Damage control

Sarah is no first-year, however; she only has a few semesters until graduation and she knows what degree she wants and that she needs to pass this math course to get it. But the workload for the course is extremely heavy and she thinks she might already be too far behind to catch up. Should she abandon the class to focus on her other classes? That would also give her time to pick up extra shifts at work to pay to take the course again next semester.

“I’m just getting my ass kicked,” she says. “My other grades are suffering because that class is so demanding.”

“I guess the prof just doesn’t realize that we have other courses we need to be spending time on,” she laughs.

There are other considerations at play, however. First of all, UBC’s deadline for withdrawing from a course and being given a “W” was October 16th — before she had received a single mark from her professor. A “W” would show up on Sarah’s transcript but would not affect her overall GPA. But because it’s too late to drop the course, a failing mark would drag her GPA down.

But at UBC, flunking with a 20 per cent mark or with 45 per cent are very different situations. The university’s system of grading rewards students for making an effort, even if they failed. “UBC calculates averages as a percentage, so a fail isn’t just a zero like it would be on a four-point GPA system. There are different degrees of failure,” Sarah says. If she walks away from the course, she’ll end up with a grade around 10 per cent. So, making an effort and instead flunking with 40 per cent will be better for her overall average.

If it’s not too late to withdraw from a course with a “W” standing, withdrawing can save your GPA from the black mark of a bad grade, and it can free up time for you to focus on getting better grades in your other classes.

Even so, it’s not always the best idea to withdraw — there are trade-offs. Unless you withdraw very early in the semester, you probably won’t get your tuition refunded to you. Also, you’ll land up having to either take the course again or take a different course as a substitute. If you go around withdrawing from courses willy-nilly, you’re going to add semesters and even years to the time it’s going to take you to get your degree. If you have student loans, you also have to be careful not to drop so many classes that you lose your full-time status, because Canada Student Loans may ask for part of their money back.