question about W vs. Auditing Forum

[Gelato1]

Hello wise chorus of TLS,

Here's the stitch. I am a senior in her second to last semester of UG and have four non punitive Ws on my transcript. I switched from an Art History to a History major as Junior, so that's where a lot of those come from.

My family is going through a rough patch ( divorce ) and I myself am struggling with depression and anxiety. I am in a statistics class that would be manageable if I was functioning to my full capacity, but I am not.

I understand that the pressures of law school will be much greater than those in UG, and I plan to attend only if I feel confident in my ability to manage those stressors and expectations successfully.

I cannot take the class pass fail as it meets a graduation requirement. I do not wish to take it for a grade since I am on the cusp of a 3.5, and am not willing jeopardize any GPA improvement.

I am left with two options. I could with draw from the class, bringing myself to a total of five Ws ( which I feel uncomfortable about ) or I can see if I can audit the class.

What your advice? Cheers and thankyou

[A. Nony Mouse]

You may have looked into this already and it may be different where you are, but normally auditing will not fulfill a graduation requirement, so if you do need it for graduation, that may not be an option.

I don't think, though, that there's any substantive difference between 4 and 5 Ws on your transcript, so if you can, I would just withdraw.

[totesTheGoat]

I don't think I (as a hypothetical law school admissions counselor) would look at 5 Ws much different than 4 Ws. Make sure to write up a letter (I forget the official name for these "additional information" letters) that says the first 4 were so that you could switch majors and the 5th was because you had extenuating family circumstances and wanted to lessen your school burden to cope.

If I'm an admissions counselor, I look at a W during a family crisis as much more palatable than a 2.2 GPA semester because you were trying to do it all.

[Gelato1]

Dear A. Nony Mouse and totesTheGoat,

Thank-you for your responses. My dispassion for Art History accreted over time and as a result the Ws are spread throughout multiple semesters. Will this impact the validity of my addendum?

Again, many thanks

[totesTheGoat]

The answer to that is a good, solid "maybe." Welcome to law practice.

If you have 5 Ws spread over 5 different semesters, that starts looking like you habitually drop classes when they start getting hard. Thankfully that's just an impression, and if you write a nice essay that highlights how you struggled with a decision to stay the course in a major that you were not enjoying or switch majors, you may be able to completely wash any bad taste out of their mouths.

I would caution you against just jumping at another withdrawal, even though you're struggling a bit. You can craft a good explanation for 4 Ws en route to switching majors. You can craft an even better explanation for dropping your stats class because of family circumstances. Weaving both those explanations together may start to push the bounds of credibility. I'm not saying they ain't gonna buy it, but I am saying that questions will start to pop into the admissions folks' heads as to whether you have the direction and drive in your life to be able to deal with law school. It's probably not an application killer on its own, but if you have other red flags on your resume that amplify this concern, it may look bad. That's on you to judge. If you have an otherwise awesome resume, and this is the only real weakness, you're probably fine.

I'm not sure whether you're particularly prone to depression and anxiety, or whether this is just a thing that is happening due to the family issues, but this certainly isn't something that goes away in law school. I'm not particularly prone to depression, but there have been 2 or 3 significant periods where I was (likely clinically) depressed through my first 2.5 years of law school. If that sounds like something that may happen to you as well, know that it can be much harder to recover from decreased performance in law school because it's so competitive, and because Ws are harder to make up due to credit loads each semester.

If I were in your position, I would focus extra effort on the stats class. Force yourself to go to office hours. Force yourself to ask questions in class. Show yourself that you can persevere in the face of adversity. It's exactly the opposite of what your body is telling you to do (trust me, I know), but it pays so many dividends, both in the short term and in the long term. Like I said above, only you can gauge your specific situation, but sometimes hard work is therapeutic. Use the reduced stakes of undergrad to show yourself how well you can respond to adversity. Simply the fact that you're looking far enough ahead to be thinking about law school and the impressions on admissions counselors tells me that you're probably capable of more than you can imagine. In my experience, it is so empowering when I had a really rough semester and somehow powered through it.

tl;dr make sure you really want to withdraw. Be careful crafting your narrative around your Ws.

[Broncos15]

3.5 with 10 W's >>>>>> 3.4 with no W's

It's a numbers game for better or worse