<p>How do adcoms for grad schools typically view W's on a person's transcript?</p>
<p>I'd like to see a general discussion of this question, but here's why I'm asking: Psychology 001 used to be one of the easiest courses at my school; last semester the average grade was an A-. So I took it, but there's a new Prof now and the average grade in the class is a C-! Obviously, completely different from what I signed on for.</p>
<p>I'm an accounting major with a 3.6 GPA. Obviously, a C would be disastrous for my future chances of getting into Harvard, Columbia, Wharton, etc. Is the W a viable alternative?</p>
<p>a C does look pretty bad when enrolling into places like Harvard, Columbia, etc but a withdrawal is really bad. If I’m not mistaken, it would be a WF (withdrawal failure) and it is unacceptable unless you had a major reason such as a tragedy in the family or something like that. Getting a withdrawal to save your GPA is not a good excuse and colleges will look down on that.</p>
<p>I find it hard to believe that a W would be viewed the same as a WF (withdrawal failure). Many people have to withdraw from a class for various reasons…change in job schedule, needing to work more hours or needing to get a part-time job, illness, lost one’s babysitter, nutty prof, LOL</p>
<p>I have a feeling your chances at getting into Harvard, Wharton, or Columbia are already extremely low if you cannot get an A in a course in which the average grade is a C-. A C is supposed to be average.</p>
<p>Disagree with the previous posters based on S’s experience. He took a W in a physics class. (He was a poli. sci. major.) He was doing very well in the class but felt that it was taking up too much of his time to do the problem sets and he wanted to spend more time on his other classes. I thought it would be a disaster to take the W, but he did it. He is now a third year Ph.D. student at a world class university. I don’t think that one “W” would make a bit of difference.</p>
<p>Everyone is avoiding the other part of the question. An accounting major with a 3.6 GPA has little chance of making it into Harvard, etc so it doesn’t really matter. OP, are you in college now and looking to transfer (I didn’t know HS had accounting majors)?</p>
<p>Harvard has no undergraduate accounting major. This is a Frequently Asked Question at Harvard information meetings and at joint meetings, even though Penn always says that it is the ONLY Ivy League college with an undergraduate business school with the usual business majors.</p>
<p>Personally, I have 5 Withdrawals on my transcript. I’m not expecting them to factor much in my admission because 4 of the 5 occurred a long time ago under different circumstances.</p>
<p>Anyhow, regarding a discussion about Ws, if you’re concerned about them then I’d suggest addressing them somehow in your Statement or some Supplemental essay.</p>
<p>As for your particular situation, I’d recommend talking with the professor about it. If your institution is like mine, you have to get his approval anyway, so maybe he’ll clue you into the fact that he’ll bell curve the class at the end or something else along those lines.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t necessarily mention in it in your statement/essay. You only want to mention big things there (gaps that NEED explaining), not point out minutiae that might otherwise go unnoticed.</p>