I dropped because I wasn't a fan of the class itself. I can tell you prior to taking the W I had A's in both classes, and am asking SDN, why is it bad to take a W? It doesn't necessarily mean you were failing the class.. Any responses appreciated.

neuroticism that lingers here on SDN. W's don't matter. Period. Unless it's coupled with failing grades an downward trends. As long as you keep that GPA up and take a well-balanced schedule you should be fine.

 

[CyberMaxx]

I don't know how much they matter, maybe some adcoms really don't like them or maybe their not a big deal. I was a little surprised however (like it seems you were) to see so many people on SDN saying how bad they are. At my school the advisers and professors treat withdrawing from a class like its not a big deal. Of course they could have led us astray.

It seems to me that what is really going to set off red flags is something like being a humanities major with a weak gpa who had withdrawn from multiple science courses before completing their prereqs. If you look like a strong student then they will probably not care about W's.


PS. nothing against humanities majors, I am one myself 🙂

 

[Ismet]

A couple W's won't hurt an otherwise strong application, but constantly W-ing courses raises a pretty big red flag. Like someone said above, many people use W's as a way of getting out of a class they might get a C in just so their GPA won't be affected. That doesn't really work in real life and there are no W's in med school, so doing that often during undergrad does not look very good in admissions. OP, you would be fine, but people with 7, 10, 15, etc W's would probably raise some question unless there is a reasonable explanation (which would be explained in secondaries)

 

[survivordo]

Ismet is right, a couple of W's won't hurt you as long as the rest of your app holds up and you have a reasonable explanation for them if asked. However, if you have borderline stats to begin with they could potentially be the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.

Survivor DO

 

[ZeaL6]

I didn't think they were that big of a deal, thanks for all the responses! I was about to say if I screwed myself from the beginning with that I'd be pretty angry.

 

[CodeBlu]

neuroticism that lingers here on SDN. W's don't matter. Period. Unless it's coupled with failing grades an downward trends. As long as you keep that GPA up and take a well-balanced schedule you should be fine.

I wouldn't say that W's don't matter at all...

Having done some admissions stuff, W's do matter. If you have a W in a pre-requisite and then you take the course again and get a bad grade, it looks terrible.

Also, 1-2 W's isn't a death sentence, but you should be prepared to answer any questions about them.

 

[sworzeh]

I took a W in Anatomy over a B, lol. Yeah, I'm "that kid" who didn't want to lower their 4.0.

 

[ragnarokx]

Out of my 10 or so interviews, only once was I asked about the W's I got one semester. Even the one time I was asked, the interviewer didn't really seem to care much about them.

 

[Lollygag]

I have 4 W's 🙁 and I do worry about them...

2 were because I couldn't handle the courseload while taking care of an ill family member and working 2 jobs to support my family.

The other 2 W's were in the same semester and were a result of a death in my family-- unfortunately it was that same ill family member and they inspired me to go into medicine and so I lost a lot of motivation and questioned whether I wanted to continue.

I hope that's legitimate enough for adcoms 😳 i'll try to explain in the secondaries