Handed in an assignment in the wrong tutorial dropbox submission and emailed the professor thinking he would be reasonable. He told me that he would not make exceptions for me because it would be unfair to the other students. Apparently 'fair' is having 60 less hours to complete the same assignment other people in your class have simply because your tutorial is early in the week. Can't argue with that logic.

Anyway, being that this is just an elective I took because I couldn't find anything else..I can do without the course. But I have never dropped a course, definitely not after the date. According to what I read on the McMaster website it will be considered a 'cancellation' at this point and will be recorded on my transcript as 'cancelled'.


What I want to know is what exactly does that mean? Like when you fail a course you get a 0 on your transcript. Does a cancel count as a 0? That is all I'm trying to avoid. Or would it not actually affect my GPA?

If you drop a course beyond the deadline to avoid financial penalty, then you won't get all of your money back. There is a schedule on the student accounts website that you can look at to tell you where you're at and what you may (or may not) get back.
If you drop a course beyond the deadline to avoid academic penalty, then it will show up as a fail on your transcript. If you drop a course before this deadline (even if you must pay a financial penalty), the course will be cancelled and will not count towards your GPA.
Since I'm not a current student, I have no need to know the deadlines for this year, but they are all online on the registrar's website and the student accounts website, so you can look them up.

Wait..its still a fail if I cancel it at this point? Are you sure about that part? I read the page you were referring to in your post about the percentage of money I'd be losing by canceling at this point. But it also says that:

The last day for withdrawing without academic failure by default:
Fall 2015 - November 13, 2014

Being that it is before the 13th why would it show up as a fail? I don't see why anyone would bother to cancel a course in the first place if it was going to put a 0 on their transcript.

Star answered your question:

If you drop a course before this deadline (even if you must pay a financial penalty), the course will be cancelled and will not count towards your GPA.

If you drop a course beyond the deadline to avoid academic penalty, then it will show up as a fail on your transcript.

Since the deadline for withdrawing without academic failure by default (Nov 13, 2015) has not passed yet, if you choose to drop the course today it will show up on your transcript as cancelled.

Oh sorry I don't know how I missed that. Thank you. Both of you.

.......... You're dropping a course because you will lose the points for one assignment?

1. If it's really that significant of a mark drop, you could reason with your Prof to adjust your weight so your mark isn't extraordinarily handicapped for the whole course.

2. If it's not a significant mark... {facepalm}

3. What did we learn here, folks? Hopefully we learned to take electives/courses with topic that we're interested in for their content --- and not for the opportunity to get a 12 with minimal work.

I don't understand the part about having less time to complete the assignment because your tutorial is earlier in the week. Would everyone not have a week to complete it if they all got it assigned in their own tutorials?

However, if the prof assigned it to everyone at the same time then made the assignment due in you tutorial section, that is just unfair and you would have grounds to complain.