“People are only going to care about her GPA from the college she graduates from, if they care at all.”
This may well be true of employers. It is absolutely not true of gpa-driven graduate programs, such as law or medical school. Every college course taken for credit will go into the gpa used to determine admission. Ws are MUCH preferable to Fs in that situation. If the student has any interest in these programs, the F/W question is well worth fighting about.
Colleges generally do not give transfer credit for grades below C, so it wouldn’t make sense to rely on any such courses for graduation credit.
@Hanna Thank you, I’ve read somewhere in this forum that you are actually an administrator at a university and you’ve validated my concerns. If my niece decided on applying to top grad/law schools in the future, would she have to explain in detail the list of W’s (assuming we get the withdrawal)? What would be your best advice in this situation as I petition the university?
I apologize for all the questions, this is my first time having custody of a child, although she is almost grown and she takes care of herself well. But I just want to do right by her because no one else in her life had and I don’t really know how the college system works anymore since it has been a long time since I attended one myself.
I am a former university administrator and current admissions consultant. Yes, she’d have to explain the Ws, but that’s way better than trying to explain Fs. Your GPA is what it is. If you can make it higher by getting rid of medically excusable Fs, do it. Start by talking to the school and go from there.
Something very strange, but welcome, happened today. My niece received an email, without cause since she had yet to make the calls she would today, that they approved her withdrawal from the first semester! It seems that they have changed their minds, I am incredibly pleased.
They did not approve the second semester yet, but this gives us a lot of hope that with more documentation we may just get the retroactive withdrawal that we wanted for the second semester as well. Again, I would like to thank everyone here for keeping me sane the last few days, and thank you @Hanna for answering my question, we will definitely start preparing for that inevitable day.
With a medical withdrawal, you don’t get W’s, at least not in my fairly extensive experience. The slate is truly wiped clean. If not a medical withdrawal, your niece could have withdrawn herself and gotten W’s. Generally, if a kid is failing classes, we recommend they withdraw regardless of loss of money or W’s on transcript for the reasons you state in terms of fresh starts. The W’s can be taken off if it is a medical matter.
You keep attributing the depression to abuse in the home. Not to nick pick, but that argues against a medical condition and for a situational depression. Please understand that true clinical depression has triggers, but is a condition in and of itself. People from happy homes can have clinical depression; it can be genetic; it is physiological. So maybe reframe this as a condition, especially since it involves a history.
Some schools will replace failing grades with new grades if the classes are retaken, but since your niece has left, that is not an option. A medical withdrawal is indeed the only way to wipe the slate clean.
I question why your niece did not know her diagnosis. Did she not have treatment for her previous depression? She should have been registered with the disabilities office, had a professional (psychiatrist or therapist) on campus set up, and a dean or other staff should have been aware. With those things set up, she would have been advised about a medical leave or withdrawal then and there. It sounds like she just sort of invisibly failed and left without any contact with the school. I am sure the school would have been helpful.
You need to find the right person to talk with. Probably a dean. But honestly since the niece has left the school they won’t be terribly invested in helping her. Legally, you need to be in really good shape with documentation of the depression. If she were returning you would have to show proof of ability to do the work.
I am sorry this is happening but I hope others reading it understand that retroactive is so much harder. Anyone with a medical/psych. problem should register with the disabilities office and connect to professionals on campus. There is a lot of support out there. The niece might have received accommodations and other services that might have made life easier.
That was the case with our retroactive withdrawal, @compmom. The school literally erased my son’s presence on campus for the year that he was there. He does not have to list it as an institution he attended, there are no Ws other schools will see: the school grants the student a complete clean slate.
For my son, at least, that was the one saving grace of what had been a truly terrible and scary year. I will forever be grateful to this school for giving him a fresh start when he was finally ready for it.
@panopticon – Good news! Here’s hoping for withdrawal of that second semester!
Every school’s policies differ. Where I work, a medical withdrawal will result in W’s. Evidence of assessment of a disabling condition at the claimed point of disablement is required (e.g., a professional indicating that a student had a disabling depression – several months prior to that professional actually meeting with the student-- would not likely be accepted as documentation.)
In the new school, make sure her clinical depression is registered with the disabilities office and connect her to a psychiatrist, counselor, or at least let a dean know. The disabilities office will provide letters for your niece to give to professors stating she is registered but won’t reveal why. Also consider tuition refund insurance. There are a lot of accomodations and supports available for medical/psychiatric issues and if there is ever any trouble in the future, it is good to pave the way.
I came back to check if this thread was still open, and indeed it is.
@compmom I rather not go into particulars in a public forum, but I can say she did not have the people with her best interests at heart surrounding her and a very messed-up family situation, a family who did their utmost to cover up her condition. I am not a doctor myself so I cannot say what directly caused her depression. She is continuing treatment intermittently, she has improved enough that it does not have to be intensive and she is adjusting to life as most children do at that age. I will definitely find out what the policy is at that school, I had just assumed she would have W’s instead of letter grades, thank you for pointing that out to me and your advice.
As for the second semester, we had contacted her psychiatrist who will write a detailed letter on her behalf of how her performance was affected by her condition for that specific semester, as many have advised here. I think (hope) that should do it, but time will tell.
I, and my niece, appreciate all your concern and advice, and don’t worry I will continue to monitor her health for as long as she wants to stay with me.
@panopticon Did niece not have any passing grades during these two semesters? All of the grades are F’s/E’s?
@compmom Is it college specific? I have a family member going through this now and is trying to clean up their son’s record. The dean (?) of the college said “no way no how does anything get wiped — but we’ll consider W’s for the previous two semesters if proper documentation is submitted.” Are expungements of semesters for medical reasons real? Is expungement above and beyond requesting retroactive medical W’s?
I only have experience on this issue with the colleges I have experiences with It may be something that can be done for kids who are registered with the disabilities office and have a known diagnosis. Retroactive is trickier. The experiences I have involve leaving on medical leave mid-semester and having grades wiped clean, but others on here have gotten similar actions after the fact. It may indeed depend.
