Medical Withdrawal FAQ

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You will need to have a licensed health care provider recommend that you medically withdraw. You can start by contacting the Auburn University Medical Clinic or Student Counseling and Psychological Services to start a meeting with a licensed health care provider.

A licensed health care provider is a medical practitioner who is licensed to treat you for the condition you are asking to be medically withdrawn for. Medical doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, nurse practitioners, licensed professional counselors, licensed clinical social workers and licensed marriage and family therapists can provide documentation for the condition that they are treating you for. If you are uncertain whether your provider is a licensed health care provider, please reach out to the Auburn Cares Office. All practitioners at the Auburn University Medical Clinic and Student Counseling and Psychological Services are licensed health care providers.

Processing a medical withdrawal is dependant on sufficient medical documentation to support the request. An exact timeline is not available because the process relies on the response of the health care provider.

Medical Documentation Guidelines

A student’s transcript will not show a withdrawal for medical reasons. Depending on the determined date of the medical withdrawal, the transcript may not show the course at all, or it may have a W, representing “withdrawal” where the course grade is typically listed. W’s result in zero credit hours for a course and do not affect your GPA. Unless a student has a pattern of W’s on their transcript over several semesters, withdrawing from classes typically will not affect their ability to get into graduate school or obtain a job following graduation. If you are asked why you withdrew from classes, you can simply say that you needed to withdraw due to medical reasons.

The effective date of resignation, commonly referred to as the effective date, is the last day that a student attended class(es) or submitted assignments. In situations where tuition is prorated, the effective date is used as the date that the tuition is prorated back to. Auburn Cares gets this date from the student’s instructor(s) who report the date based on their documentation.

Consult with your health care provider and follow their recommendation for taking final exams. If you choose not to take exams, you should contact your instructors and determine if incomplete grades are a better option than withdrawing from classes. If you choose to take exams, but still plan to pursue a medical withdrawal, let your instructors know about your plans.

Any questions about the financial processing of tuition proration should be directed to Student Billing. You can reach their office by emailing studentbilling@auburn.edu or calling (334) 844-4634.

Anytime you decrease your credit hours, there may be implications to that decision. Please contact the following offices to better understand any impacts of dropping some or all of your courses.

Contact the Medical Withdrawal Coordinator at medwithdraw@auburn.edu or call (334) 844-1305 after reviewing the Medical Clearance Policy.

Medical Clearance Policy
Medical Withdrawal Application