Hello everyone,

I recently had surgery and was unable to participate in any activities (including work) for a few weeks.  This experience made me start thinking about what happens to students and their grades when they have some sort of medical issue during a semester.  If you’ve read any of my previous entries on this blog, you can probably guess that my first piece of advice if you have to miss a significant number of classes due to illness or surgery is: tell people what’s going on.  You should keep your instructors informed of what’s happening with you.  Depending on the situation, you might also consider discussing your situation with your advisor and/or one of the administrators within the academic affairs division of your college or university.  In some of these situations, not completing a course within the current semester is a student’s best option.

The rules for how to deal with such situations vary from institution to institution but this site gives a pretty good overview of your options.  Most institutions distinguish between dropping a course, withdrawing from a course and receiving a grade of incomplete for a course.  Dropping a course is usually something that is done early in a semester, before a significant portion of the work for the semester has come due.  Such a course will not appear on the your transcript in any way and if the drop happens early enough, you may even get a refund for part or all of the tuition you paid for the course.  There is typically a drop deadline and if you miss that deadline and then later need to get out of the course, you might be able to withdraw from the course.  A withdrawal often shows up on the your transcript as a grade of “W” and you will probably receive no refund for the course.  Some institutions will also distinguish between a withdrawal that occurs when you have a passing grade and a withdrawal that occurs when you are failing the course (which might be indicated by a grade of “WF”).  Finally, if an illness occurs very late in a semester, after you have completed much of the work for the course, you may be able to receive a grade of “Incomplete” for the course.  This provides an extension for you to complete the work in the course, probably in the next semester, after the medical issue has been resolved.  This is a great option for such a situation because you will not have to retake the entire course or pay for the course again.  Most faculty members will only allow incomplete grades in clearly defined situations, however.

The worst thing to do if a medical issue arises during a semester is to stop going to your classes without taking to anyone about it.  You don’t have to tell people the nature of your medical issue but let them know what’s going on so you can deal with it in a manner that is least costly to you.

Have I missed any options?
Cathie