This article is featured in the 2024 Freshman special issue.
Should you withdraw from a class?
Sometimes, the choice is a toss up. You don’t want a C, D or E on your transcript, but you also don’t want to pile up too many Ws instead — which appear when you withdraw from a course. And you definitely don’t want to let valuable tuition money go to waste. In many scenarios, students consider their current or projected grade to inform their decision. Other times, however, the thought process is precluded by missing information: What do you do if your grade isn’t yet final or even predictable?
Like many colleges, Dartmouth has academic calendar deadlines beyond which students are not allowed to withdraw from a course — typically around the beginning of week eight of a given term. Students need to understand how they are performing in the course prior to that deadline to make informed decisions. It is, after all, one that holds significant financial and academic implications for both students and colleges. In a survey conducted by Zion & Zion in 2019, 41% of college students surveyed reported withdrawing from a class in their first two years of a four-year program or their first year of a two-year program. The reasons behind those decisions included scheduling challenges, poor performance, dissatisfaction with style of teaching or course quality, changing majors, grade point average protection and unexpected personal circumstances.
At Dartmouth, the withdrawal system is quite standard. According to the Office of the Registrar website, students can withdraw until a certain deadline with no effect on GPA. A student is allowed up to three withdrawals over their course of study at the College. The withdrawal deadline is firm; the only opportunity to exceed it is by submitting a petition to the Registrar’s Committee on Withdrawals. Make no mistake, “almost none” of these special petitions are approved unless it is an extreme medical emergency or extenuating personal circumstance, according to the Dartmouth Organization, Regulations and Courses catalog.
However, a significant flaw in the withdrawal system remains: professors often do not provide enough grades, if any at all, for students to truly evaluate their performance until after the deadline — sometimes, not even until after finals week. In fact, students often complain that in classes where two midterms comprise a substantial portion of the final grade, professors organize their second midterm after the withdrawal deadline. One midterm alone, however, doesn’t account for all of the variables that can impact a final grade. Unforeseen circumstances or even just the increasing difficulty of a course throughout a term means a single midterm paints an imperfect picture of the student’s performance. But in classes with a second midterm after the withdrawal deadline, a student who does poorly on a second midterm often has no good way out. Given that academic performance is not considered a justification for a late withdrawal petition, a student’s GPA may suffer as a result. Is this a fair system?
The current withdrawal process amplifies an already pervasive culture of academic anxiety and competition at Dartmouth, inherent to the prestige of the institution. Research suggests that the immense pressure of grades — due to their impact on job prospects, financial aid and scholarship eligibility and graduate school admissions, among other factors — has a profound effect on student mental health. Yet, mental health may not necessarily be accepted by the Committee on Withdrawals as a valid reason for a late withdrawal, given the Committee’s stringent standards for successful petitions.
There needs to be a restructuring of the course withdrawal system in order to allow students to make the most informed decision possible, all the while also upholding professors’ autonomy to structure their courses. This reorganizing should involve several changes, such as extending the withdrawal deadline to a date immediately before finals week, so students can choose whether to unenroll with a holistic understanding of their performance. Additionally, the College should require professors to provide at least half of a student’s grade prior to the deadline to address the lack of grading transparency in some classes. In courses where medians or grading curves are enforced, students should know exactly where they stand relative to classmates — and what their prospects are of improving their grades by the end of the term. While some may argue that these changes will lead to an abuse of the withdrawal system, the limit to three uses over a student’s course of study would prevent mistreatment.
The decision to withdraw from a course is, without a doubt, challenging and necessitates strategic and careful decision-making. The College and faculty must reform the system so students can make informed decisions.
Opinion articles represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
