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Does withdrawing from a unit affect competitiveness?

I'm studying Human Biology and wish to get into a Physiotherapy post-graduate course! I got really lazy in one of my units, was planning to catch up last week but my dog unexpectedly passed away and I lost the motivation to do anything. So at the moment I have 4 assignments due for this unit on Monday, but I also have an exam on the Monday. I'm doing pretty good in the unit too (77%).

Right now this is my logic. If I have to do these 4 assignments, I won't have time to study for my exam on Monday. If I have to do the exam for this unit, I won't have time to study for the exam I have a few days afterwards. Basically keeping this unit will drag down all my grades. So is it better to withdraw from a unit and have it appear on your academic record and get better marks in your other units? I will take the unit i'm contemplating dropping again next year and do well, but i'm not sure if having a higher course weighted average is worth having a withdrawn fail on my transcript!

Reply 1

Klix88

It will depend on the university, so you need to check their regulations.

At my university, you had to pass all of your units in order to graduate. Withdrawing was not permitted as you were enrolled on the number of units required to fulfil the number of credits which qualify you for a degree. If you failed an exam, you just retook it later in the summer. If you failed the coursework, you had to resubmit it later in the summer. If you failed again, there were two options - either you retook the individual units or if there were a lot of them, you retook the entire year.

My gut feeling is that you probably won't have the option to "withdraw" from a unit unless your uni can offer a way of making up the lost credits. The best you'll most likely be able to do is prepare yourself to fail the unit and resit/resubmit in a couple of months when you're better prepared.