<p>A term with ALL Ws speaks to something big happening, which might be grades, or emergency, serious illness in the student or family or any number of other things. If the student comes back in subsequent terms and is successful, that speaks volumes and goes a long way to negate a term of all Ws.</p>
<p>A W here and there throughout the transcript may actually look worse as it implies one waited to drop too late and had a bad grade. All Ws might not imply bad grades, it could imply other reasons to leave the campus besides grades.</p>
<p>If OP knows the DD is coming home, I would do a W from all classes, then prove her true capabilities in later terms. Don’t risk a couple of Cs or Ds in a couple of classes for future transcript reviews.</p>
<p>Dinner topic discussion here.<br>
Is it better to stick it out in a course, get a poor grade, and then re-take the course? At least then you would be familiar with all the material.</p>
<p>Or, are the GPA’S and grades important enough that it is better to withdraw? Do employers look that closely at college transcripts?</p>
<p>Karen Colleges, from reading CC over the past several years, I’d say that employers do look that closely at college transcripts, though I’ll be interested to see what the HR folks on the board have to say about it.</p>
<p>Freshman registration is already a complicated and bewildering thing for most students. I don’t know how many of them think in terms of “what if I get in over my head - what can I drop and still be a full-time student, etc.” I think it would be helpful for every kid to consider a worst-case scenario, and pick the first year’s courses with an eye to posting a strong GPA as well as fulfilling requirements, exploring interests, challenging oneself, etc. A tall order when, at some schools, kids are lucky to find slots in 4 or 5 classes, period. If nothing else, the student should know when the last day to withdraw from a class without academic penalty is.</p>
<p>My experience has been that they do not look closely at each final grade, particularly once past that first job. Even for that first job, my experience was that the gpa with any phrases attached such as- graduated magna… with honors, etc., was only glanced at. After that first job, the next guy looks far more at the work history than the final grade in English Comp ll.</p>
<p>Some schools will permanently remove the first grade on a course that is repeated. In that case, yes, I’d be very tempted to re-take to gain:
The benefit of understanding the material much better and
<p>Can’t imagine that a couple of C grades on an undergrad transcript would torpedo an otherwise strong applicant/candidate - - but D grades are anothr matter entirely. I suspect the low grades would be more of a factor for grad school apps than for employment, and even for grad school, a couple of C grades might keep a student out of top programs, but wouldn’t keep the student out of grad/prof school in general.</p>