Can I still drop courses after Jan 13/10 without any sort of penalty (like getting an F in a course)?

Yeah, you have until March 5, 2010 to cancel a course. However, if you drop the course after January 13, 2010, you'll be facing financial consequences. You won't get some if not all your money back (depends when you drop it).

Here's the financial information on cancelling a course: http://www.mcmaster.ca/bms/student/p...ncellation.pdf

Thanks,

The other penalty (aside from the aforementioned financial consuqences) is that the course will appear on your transcript with the word CANCELED next to it. It won't look good for OSAP or grad school apps if you have many CANCELED courses on your transcript.