How highly do veterinary schools consider Withdrawals on transcript? everything else looks good for me except I have around 9 W’s on my undergraduate transcript. Some advice please! 🥹
Okay, this isn't what you asked and I'm not really your target audience. I'm just butting in as a current vet student who had trouble (and subsequently several withdrawals) my first time through undergrad due to PTSD resulting from a trauma.
I think the biggest issue with numerous withdrawals is that you work through for yourself what happened and what's changed. A bunch of withdrawals in a short period of time due to major illness/injury/death in the family/traumatic experience/etc. makes sense, and if you have some time and space between you now and you in that frequently-withdrawing period, even better. Life happens, some things are really difficult to deal with - especially when you're young - and there can be a period in your life where school just couldn't be the priority. Taking some time, dealing with whatever happened, and then moving on to be successful academically is fine. I wouldn't really worry about it, and with appropriate explanation, I imagine most vet schools could overlook it.
If you frequently withdraw from courses because they get away from you somehow and you do it to salvage your grades, I'd be concerned beyond just what the ad com will think. Vet school courseloads are heavy, and you can't just withdraw and take a class the next semester like you can in undergrad. For your own mental health and academic success, that's something you'd need to work through before you enroll in vet school.
I do think a lot of people fall in something of a grey zone between these two, often due to mental health concerns or the like - withdrawals are kind of spread out and maybe have more to do with psychological "flare-ups" than actual academic rigor or not keeping up with assignments. I know that's more how my experience was. It would be random things - I had a panic attack in a very small lit class and was too embarrassed to go back, or a guy in econ would come on too strong and trigger my PTSD, or I'd have a period of depression and just not be able to get through a particularly demanding project. If it that's been more the trend, then please, make sure you've had the time/space/life experience/therapy/whatever you need to heal before attempting vet school. At that point, getting in isn't even the issue - vet school is really tough on mental health (partially because you're just so darned tired and stressed all the time), and you really want to be in a good place emotionally, mentally, and psychologically before you subject yourself to that.
So.... my thought is that you do some soul-searching about those withdrawals and really figure out why they happened and what's changed (real, tangible changes, not just "I think it'll get better" if there's no history yet to support that). In the short term, it'll make it way easier to explain them to an admissions committee. In the long term, your vet school experience will be better for it.