Question regarding Incompletes

[Francophile1]

How bad are incompletes? If you finish the work in time and it is changed to a grade...does it still have a negative connotation..with the professor..or just overall?

Please advise

[fuzzylogician]

Like everything in life, it depends. Take one or two incompletes because of a very busy semester or a personal problem where you've otherwise been an active participant in the class and where you've successfully made up all the missing work, and you should be fine. Turn it into a habit every semester as a way to catch up with your work, and it'll likely be noticed by the faculty in student evaluation meetings and it will probably not be viewed favorably. 

 

And, of course, this is on top of the usual disclaimers that sometimes a program or professor might have a particularly negative attitudes towards incompletes in general or incompletes in particular courses (e.g., in my program students are not allowed to take incompletes in first-year classes, that's considered not good at all. On the other hand, you can graduate with incompletes in your transcript and there is no problem with that assuming that you've otherwise completed all your requirements).