<p>Hey you guys. I am a freshman currently attending a community college. My goal is to transfer to a Uc (Berkley, Davis, or Irvine) after obtaining my 60 transferable credits. My problem is that I am taking more Units than I can handle. I am currently taking 18 units: French (5 units), English (4 units), Counseling (1 unit), Geography (3 units), and Intermediate Algebra (5 units) and I wanted to drop geography since i have no idea what is going on in that class. My question is how will a W affect my chances of getting into a UC?? How great of an impact is a W overall?? Does 1 W actually matter A LOT??</p>
<p>What matters more than a W is a lower GPA. Taking on more than you can handle is common as a freshman, and withdrawing from one class freshman year is common, especially if you’re taking 18 credits. Don’t burn yourself out. A heavy courseload and a mediocre or above average GPA isn’t as good as a stellar GPA on less credits.</p>
<p>Bottom line, if your GPA without Geography will be significantly better than your GPA with it, drop it. You’ll be glad you did.</p>
<p>Currently, the UC’s disregard withdraws in the admission process and they will not be held against you. Whether you have 1 or 10 W’s (which I know is hard to believe, but is the case) they will not negatively affect you for UC admissions or at least that’s their policy at the moment. The UC’s are always constantly re-evaluating the admission process so that’s not to say that won’t change in the near future like for the 2015 cycle. Also, if you have plans for going on to professional school or graduate school following attending a UC, many of them will look back on your CC grades and will take into consideration withdraws, especially a history of multiple W’s. So my advice – don’t worry if it’s just a few W’s, one will be fine. At the same time though, don’t get overly lax and complacent because you feel like you can take a W in a class in the future. It could come back to bite you if policies change or if you plan to continue your education past undergrad.</p>
<p>UC’s will not care about W’s. End of story. As for graduate programs, some will care about W’s and some won’t. For example, LS’s are so heavily GPA and LSAT oriented that you could have 15 W’s and they wouldn’t care in the least so long as you raise their median GPA and/or LSAT. This varies depending on what field you want to go into. However, one W is nothing to worry about.</p>