How bad is it to withdraw from a law school class?
Posted: Thu Sep 19, 2019 10:56 am
I'm a 3L and have accepted an offer from a biglaw firm after I graduate.
I've never withdrawn from a class after the drop deadline, not even in undergrad. However, this semester I may have taken on more than I can handle. Basically, the gist is that I have an interest in a STEM field as a hobby and my law school allows us to cross-register in its undergrad courses for law school credit (though it doesn't count towards our GPA/latin honors, the letter grade from the host school shows up on our transcript). I cross-registered in an undergrad course in said field last spring semester and it went great. I really enjoyed it and it was a nice respite from law school classes.
This semester, I decided to cross-register in a slightly more ambitious course in this field and soon realized that I didn't have the rigorous math background necessary to succeed in the course. It's not a matter of not having enough time, but not having had enough preparation. I thought I'd be ok dropping it because I'm within the undergrad's drop deadline, but unfortunately I missed the law school drop deadline. I just discovered that students have to drop by the earlier deadline to avoid a "W" on their transcript.
Basically I'm concerned about how a "W" in a non-law class would look to the firm I've accepted an offer from. I feel like this is a fairly detailed/nuanced question and don't want to bother recruiting with it if it's really not a big deal at all.
I've never withdrawn from a class after the drop deadline, not even in undergrad. However, this semester I may have taken on more than I can handle. Basically, the gist is that I have an interest in a STEM field as a hobby and my law school allows us to cross-register in its undergrad courses for law school credit (though it doesn't count towards our GPA/latin honors, the letter grade from the host school shows up on our transcript). I cross-registered in an undergrad course in said field last spring semester and it went great. I really enjoyed it and it was a nice respite from law school classes.
This semester, I decided to cross-register in a slightly more ambitious course in this field and soon realized that I didn't have the rigorous math background necessary to succeed in the course. It's not a matter of not having enough time, but not having had enough preparation. I thought I'd be ok dropping it because I'm within the undergrad's drop deadline, but unfortunately I missed the law school drop deadline. I just discovered that students have to drop by the earlier deadline to avoid a "W" on their transcript.
Basically I'm concerned about how a "W" in a non-law class would look to the firm I've accepted an offer from. I feel like this is a fairly detailed/nuanced question and don't want to bother recruiting with it if it's really not a big deal at all.