Ok, so I withdrew from the godawful anthropology class before the deadline to withdraw was up–I even emailed the professor to make sure that there would be no “W” on my transcript. Low and behold, a week later he emails me back saying there is. What do I do?!
It varies across colleges, but there are usually two different deadlines. The first deadline is to drop a class in order to get a (full or partial) tuition refund. This is typically within the first couple of weeks. If you drop before this deadline, you get a full or partial tuition refund, and the course is dropped from your transcript; you never took the course.
The second deadline is to withdraw from a course without receiving a letter grade. This is typically about 2/3 or 3/4 of the way through the term. You do not receive any refund for this, because you took most of the course. However, it ends up on your transcript as a ‘W’ grade. This is usually outside your professor’s control.
At many colleges, there is some sort of grade petition process. Find out what it is and petition to have the ‘W’ grade removed from your transcript. Be prepared to have a good reason, and you might pull it off.