5 Withdraws on transcript--can I say goodbye to grad school prospects?

Graduate School
1

Hello! I’m a Religious Studies major/Philosophy minor hoping to apply to Harvard Divinity School and several other grad schools when the time comes.

The second half of my freshman year was difficult in terms of mental health and due to severe depression, I ended up in the emergency room and had a hard time recovering afterwards. During Winter term, when the depression began, I withdrew from three classes. During Spring term (shortened classes), I withdrew from two more for a total of five. Summer term, I took some time off to rethink things and I came back Fall term ready to face things and turn it around. None of these were classes having to do with my major, but still: five withdraws is five withdraws, and that can’t be good.

My GPA is 3.72 with a 4.0 for my major classes and I have some experience as a TA/RA that I’m hoping will allow for good letters of recommendation to make up for it. I have also never failed a class and the lowest grade I ever got was a C+ in Psychology the semester I had the breakdown. Do the five withdraws pretty much sink my ship as far as grad school is concerned, though? Should I explain what happened, or would it be worse if they knew I was hospitalized for depression? Any of you guys have similar situations?

2

The fact that the “W” grades were early in your undergraduate studies and that you have done well since will mitigate their effect. Just make sure you apply to more than one program. The highly selective ones are hard to get into no matter what your record.

3

Try the gradcafe, the philosophy members and the religion members can definitely help you! I’ve had 2 Ws and I don’t think it affected my applications.