At PenningPapers, one of the questions we are often asked is: “how bad is a W on your transcript?”

Remember, a W in your transcript indicates that you’ve withdrawn from a class. You may see in online communities and websites that a W is not as bad as one would think. After all, they do not count towards the GPA sent to admissions officers. However, the answer to this is not as black and white as it seems. Often times we hear clients tell us they were told that their W “does not matter at all” or “will make or break their entire application decision”.

Both of these answers are myth.

In fact, many cases of college application decisions are in gray areas. The multivariable nature of college applications makes decisions seldom ever decisive acceptances or rejections (save for GPA limitations, essay issues, and controversial activities in the transcript).

Here’s the reality of Ws on your transcript: depending on the context of the W, it can leave a negative impression of your application. The keyword here is “can”. You can also spin the W in your favor.

We’ll cover this more in depth in the sections below.

Table of Contents

1. How Bad Does a W Look on My Transcript?
2. Should I Withdraw From a Course?
3. What Should I Do if I Have a W in My Transcript?

How Bad Does a W Look on My Transcript?

Many of our clients ask how bad 1-2 Ws on their transcript look because they’re concerned that it would ruin any chances of getting into elite schools like Georgetown or John Hopkins.

The reality is that a W does not mean your chances of acceptance are thrown right out the window. Many students have at least one class anomaly, whether it be a B in their major-related course, a withdrawal, or a P/NP.

Don’t forget that a W is NOT a failed class. All a W tells admissions officers is that you withdrew from the class for reasons unknown.

Now, when considering school competitiveness, number of applicants, and the major the student is applying for, the severity of a W on a transcript may change.

If you’re applying for a school with an acceptance rate of over 50%, you’re generally fine with a few Ws. If you are applying for a school with an acceptance rate of less than 50%, you may want to provide some explanations for your W. This is because competitive schools need to sort through their application pool with a fine tooth comb.

Note also that these are not hard and fast rules. As we mentioned previously, the college application process is filled with nuance and gray areas. The admissions office typically must rely on qualitative measurements such as application essays to make a more solid decision on an applicant’s fit for the school. There is only so much someone can take from a B or a withdrawal from a class.

If you’re applying to a school like Northwestern and you have 2 Ws in your major-related courses, the admissions office may be wary of your academic performance in your selected major. Thus, it is critical that you prove to them that you can handle the academic course load and explain the reasons for your withdrawal.

Should I Withdraw From a Course?

People sometimes ask us whether they should withdraw from a course. This is a good question because withdrawing and staying both have their advantages.

On one hand, withdrawing from a course may help lighten your academic load and increase the overall GPA you send to the admissions office. It may also give you more time to pursue other interests such as personal projects or extracurriculars that you could use to further boost the strength of your application.

However, staying in a class also shows that you can handle the academic rigor of a course without bailing out. It also shows you can maintain a proper stable academic trend that likely will not change when you attend university. This is crucial to many schools. Academic stability means that there are no sharp and sudden fluctuations in your transcript. It means you’ll most likely do equally if not better in your academic performance at university.

Universities must be reassured that you can maintain academic stability because sudden dips in performance are quite common for many schools. Incoming Freshman enter a new environment and more than likely have to grapple with adulthood for the first time; so, fluctuations in academic performance are common and can ruin the university’s reputation.

Thus, if you have a few Ws in your transcript, one of the impressions it may give the admissions office is that you are someone who cannot maintain academic stability without having a few unforeseen fluctuations like sudden withdrawals.

So, should you withdraw from your course? Everyone’s circumstances are different, sure. But, we provided a few pointers that may help your decision.

1. You should withdraw from a class if you know the teacher or professor is abusive, toxic, or generally a net negative to your academic experience if you stayed there.
2. You should withdraw from a class if you know for certain you cannot achieve the grade you desire even if you used every available resource and exhausted all your available time.
3. You should withdraw from a class if earning the grade you desire requires taking time away from your other classes and performing poorly in them. (For example, to get an A in computer science, you need to lower your As in History, English, and Chemistry to a B.)
4. You should withdraw from a class if you notice it takes too much time away from building meaningful healthy relationships, networking, valuable extracurriculars, possible internship experiences, and important projects or startups.

Of course, everyone’s transcript is different. To truly know whether you should withdraw from a course, you may want to consider speaking with a college admissions advisor and consultant. We can provide you with a free 30-minute phone consultation to discuss the content of your transcript and whether you can afford to withdraw a class considering the schools you’re applying for.

What Should I Do if I Have a W in My Transcript?

We’ll keep it short. You need to put the W in your transcript into context.

So, what does that mean? It means you need to explain to the admissions officers either through an application essay, an additional comments section, or an email to the office of admissions just exactly what was going on with your W.

The key here is to explain your W in a manner that not only describes why you withdrew from the course, but also changes any negative impressions into a positive one. The best way to do this is to articulate your reason for withdrawing the course and backing up the reason with a mature and understandable perspective.

Here’s an example.

Let’s say you’re looking to apply to a university for Mechanical Engineering. It is helpful take a higher level of math for this major; so, you took the highest level of math available for your year. However, you realized the course was too difficult for you. So, you withdrew from the class at the time. The W on the transcript could leave an impression that you simply skipped the course because you could not handle the academic course load. This can be bad because it would demonstrate academic insufficiency in your particular field.

Thus, you could write in the college application essay that the reason for withdrawing from the course was because you simply could not maintain academic stability for the time due to the unique circumstances of the course. Perhaps you had unresolved anxiety issues concerning the course, and had to withdraw from it unexpectedly. Or, you went through issues in mental health that made tackling the course impossible for the time.

Regardless of your reason, it is important to explain any holes in your transcript, whether they be low grades or a W, with valid reasons that paint a better picture for the admissions office.

Now, you can spin this to demonstrate some of your strengths as well.

Let’s say you have a few Ws in multiple classes connected to your Mechanical Engineering major. You can explain to the admissions office that you decided to withdraw from your classes because you were not in the right position to learn at your full capacity for classes that were most important to your future field. Thus, it is because you took Ws in those major-related fields that you take your learning experience seriously.

Explaining your Ws in this way would help show you took on a mature stance on your academic experience. It shows you took your academics seriously enough to know when it was the right time to withdraw from a class, and shows the admissions officers that you will use the withdrawal option in a meaningful way that serves your educational experience rather than helps you “game the system”.

If you have any further questions about a W on your transcript, or you want more in-depth advice on how to handle a W on your transcript, don’t be afraid to give us a call. Schedule a free 30-minute phone consultation, and we will get back to you within 24 hours to provide you with as expert college admissions advising and counselling.