Sorry, wrong number.

This is a tale about a student named Greg. But it might be a tale about any student, even you.

Greg was slogging through the last half of his third semester at the University. While toughing out four years at a community college he had adapted a tactic common to many average students. When things look tough drop a class and finish the term with passing grades on the remainder of your schedule. Before we continue you need to know that after a certain point in the term school business, adding, dropping etc, can no longer be done on line. In order to drop a course a student must fill out a form and get signatures from the instructor and the department before turning the form in to the window at the registration office. Courses are identified not by their title but by a five-digit code. So a course could be 13151 or 15131 or any other of the thousands of five digit combinations.

Greg had tanked the mid-term and was in danger of flunking an important course in his major. Greg was passing another required course with an A. Greg’s decision, drop his lowest grading course and press on to the end of the semester with his three remaining courses. While filling out the drop form Greg transposed the last two numbers of the course he had intended to drop. The instructor failed to notice when he signed Greg's drop form. The department secretary simply stamped the form with the Department Chair’s signature without even looking a the course number. The worker at the registration office took the form input the number into the computer and gave Greg a stamped copy of the form. It wasn’t until his final grades were posted that Greg realized what he had done. He had dropped the class he was getting an A in. He remained on the roster for the class he was flunking. He received two Cs a W and an F for the term. These grades seriously affected his already wobbly GPA. They also jeopardized his financial aid standing. Last I saw of Greg he was frantically trying to locate his department secretary to help him set the record straight.

Planet College tip. Check everything. Check everything you turn in. Check it and re-check all forms carefully. You don't want a simple careless error to affect your ability to finish school.