Opinions on W's?

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Hi everyone,

A little background on me: I finished my undergrad degree with latin honors in 2014 in a humanities major and worked for the family business and some part time public health work the year after graduating. Long story short, I've been looking into a bunch of healthcare careers since that's what I see myself doing in 10 years but never really narrowed it to down to anything specific.

My fiance moves to Boston for graduate school so I pick up and go with her. Not such a bad idea since there are a ton of hospitals here and i'm really hoping to get some healthcare experience out here. Originally I wanted to go the pre-med route, and started out this year with Physics and Chem. A RN friend of mine suggested I look into nursing, so I looked into a few accelerated nursing programs here and they all look very promising and a good fit for my personality. Nurse practitioner looks like something I really want to aspire to someday and I have a lot of respect for the RNs who took care of my grandparents during their cancer treatment.

My dilemma is that I'm not doing too well in my physics course, probably because the subject is so novel and this is the first math heavy science course I've taken since high school. I'm just wondering if it's horrible to drop it and its lab component for 2 W's (4 units total)? I checked with the accelerated nursing programs I plan on applying to and physics is not listed as a pre-requisite course, but I'm worried it will set off some red flags. I just don't think a C in a class that is unrelated to my pre-reqs is worth ruining my science gpa. Does anyone have any experience on this? I'm really leaning toward dropping the course and focusing on gaining volunteer experience and prepping for anatomy and my nursing pre-reqs.

Also, microbiology is listed as a pre-req for many schools but not biology. Do they assume you will take biology 1 and 2 prior to microbio?

Thank you!

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Specializes in NICU, Trauma, Oncology.

Call the program's you are applying to and ask them. Some programs factor in academic hardiness and will not accept Ws in a certain time period regardless of what the course was, some don't care.

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Specializes in NICU, Trauma, Oncology.

And yes bio is a pre few for micro so you will have to take that first

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Thanks. I checked a few programs and haven't seen them mention anything about W's so I may give them a call to confirm, and thanks for confirming taking the bio pre-reqs for microbio.

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Hi everyone,

A little background on me: I finished my undergrad degree with latin honors in 2014 in a humanities major and worked for the family business and some part time public health work the year after graduating. Long story short, I've been looking into a bunch of healthcare careers since that's what I see myself doing in 10 years but never really narrowed it to down to anything specific.

My fiance moves to Boston for graduate school so I pick up and go with her. Not such a bad idea since there are a ton of hospitals here and i'm really hoping to get some healthcare experience out here. Originally I wanted to go the pre-med route, and started out this year with Physics and Chem. A RN friend of mine suggested I look into nursing, so I looked into a few accelerated nursing programs here and they all look very promising and a good fit for my personality. Nurse practitioner looks like something I really want to aspire to someday and I have a lot of respect for the RNs who took care of my grandparents during their cancer treatment.

My dilemma is that I'm not doing too well in my physics course, probably because the subject is so novel and this is the first math heavy science course I've taken since high school. I'm just wondering if it's horrible to drop it and its lab component for 2 W's (4 units total)? I checked with the accelerated nursing programs I plan on applying to and physics is not listed as a pre-requisite course, but I'm worried it will set off some red flags. I just don't think a C in a class that is unrelated to my pre-reqs is worth ruining my science gpa. Does anyone have any experience on this? I'm really leaning toward dropping the course and focusing on gaining volunteer experience and prepping for anatomy and my nursing pre-reqs.

Also, microbiology is listed as a pre-req for many schools but not biology. Do they assume you will take biology 1 and 2 prior to microbio?

Thank you!

Check your programs you are applying to. Most will list on the website that there is a 2-3 attempt limit. A "W" is an attempt. It took me 3 years to complete my pre-reqs just because life happened and I had to drop classes here and there. I still got into both schools I applied to. They will go by your last attempt only while figuring your GPA or points if they are on a points system for ranking for acceptance.

Most schools require you to take Biology before taking Micro and/or A&P. My school didn't require Biology for acceptance, however, they gave extra points for completing it and for getting an "A."

So just do your research on your schools' websites to see what the limits and requirements are.

Best wishes! Good luck to you!!

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