<p>I'm a second year Comparative Literature student and I'm struggling with one of my classes in Writing during this school year's second semester. During my first year, I've dropped one course in each semester and dropped, yet, a third during the first semester of my second year. </p>
<p>Did I just screw myself out of getting into Grad school? Should I just pack everything up and leave college with nothing but a BA under my belt?</p>
<p>No one has any thoughts on this?</p>
<p>I’m only a HS student, but I would say that I seriously doubt that alone kills your grad school chances. In fact, if you improve on the number of W’s taken in your later years, common sense tells me that schools might actually look favorably on that. Never been there, though, so I wouldn’t know for certain.</p>
<p>It wont work in your favor and I would suppose it depends on your choice of grad/school/ect. W’s are not the end of the world. It’ll could be easily overlooked if you have a relatively good GPA. </p>
<p>Nonetheless and this would be the worst case scenario, there is always an opportunity for grad school, even if it is a few years in between schooling.(assuming your choice of profession does not require a graduate degree to work)</p>
<p>Grad schools will let one W slide. I had 2 Ws but one was a unreversible administrative error and I had a letter from the registrar attached to the transcript stating just that.</p>
<p>It’s still early in the semester! You have plenty of other grades coming up. Stay in class and work with your prof and the writing center to improve your writing. Writing is relatively important for grad school admissions anyhow. So if you don’t believe that you can write well, then don’t think about grad school. I mean… you’re a Comp Lit major which requires good writing…</p>
<p>What were the classes you dropped? If they’re relevant, you’re a second-year student, you’ll have time to retake them. If not, don’t worry about them.</p>
<p>I had at least three W’s on my transcript and I was accepted to decent grad schools. However, my W’s all occurred during the first two years and never in a relevant class, except calculus which was excused because of a hospitalization. Furthermore, they were clustered because of poor circumstances, and didn’t span several quarters like yours.</p>
<p>If you want more information, my GPA during the first two years of college was mediocre (~3.4), and I had several W’s on my transcripts. At the end of my second year, I really decided what I wanted to do, and became much more motivated to succeed. During the following two years I raised my GPA up, didn’t have any W’s, got some research experience, and did other things like education abroad. As a chemistry major, this got me into schools like Johns Hopkins, UCSD, and Northwestern (still waiting for the others to respond). I think schools may be willing to forgive you if you show that that kind of behavior is in the past.</p>
<p>To OP:</p>
<p>It really depends on what sort of grad schools you’re looking at, and what you’re planning to go to school for. Are you looking at Ivy League or public universities? Having a few W’s and a lower GPA can eliminate you from some high-end places. Are you looking to go for Comp Lit? Granted it’s only your second year, but you have to consider WHY you want to go to grad school. If you’re doing Comp Lit, you’re saying you want to read and write literature analysis for a living. If you’re struggling in basic writing courses, you may want to reconsider that goal.</p>
<p>Also, do take to heart, grad applications are a conglomerate of things. Grades, GRE scores, extracurriculars, research projects, etc. etc. Personally, I was a Comp Lit major, then switched at the beginning of my sophomore year. I majored in English and Spanish, and ended up doing well because I enjoyed what I studied and was good at it. I had a 3.5 my first two years, then looked into grad schools I wanted to go to and saw I’d need a 3.7 to do what I really wanted. Granted, my field of study ended up changing…but it still has made a difference.</p>
<p>Talk to your professors. Go to office hours, and get help from your writing center with your classes if necessary. Trust in knowing yourself and making the best choice for you. That’s the best advice I could offer.</p>
<p>Hope this helps.</p>
<p>None of the classes I dropped were relevant to a Comp Lit. degree; They were one introductory psyc course, a second year English course and a Drama course. </p>
<p>The course I want to drop is a creative writing course: creative non-fiction.</p>
<p>As for the comments about basic writing, I’m actually a fair academic writer. In fact, I enjoy writing most academic essays though I am not hardy with experience yet. I need more practice. </p>
<p>My goal for grad school is either Library and Technology Studies or Comp Lit.</p>
<p>I’d like to let you know I’ve been invited to an interview at NYU, and my record contains 1 W, 2 C’s, and 1 F.</p>
<p>Library and Information Science programs are comparatively easy to get into. I have three W’s, no library experience, a completely irrelevant academic background and all my recommendations are from professors /not/ in my department or any department related to it. I’ve already been accepted by IU and UNC Chapel Hill–all it takes is a decent GPA and a coherent/believable personal statement. Of course, if you’re going straight for a PhD, you’ll have a tougher time of it (esp. since library schools don’t tend to have the funding for doctoral students like other ‘more academic’ programs do).</p>
<p>Something else to bear in mind is that admissions committees place a FAR greater emphasis on your final years than on your first year or two. Everyone knows that some excellent students don’t get adjusted right away.</p>
<p>3 W’s will NOT hurt you unless they were core classes, or if the same class gets dropped repeatedly. </p>
<p>When I graduate in May, I will have 3 W’s on my transcript. One was a online music course that I simply forgot to take the first test in, the other two are SB and Humanity classes that were dropped to be replaced with a single class. This was an advising problem, not a course performance problem. They were W’s simply because of the timing of the class replacement. </p>
<p>So if your W’s are not core classes and can be explained, you will not have a problem.</p>
<p>Hi I’m interesting to find out, what happened after your interview? thanks</p>
<p>Yeah I’m majoring in nursing, and I have W in Anatomy class, and in fall 2013 I take Anatomy class again, but then I’m thinking to drop that class again, cause I’m taking it with four other hard class… don’t know what to do</p>