Correction: The link provided was previously incorrect and changed to the correct form.
There were approximately a little over 18,000 EW’s that were requested last spring semester. This spring semester there is a total of 9,062 W’s, according to the vice president of student services at LBCC.
Kelly Truong, a LBCC student said, “During the winter intersession, I was taking two classes: Abnormal Psychology and Counseling 49. In the middle of break, the misfortunes of COVID-19 and caused me to constantly move around California.”
The pandemic has been a challenging time for many people. Some students decided to request W’s for their course(s) because of a variety of reasons. Such as Truong who didn’t want her GPA to drop.
“Specifically the misfortunes (I faced) were food insecurity, home insecurity and the instability made it hard and impossible for me to get an A in both classes and I was holding a good GPA so I didn’t want any of my classes to drop my GPA total. Therefore I dropped my Counseling 49 class which was the best decision ever,” said Truong.
According to Corral vice president of student services at LBCC, some other reasons students would want to receive a W would be; the class isn’t what it seems to be, the course was harder than students expected, an emergency reason, or the course isn’t required for a student’s declared major to name a few.
During the spring semester of 2020, a new system of withdrawing from a course was introduced, said Corral.
One of the changes was, a student can receive an EW past the normal deadline, if a student experienced an emergency, hardship, or something outside of students control due to COVID-19 without being penalized for it.
To get an EW on transcripts, students can use doctor’s or hospitalization notes as documentation. Hardships from COVID-19 can also be used to request an EW.
Students can fill out a form in order to get an EW on their transcript, the form is called, Appeal for Excused Withdrawal, and can be found online through the Admissions and Records office website.
Students can drop a class before the withdrawal date depending on the semester and the course. For example, if a student was enrolled in an Anatomy Lab class for the spring semester, and the student drops the class after the deadline, the W will show on the transcript but if students drop before the deadline it will not be visible on the transcript
It is the students job to drop a course by the deadline to avoid any financial obligations or to avoid W, NP, F grades.
Despite that, recieving an EW does not count towards a students GPA and it doesn’t count as a repeated course either.
According to LBCC Vice President of Student Services, Nohel Corral, “The biggest impact of W’s happened during the 2020 spring semester when the pandemic and COVID hit.”
“I encourage students to meet with a counselor at LBCC, so that one we can look at the patterns of W’s that may or may not exist and a counselor will be able to tell you based off a college that your wanting to attend, basically what number of W’s is acceptable to stay around,” said Corral.
Students at LBCC only get three chances to get a passing grade in a repeated class before having to take it at another local city college or university.
However, students are generally encouraged to stay away from receiving too many withdrawals during their academic career because some colleges only accept a certain amount of W’s on students’ transcript but students should steer away from too many withdrawals
Withdrawal dates are different this spring semester. For students who took 16 week classes, May 2 was the last date to receive a W.
Then, there’s also late start classes which students had until May 20 to receive a W.
As we can see the number of excused withdrawals improved this spring semester compared to last spring. COVID-19 has affected students and the numbers can attest to that.
The transfer center, admissions and records office, and counselors are available to assist students with any questions and concerns they have in regards to receiving an EW or W in any classes.