<p>My son's g/f is hoping to go to med school. Here dad is a doctor and everytime she is doing even slightly badly - like a C mid semester - in a class he tells her to drop it and retake it the next semester. I have a feeling he is giving her some bad advice here (My daughter is also thinking med school and I would not recommend her to drop classes unless she was doing disasterously - no drops yet thankfully - she is too stubborn to drop a class) and that the many withdrawals may be a problem when it comes to applying for med school. She was actually going to drop a class a 2nd time (at her Dad's suggestion) and I did suggest she wait as the mid term grade does not neccessarily end up being the final grade - she ended up with a good grade. I am a little wary of sticking my nose in and telling her that too many drops will not look good as I know she values her Dad's input a lot. How do med schools view a lot of Ws on the transcript? (I am not talking about 2-3).</p>
<p>As I understand it, adcoms generally presume that a W is a stand-in for a D/F grade. On a transcript, one W might be glossed over, since there’s no way for the adcom to really know what sort of grade the student was getting at the time of the drop.</p>
<p>It’s the presumption that W = D/F grade that makes a history of W’s disastrous. It’s essentially sending the message that the student was afraid of failing a whole bunch of times. That is not something you want to advertise to adcoms. I imagine that enough W’s could completely sink a student’s chances of getting in at a MD school. </p>
<p>I think the father of your son’s girlfriend has been giving her rotten advice, and she’s going to suffer for it. Does he realize that medical school admissions have changed since his time as a medical student? That being said, if your son’s girlfriend’s had that many C grades at the midterm, I wonder about her academic strength in general. Is she always just barely managing to squeak by?</p>
<p>More than 2-3 is definitely a red flag. Not good.</p>
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I don’t really know. I try not to pry too much but she told me at the time me about her Dad suggesting she drop the particular class a second time (she had a B at the time) and I suggested she didn’t. Then something came up in conversation the other day about my son’s number of Ws (several 
) and she said she has more than him. </p>
<p>I think she assumes her Dad knows best because he is a doctor. But, like you say, times have changed. I am afraid she may already be sunk.</p>
<p>Taking a W instead of a B is nuts. I think most people here on this board don’t even think taking a W instead of a C is a good idea. Let’s not even get started about dropping a class for a second time.</p>
<p>Is she even going to graduate on time, given all these W’s and re-takes? Not graduating on time due to W’s isn’t going to help her situation.</p>
<p>Your son’s girlfriend is in desperate need of good advising. There’s no polite way of telling her to ditch her dad, but his advice has been to her detriment. If she really want to go to medical school, it sounds like there could be a lot of bitterness between her and her father in the future.</p>