Hello everyone! I have been reading the forum postings for some time now and I have received a ton of useful information. My situation is this: I am a prospective applicant into a crna program that is in the process of being reviewed for accreditation (projected start date is January '05). My BSN will be finished in December of this year. I would like to know if any of you guys were accepted pending your completion of a BSN program prior to entry. The program director told me that I could be accepted even though my BSN will not be completed at the time of selection. I feel as though I will be a decent applicant; I have 9 years of critical care experience in university hospitals in various specialty areas, my undergrad GPA to this point is 4.0 and I have a good science GPA as well. The biggest problem I am facing at this point is trying to get all my prerequisites completed in time(I am taking o-chem and physics this semester along with my BSN requriements for a total of 20 credits as well as working full time). This will leave me precious little time to prepare for the GRE which I also plan to take soon with very little study (the director told me that he did not weigh the GRE scores vey heavily-but if I completely blow it when I know that I am capable of much better I will feel terrible. Should I stress myself out trying to get everything done? I guess I'm hoping that I have a legitimate shot at getting in this spring-I would hate to kill myself this fall and still not get accepted. Let me know what you guys think.

Sounds to me like you are an extremely qualified applicant even with classes pending. However, if I were you I would go to the GRE website and download the "powerprep" program which includes 3 practice tests and take several of them. Your scores there are a very good indicator of how you would do on the real thing. If it is below the mark that your school looks for then it would be worth your while to make some sacrifices to study a little harder for the GRE. Although schools claim not to weigh your GRE scores too much, if you do really well on it, it will certainly put you in a completely different category than the other applicants. If you get accepted before all of your classes are complete then in a sense, your GRE scores matter more than whether you got an A or B in the pending classes. So I would recommend making time to study for it even if you have to sacrifice a little study time in the pending classes.

Thanks for the great advice and vote of confidence, sandman. I agree that even though the school may say that they dont weigh the GRE heavily, I should probably try to do everything I can to get a decent score. If I were the program director, I definetely would favor the applicant with the higher GRE score. I am going to download the powerprep software asap per your recommendation. Any other recommendations anyone?

Sounds to me like you are an extremely qualified applicant even with classes pending. However, if I were you I would go to the GRE website and download the "powerprep" program which includes 3 practice tests and take several of them. Your scores there are a very good indicator of how you would do on the real thing. If it is below the mark that your school looks for then it would be worth your while to make some sacrifices to study a little harder for the GRE. Although schools claim not to weigh your GRE scores too much, if you do really well on it, it will certainly put you in a completely different category than the other applicants. If you get accepted before all of your classes are complete then in a sense, your GRE scores matter more than whether you got an A or B in the pending classes. So I would recommend making time to study for it even if you have to sacrifice a little study time in the pending classes.

i was accepted to school with a semester and a half left on my bsn, so it can be done. it is, however, program specific if they will even consider you. Sound like you are a good applicant and shouldnt worry too much about anything. good luck