Hey all, I was wondering if any of you know anything about the "Pre-Health" programs at colleges that offer you an alternate offer of admission? My parents think it's one year of bull and waste of money and suggests that I should go straight to Registered Nursing.

But I am in a situation where I desperately want to do Practical Nursing as soon as possible.

Anyway, I just accepted the alternate offer of admission to Sheridan College, Ontario, Canada.

My question is, even if I maintain a B average in the one year, what are my chances of getting into the program?

Anyone?!

I'm not sure how it works in Canada but in the states you can't just go right into a registered nursing program. You have to take the ore requisite courses which I'm assuming is what the pre health program is for.

Ok. So, I'm not completely familiar with the Sheridan program. I am however really well acquainted with the Humber program. If you have taken university level courses in high school and maintained an over 80% average then all three options are available to you, Pre-Health, Practical Nursing and Bachelor of Nursing. If you didn't take U level courses or your average was under 75%, then you are usually looking at only Pre-Health or Practical Nursing.

There are so many streams available in Ontario but all of the nursing programs are very competitive. Last year at Humber the admission cut off for the bachelor of nursing was about 81% according to the associate dean I spoke with at their open house last weekend.

You have a few options:

Option #1:

Pre-Health --> Practical Nursing (3 years total)

Option #2:

Pre-Health --> Bachelor of Nursing (5 years total)

Option #3:

Practical Nursing (2 years)

Option #4:

Bachelor of Nursing (4 years)

Option #5:

Practical Nursing --> Bridge to Bachelor of Nursing --> Bachelor of Nursing (5 years total)

I don't see a point in doing option #1 unless your marks in high school are not competitive for the PN program.

Option #2 is good if your grades aren't competitive for the BN program or you didn't do U level courses but you want your BN

If your preference is to get your PN diploma and start working ASAP, then option #3 is your best bet.

If your preference is to get your BN degree then #4 is best, but you can also take on option #5 as an entry if you didn't do U levels and it will allow you to work as an RPN casual/pt while you do the BN bridge.

Take a look at all of the schools and what they offer. Humber offers all of these programs, Sheridan does the Pre-Health and PN but I don't know if they have bridging agreements with any BN programs. Often, the bridging option is restricted to graduates of the PN program from the same school as the BN program (i.e.: Humber PN to Humber BN). Go to the health fairs, contact the schools you're interested in.

If you have any questions, just ask!

Oh- and I'm going to ask a Mod to move your question to the Canadian forum just so you might get more information from other sources who are familiar with the various options.

Thread moved to Canada Nursing Programs forum.

I had class mates in the Mohawk PN program that had completed the general arts and science course and came in cocky expecting to pass with +90% grades, lets just say they didn't. Without having done the G A&S program I can only give a one sided opinion I haven't heard of people getting into the BScN from there and if you can do BScN right away its the best way to become a RN but if you want to drip your toe in the waters and see if nursing is for you then PN and bridging over is only slightly longer.

I applied to pre-health at a couple schools. I think it can be very useful for some, and less so for others. When you say you accepted the offer, do you mean to pre-health, or practical nursing? I think if you don't have the grades or the math/science skills, pre health is definitely not a waste of time of money. If you can do well in that course, you'll have a much better chance of being accepted than a student who is maybe on the lower end of the grade cut off. If you have the grades, you might not need to bother. But if you're not confident in your skills, I've spoken to a lot of nursing students who've told me that the people coming into nursing from pre-health do significantly better and have an easier time than students who come straight out of high school.

Just something to think about. It's up to you to decide whether or not it's worth it for you. Like I said, a lot depend son the individual. For some it's a huge help in getting them to where they need to go, for others it's just delaying the inevitable. As I'm trying to get into pre-health myself at the moment (I don't have the grade 12 credits I need to apply to an BScN program), I've gathered a good bit of information about them so please ask if you need me to clear anything up about my answer or if you have any questions about pre health. Good luck!