Academic Poll: Drop It Like It's Hot?

My undergraduate institution allowed drops without academic penalty or need for permission until about 2/3 of the way through the semester (week 9 of a 14 week term). I never had occasion to find out the policy at my grad school.

Setting drop date at about 2/3 of the way through the term seems like a sensible middle ground between allowing students to get out of courses they couldn't handle, and faculty expending resources on students who do not complete the course. So I would vote for a similar policy at your school. That would put me in group (c): set your drop date to the end of week 6 (or early in week 7) out of 10.

For the mirror image question--how late in the semester you can add a course without special permission--the policy at my undergraduate school was about 1/3 of the way into the term (week 5 of 14). Again, I never had occasion to learn the policy at my grad school. I can see why the add policy should be stricter than the drop policy (after the 1/3 point there will often have been at least one midterm, so catching up is more difficult). In your calendar, that would correspond to add date falling at the end of week 3 out of 10.

Second week. Faculty. One of the things you are supposed to learn is planning and managing your time, and two weeks into the course you have all the information you need to make a decision and stick with it (unless something dramatic happens later in the semester, which is what special permissions are for). Having a bunch of students kind of showing up, kind of learning the material, and kind of contributing to the discussion, whenever they feel like it, is not the ideal way to run a class.

I'd vote for end of the fourth week, for aesthetic reasons. The physical world gives you a similar out, in terms of other journeys - if you decide you don't like the trip you're on, as long as turning out results in a shorter trip than staying the course, it makes sense to turn around.

At the University of Toronto you can drop a course "without academic penalty" about halfway through the semester.

I prefer a system where a student can drop a course whenever they want but it goes on their transcript as "dropped" or "withdrew." That way we have a complete record of a student's activity at university and anyone who looks at the transcript, such as employers or professional schools, can see which courses were attempted and abandoned.

I'm a faculty member.

Fourth (former student). Two weeks is sometimes too short to determine whether you're a good fit for the class (or if the class is a good fit for you!).

I only ever dropped one course when I was working on my B.S. It was a analytical/scientific commentary writing course, and I didn't find out until almost the last moment for dropping that the teacher was a little insane/picky/ arbitrary with his general writing and grammar grading. I would have spent (read: wasted) hours of my time trying to decipher what he was looking for. I believe the cutoff for our uni was approximately 2 weeks. Glad I snagged it, but it was too close for comfort.

It depends on the prof with how quickly you can tell what you're getting into. Usually two weeks is sufficient. Four weeks gives students no excuse for not backing out when they could, but isn't so much that they can drop just because they're not doing the work.

If tuition is non-refundable, who cares what happens after the check clears? Education is a business selling process swaddled in advertising. Its markets have no explicit use for its products - but they hunger to supply its various consumptions.

Sports is the essence of contemporary education. Coaches get seven-figure salaries for managing their units not for producing diplomas.

E - 10 weeks. Why not? Tuition is non-refundable. If the student wants to punt at any time, well, why not.

Dave

The school I attended as a student had tiered policy:

Week 1 with a refund of (most) tuition
Week 4 with no notation of the course on the record
Beyond that only with instructor approval

It always seemed a reasonable balance to me.

I think it is useful to encourage students to try to tackle difficult courses, and to that end it should be realistically possible to try a course for real but to withdraw without a blemish on one's permanent report. I would therefore let the students withdraw up to and slightly after the first major assignment. That probably pushes the no-penalty drop date back to the fourth week or so.

I am neither a student nor a faculty member.

Former student: By the end of the second week.

Two weeks seems like a short period of time, but on trimesters it really is a decent ways in. Two more weeks and you probably have your first major paper due.

However, that is from my perspective as a former student at a small residential liberal arts college, that took a rather en loco parentis attitude to academic advising. There was also a pretty stict limit on credits (both minimum and maximum)so you didn't have lots room to mess around.

Give them until just after they've got their first exam back.

When I was at Stanford in the 1980s, their policy was to allow dropping at any time without penalty. Furthermore, they had a no-fail policy: failed courses vanished from the record. They genuinely wished to encourage students to stress-test their limits, try courses outside their requirements and comfort zone, and explore freely. It worked well. Our education benefited.

Along those lines, it was impossible to "drop out." One could "stop out" at any time, without paperwork, and without penalty. I did this repeatedly to work my way through school. You could show up on registration day, any registration day, and pick up where you left off, no questions asked. Stories of one woman who left for thirty years, raised her family, and returned without hassle. They even gave the choice of graduating under the current requirements or the requirements of the time at which you left.

I appreciated being treated as a responsible adult by the institution (especially at a time in my life when it might reasonably be argued that I was not one.)

I think this is why campus-wide policies aren't the best ideas: I think students should be able to drop after I return their first paper. The way I see it: I spend four and a half weeks teaching them how to perform a certain set of skills, but if they haven't acquired them in that short span of time, they should be able to drop and learn them again next quarter. (Who knows, maybe they didn't click with my pedagogical methods, but another instructor can reach them; or maybe they just needed to see the material twice before it clicked.) Which means, basically, I think they should have until the end of Week 5 to drop from my class, but your mileage may (and should) vary.

Quite late, on the grounds that not all professors are as wonderful as we are.

In my undergrad years I dropped a course in the foundations of Quantum Mechanics. It only turned sour late in the term, owing in part to the failure of a professor the previous year to teach us the prerequisite mathematics. I dropped out and signed up for fluid mechanics.

I am very glad I didn't have to go through any bureaucratic process to get permission to drop that course. I really, really, didn't have time for that.

As far as I can recall people who dropped my courses did so early, but I wouldn't have been bothered if they did so late.

Students should not be allowed to drop any courses ever. Period. In fact, students should not be allowed to choose what courses to take. A well-rounded curriculum is a well-rounded curriculum and people 17-22 years of age as a rule do not have enough knowledge to built one for themselves. In most cases, student choice is counterproductive to a good education. For example, most of graduate students I know have never taken statistics as undergrads. This is totally ridiculous in any biomedical field. They all must be forced to take statistics. Esle, they don't deserve whatever degree it is that they earn. Biochemist without understanding the difference between SE and SD is not a good biochemist.

Faculty. One week after the first exam (assuming that they have results by then). Some folks clearly just don't get that they don't get it until then; but after that, buck up or go elsewhere.

Caveat: I just finished grading such an exam ...

We have the drop without comment in the first two weeks/withdraw with comment up to 2/3 of the way through at our school. Since it hasn't been stated yet, I'll add another reason for this time frame: other classes. Rather than have the student struggle and receive mediocre to substandard grades in three to five classes, dropping the one class where they are in over their heads really helps with the others.

There is also the fact that, at least in the physics and math departments, the supposed prerequisites listed for the classes are terrible. The department should be honest about what is required, instead of misleading the students by telling them that whatever math they need past the calc series they can pick up on the side. No, they can't. In particular, you can't assume that students can absorb whatever they need to know about differential equations in a course that assumes at a minimum you know what a Bessel function is, or even something as basic as separability.

I think students should be free to drop their courses at any point in the semester - though without reimbursement after, say, week three. Our students are adults, and paying customers to boot. Universities would do well to begin treating them like it.

I'm staff, but not faculty.

What about the corollary:
"Don't want to withdraw, can I Audit instead?"
Do you favor a firm policy or take these requests on a case-by case basis?

Faculty

The department should be honest about what is required, instead of misleading the students by telling them that whatever math they need past the calc series they can pick up on the side. No, they can't.

Thank you, SoV, for saying this. According to the official course catalog from my undergraduate school, the prerequisites for the advanced undergrad E&M course were the Differential Equations course and the Waves and Vibrations course, both normally taken by fall of sophomore year. Maybe that would work in most departments, but this department used Jackson for said E&M course. You really need more preparation than the official requirements to be able to handle Jackson, especially when the professor is incapable of teaching undergraduates (as was the case when I took this class). At least Jackson reviews the needed math methods, but there isn't time to teach those methods to students who have never encountered them before *and* teach them some E&M.

"Don't want to withdraw, can I Audit instead?"

Seems to me like the answer to "can I audit" should always be "yes." An auditor is someone who is really only interested in the material for its own sake, willing to come to class every day with nothing to show for it at the end but a better understanding. I think wanting to drop after 4 weeks is pushing it -- feels sort of like cheating, not to take the grade you've earned, once the course is half or more than half over (so I guess that means my answer to the poll is "B") but if a student wanted to drop and then audit, I'd be much more sympathetic. Shows they care.

Hmmm, my first response was by the end of the second week. Then I thought, "ya know, I actually don't understand this whole dropping a class thing." I've never done it...never needed, wanted, or even vaguely considered it. So why did I think two weeks? Because that was usually the policy laid out at the beginning of most all of my classes.

I know there were a few times when I got pretty despondent after the first exams came back, but I always just bucked up and limped through with whatever grade I got. Fortunately I was always able to retake the class for a higher grade.

So, I would have to say that two or three days after the first exams have been scored would be pretty fair. No refunds however. Part of the point of college is learning to be responsible with time and resources, in my opinion.

Student, btw

At the end of the tenth week; mark 'em as "W".

If they want to waste their time and money, why not let them? Or, conversely, if they think they need another go-round and don't want that bad grade, why not let 'em do that?

Assuming, of course, that there aren't students waiting to take the course who can't get in because it's full. Then you might want to make sure everyone who starts, finishes.

Faculty (and by definition, former student)

Roughly 1/3 of the way through the class, although it should show up on their transcript if the last longer than 10% of the course. I understand students may not "know" what they are getting into, but the isn't the buffet line.

For those who think, if the tuition is paid no biggie. What about the instructor's time and effort? Do we enjoy being rewarded for our effort with "eh, I guess Im done." in week 9? While the tuition is paid to the university it is not paid to instructors. If I have 200 students or 250 students my salary is the same.

Also, dropped students can effect the entire class. Should we ban all forms of group projects and work and simply go back to lecture only formats? I speak, you listen, end of story-type classes.

*leaves $0.02 on the counter*

The drop policy at my university is up to ~2 weeks with no financial penalty, then up to ~ half way through the semester with no transcript penalty, then later with a transcript mark for withdrawing.

I favor a late enough drop deadline that students can judge whether the class is appropriate for them â is the instructor doing a good job and is the material taught at a level appropriate for that students. But I very much dislike late drop deadlines. My problem with late drops is that too many students use it as a safety net if they gamble on passing a class without working much or at all. Though most students work hard in their classes, I have had many students [a minority, but a relatively large minority at my university] who put very little effort into their classes. In my large undergrad class I see these students skip all lectures, often don't even buy the book, but take a couple exams, then bail when they are failing the class. My interpretation is that they enroll in classes they need to graduate, but have no interest in, and take a couple exams in the hopes that the class is easy enough to pass without much effort. If they are failing, they just drop with no cost. This works in many classes because so many instructors are either too easy or hate failing students no matter how poorly they do (I think this because I regular see some of my advisees failing or dropping all of their harder science classes and acing many of their university studies classes).

Though the strategy of gambling to pass without effort doesn't work in my class (I give essay exams in genetics, and you can't pass unless you are well prepared to write out longhand answers to questions) it does work in a lot of general studies classes, especially those with fairly simple (often poorly written) multiple choice exams where it is not hard to guess your way to a 60%. The late drop deadline allows students to gamble on a free (or cheap) passing grade without penalty - just drop if the gamble fails. An earlier drop deadline would prevent this since students can't afford to be lazy in class without risk of a failing grade. Of course, the alternative is to have more rigorous classes at all stages, but I know that won't happen, so I argue for earlier drop deadlines to discourage this sort of behavior.

I am probably a cynic, but I get very frustrated by students (again, a minority but not a small minority) who treat the requirement that they attend class and study as part of the cost of their degree, to be avoided if possible. As long as we have a large number of students who treat the degree itself, rather than their education, as the objective of going to college, students will game the system. Their successes at gaming the system reduce the value of our degrees for other students. I thus favor earlier drop deadlines that make it clear that if you enroll in this class you are expected to dedicate time to the class and not waste my time, or that of your classmates, gambling on a free pass from an easy instructor.

Of the options listed, I'd vote for 4 weeks. The university I attended had a 2 week limit in a 16 week semester. I like the idea of having a bit more time to figure out exactly what you are going to do. I'd consider 3 weeks in a 10 week semester a good compromise, too. Any longer and you're just inviting students to sign up for anything and wait a month or two before actually deciding what to do. Knowing the low levels of maturity that many students have, too many would find themselves goofing off and then dropping classes as a waste of time. By forcing them to chose in the first third of the semester, they can't dig themselves an entirely impossible hole to escape.

Faculty.

I was a student in a quarter system (10 weeks plus finals) and teach in a semester system (14 weeks plus finals, thus losing 2 weeks of physics to your system).

Our CC only allows a "drop" during the first week of class. I think my undergrad quarter system was similar. After that, you get a grade of W with a deadline right around the 66% point. I don't recall any scheme for a later drop or withdrawal at my undergrad school, which includes when I was a TA for math classes that had some attrition.

Assuming you are going to allow withdrawals, the rationale for 6 weeks is that many quarter system classes have just one midterm, and the prof might need a week to get it back to the students. You do need at least one exam before deciding to withdraw from a class! In addition, the 60% point is the second reporting period for federal financial aid purposes.

I see no rationale for 10 weeks. Might as well wait until after the final exam and ask each student if they want to keep their grade or drop it. Well, I do see one reason to do it: keeping your customers happy with what they get for their $$$$.

Neither Faculty nor Student.

Two weeks or up to the first exam for refund of tuition.

At any time let a student say "Naah, skip the grade and credit" without refund of tuition and fees. This might, in fact, encourage only more serious students to take the class, as is isn't a no-pain decision.

How does this hurt the class? I can't see it. A non-participating student doesn't affect the teaching in any way, and since most classes are a fixed number of seats, the load isn't greater on a prof who has a number of non-grading students.

How does this hurt the class? I can't see it. A non-participating student doesn't affect the teaching in any way, and since most classes are a fixed number of seats, the load isn't greater on a prof who has a number of non-grading students.

First you ask the question, then stat your ignorance, then make an adamant conclusion. Creationist much?

In a class where you simply come in as a student and have the instructor vomit information at you for the appropriate time and then you leave. I would agree that a non-participating student has minimal impact on the teaching. But have you ever taken a class?

You are correct there are limited number of seats. So every seat taken by someone just testing the water, takes a seat from someone who either needs to course to graduate (usually there are systems to deal with this) or someone who is serious about the course. Before you suggest the awesome idea of simply increasing the number of seats, not all classes are instructor vomit classes. How does that work for a lab class? a speech class?

Finally, I would argue that most classes are not simply instructor vomit-at-you classes. Yes many are heavily biased that way, but even those will have participation-discussion-group project-etc components. In these situations a non-participating student is a detriment to the class in general and the other students specifically.

So there you go. Now you know how it hurts a class, you can finally see it or at least imagine it. By participating here, you have facilitated your own education and probably that of others as well. Its almost ironic.