The problem with D’s is that if you decide you’ve had it with your current school, D’s (and in some cases, C minuses) do not transfer, so while you can still get college credit for the D at your current school, it means absolutely nothing at another school.

There’s nothing wrong with a W; some schools and employers would see it as courageous; it means you realized before getting a bad grade that you were going to abandon the class.

Multiple W’s shows a pattern of behavior that might NOT be seen as positive, however. I would say the most W’s you want on your transcript is 2.

Incompletes and the rules governing incompletes differ from school to school, but many of the schools in my state (MD) say incomplete is a ‘transitory’ grade, as in, it doesn’t stick around. It means you are missing something, and any credit is being withheld until you complete what is missing. Here, an incomplete can only stick around for a certain amount of time; if a professor reports that the necessary work to remove an incomplete is not done in a reasonable amount of time (like before the next semester begins), then the Incomplete becomes and ‘F’.

A ‘no pass’ (known in many schools as a ‘fail’) is just like getting an F.

Again, it counts on your school, but there are normally rules governing pass/no pass or pass/fail:

(1) There are only certain classes that can be taken this way. For example, at my old school, no 100 or 200 level courses could be taken “pass/fail”.

(2) You must declare that you want to take the class in this manner

(3) There is a time limit in which you must comply. At my school for my first degree, there was a drop/add deadline, a pass/fail deadline, and a withdraw deadline. So, if you missed drop/add deadline, you would have to withdraw from a class, if you missed pass/fail you would have to take it as a letter grade, and if you missed the withdraw deadline, and you stopped coming, you would automatically get an ‘F’.

Withdraw if you still can; that would be my advice.

Good luck!

SD

Your best option would be to take the class as a pass/fail. But this will only work if you are doing well enough to get a pass. Otherwise, you are in the same situation as getting an F.

If that doesn’t work, your next best option would be to withdrawl from the class. A W doesn’t really look that great on your transcript, but as long as you only have a couple, it isn’t so bad.

Students get incompletes when they don’t turn in assignments or take the final. The professor turns in the grade of “I” and waits for you to make up the material. If you don’t make it up within a certain amount of time, the “I” will turn over to an “F”. You don’t want this to happen.

One withdrawl shouldn’t hurt you. When you start having 4 or 5, thats a problem. Obviously, it doesn’t look good – but it shows that you realized you were not equipped for the class at that time, and made a resposible decision to withdraw from it, as opposed to the F. By the way dropping and withdrawing are different. Dropping will not show on your record at all. It is like you have never signed up.

An incomplete is OK. You have to speak with your professor, he/she has to approve it and file the paperwork. Usually this is only allowed when a student has outstanding circumstances, but it is at the discretion of the professor… so talk to him/her. As far as what happens with an incomplete… you usually have 4-6 weeks into the following sememster to complete the work. Incompletes have to change into a grade at some point. This does, however, give you extra time to complete your assignments, and maybe redo a few.

Pass/fail is OK as well. If you only have one or two of these, it’s really not bad. Most colleges will overlook them as areas that you struggled in, but don’t have to many. Also, pass/fail classes don’t usually transfer, or not to fulfill any requirements at least. (They typically transfer as electives).

Keep in mind, the class will only transfer if you recieved the credits. Beyond that, many classes will not transfer into what you want them to fulfill, but will instead transfer as an elective. You will have to talk to the school you are considering transfering to , to find out how this class will transfer.