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Late Drops and Graduate school

Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 5:50 pm
by moleculeboy
Hey,

At my university if you drop a class after the first two weeks then they list it as a "Q-drop" on your transcript. This has always seemed funny to me, but someone told me it looks bad for graduate school ( to late drop a upper division physics class). Is this really true?

Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:28 pm
by quizivex
All depends on who you ask. But yes some people see all kinds of infamy in a withdraw or "Q-drop". Some people won't care, but others will think you left it because you were doing poorly and wanted to save your GPA, or were afraid of failing. They won't know if you dropped the class 2 weeks and 1 day after it started, or waited until the very last minute. I got all kinds of criticism for withdrawing an <deleted for anonymity> class of all things.

I enrolled in the course because I was kicked out of a math class when they moved the time which created a scheduling conflict with physics, and wanted to finish the <deleted for anonymity> core. But after the 2 week period I found out it wasn't the right 'type' of <deleted for anonymity>class and I wouldn't get core credit for it. The class was pretty miserable too. The prof was teaching ideas that seemed wrong to me and to other students, and he was giving bad grades too. So I just withdrew.

While I think it's a legit withdraw, the impression I'm getting is that it's frowned upon to give reasons or excuses for blemishes on one's record, so I probably won't list the explanation on my application, and people looking at my record could come up with all kinds of retarded theories about my ability for graduate study based on the 'W'. But in both of our cases it shouldn't be a big deal as long as we don't withdraw again. Good luck.

Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 3:01 am
by Helio
I talked to one of my profs about it. It looks "bad" if you withdraw from a major class. Since It seems as if you just took it to get the material and practice and then do good the next time around. If it a random class that you realized you had no time for, you can simply drop it and nobody will really care.