<p>@ thisislife</p>
<p>"Tell me, at the end of the day , who looks smarter</p>
<p>Student A who has 3 w’s since his bio and programing classes were driving him insane .
OR
Student B who has 2 F’s and a D since he was trying to stick it out in classes he was struggling in ."</p>
<p>The answer to this question might not be as obvious as it seems. I know there is a prevailing view on this site that since Ws do not affect your GPA you can get as many of them as you want without it harming your chances of admission to a UC. However, I am very skeptical about that.</p>
<p>If I was an admissions officer at a UC and saw 3 Ws I certainly would not assume the student dropped the classes because he was getting As in them and did not want his GPA to be so high it would embarrass other applicants. The logical assumption is that the student was failing the courses and took the Ws to avoid Ds or Fs that would hurt his or her GPA. Furthermore, I would probably think that instead of having the mental toughness to try to finish the courses with passing grades the student just gave up and took the easy way out. I would not be surprised if admissions officers at the UCs would view a large number of Ws on an applicant’s transcripts as red flags regarding both their academic ability and character.</p>