Need Advice

U.S.A. New York

Published

Hi All,

I'm really interested in getting into a nursing program and had a hard time this year. Here's my predicament:

I am a 2nd degree student. During my first Bachelor's degree, I was placed on academic probation. I had to take care of my family and worked multiple part time jobs and in the end my studies suffered. I worked hard and was taken off of academic probation. By the time I graduated, I had a 2.6 GPA from my first school. :eek:

I have been working at a hospital for the past 4 years and realized during the time that I would really love to be nurse. I have letters of recommendations from the doctors and nurses that I work with. I went back to school for my prereqs with the following grades:

A&P I: C

A&P II: A-

Microbiology: A-

Intro to Pscyh: B

Statistics: A

Life Span/Developmental Psych: A or above (i'm still taking this class right now and as per my midterm grade report of about two weeks ago - I'm getting an A)

Chemistry Lec: B-

Chemistry Lab: B+

Even with this, my combined GPA is not a 3.0. I've taken the NLN, TEAS V, and the GREs. I did well on my NLN and TEAS V and got a decent grade on the GREs.

Does anyone have any advice as to what I else I can do in order to increase my chances of getting into a nursing school within the tristate area? I know for a fact that this is what I want to do and I'm really upset that I am unable to get into any school (I've applied to about 8 with 7/8 telling me that I'm not accepted). :mad:

Any advice is much appreciated.

Thanks!

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Which schools did you apply to? SUNY And CUNY are very competitive, and I know NCC is as well because of the low prices. Your best bet is to apply to private schools. Good luck!

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you should try retaking a&p I, alot of schools will not take a grade of a C for anatomy you need atleast a C+ and if you do well you will bring up your gpa. private schools are usually easier to get into than CUNY or SUNY schools. good luck =]

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@Nursing 2102: I applied to the following schools:

LIU

Columbia

SUNY Downstate

SUNY Stonybrook (1 year)

Pace

Adelphi

CUNY Hunter College

They all said no :(

@zoey88: I am currently retaking A&P I to make sure that I will get a better grade this time around.

Thank you both for your response. I'm in the process of expanding the schools that I will look into and working on reapplying for next year. If you have any other suggestions, it is greatly appreciated.

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There are more schools in the NY metro area that you can consider. I would call the admissions and ask them if you are a viable candidate. Your personal statement must address your GPA weakness. You can turn it around by explaining how much better you did in your prerequisite course work and employment record. Have you volunteered? Very often, public schools are inundated with applicants and have filtering mechanisms for GPA. I doubt your application was even looked at (but you can call and ask what you can do to improve your application if you reapply). Private schools will give your application a more holistic analysis. Is there anyway to get your GPA up to a 3.0? Good luck.

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There are more schools in the NY metro area that you can consider. I would call the admissions and ask them if you are a viable candidate. Your personal statement must address your GPA weakness. You can turn it around by explaining how much better you did in your prerequisite course work and employment record. Have you volunteered? Very often, public schools are inundated with applicants and have filtering mechanisms for GPA. I doubt your application was even looked at (but you can call and ask what you can do to improve your application if you reapply). Private schools will give your application a more holistic analysis. Is there anyway to get your GPA up to a 3.0? Good luck.

No I do not volunteer. I actually work at a hospital for the past 4 years and still currently work at the same job. My letters of recommendations are from the doctors and nurses that I work closely with. Initially no, I did not address the issue with my GPA in my personal statement and now I do have a supplemental essay that I will include in my applications that addresses the issues I had and highlights the changes in my grades. I'm also planning to rewrite my personal statement to hopefully make it stronger.

Do you have any other suggestions for schools in the NY metro area? I'm actually expanding to include a few schools in New Jersey, Philadelphia & Boston as well. I'm also going to reapply to some schools that I considered in New York City last year.

I'm not sure if there is anything else I can do to improve my GPA to a 3.0. The more classes I take, the harder it seems to get it to a 3.0 despite getting good grades. As I said before, I am retaking Anatomy & Physiology I to get a better grade and I'm also taking Nutrition since some schools has that as a pre-req requirement. I might consider taking Chemistry all over again since it's almost 9 years old now.

Furthermore, I did call a few schools that I was more interested in and spoke to an admissions counselor who just told me to retake Anatomy & Physiology I and for some of the schools, they really prefer students with a 3.0 GPA and higher. They did not tell me anything more than that.

Thank you for your advice. I greatly appreciate it.

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I think crafting a killer personal statement is key. I had a sub-par GPA from my undergrad and was told to address the issue in my personal statement even though I have a PhD in Molecular Genetics with a GPA of >3.8! I did not apply to any NY schools. Does anyone in the hospital where you work know anyone at any nursing school in the area (faculty, admissions committee)? That would definitely help your cause! In Westchester, there is Mt. Saint Vincent, Concordia, College of New Rochelle. In Rockland, there is Dominican College. On Staten Island there is Wagner College. Malloy Colloge in Nassau. Fairfield University in Bergen County, NJ. Also, Seton Hall, Rutgers, UDMJ. Check out schools by region on allnurses because I know I have left some out. Try to find someone with an "in" so that your application is not trashed! Have a few people read your statement.

You are right, the GPA is a problem. A private school may have the time to look at your application.

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I hope this is helpful, but maybe you can apply to programs offering an associate's degree. You don't necessarily have to get a bachelor's degree in order to get a degree to practice nursing. ADNs and BSNs both make you eligible to sit in for the NCLEX to get the RN title. The bachelor's degree becomes more important if you plan on furthering your education; i.e. you plan on getting an advanced diploma such as a doctorate or PhD after you get licensed. If you really do want a bachelor's degree and using the direct route isn't working for you, you can always start off by obtaining an associate's degree, I believe there are some programs out there that will allow you to take additional courses later on until you have enough credits for a bachelor. Bright side, an associate's degree will take you less time to finish and you can start working as a nurse sooner. :)

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I think crafting a killer personal statement is key. I had a sub-par GPA from my undergrad and was told to address the issue in my personal statement even though I have a PhD in Molecular Genetics with a GPA of >3.8! I did not apply to any NY schools. Does anyone in the hospital where you work know anyone at any nursing school in the area (faculty, admissions committee)? That would definitely help your cause! In Westchester, there is Mt. Saint Vincent, Concordia, College of New Rochelle. In Rockland, there is Dominican College. On Staten Island there is Wagner College. Malloy Colloge in Nassau. Fairfield University in Bergen County, NJ. Also, Seton Hall, Rutgers, UDMJ. Check out schools by region on allnurses because I know I have left some out. Try to find someone with an "in" so that your application is not trashed! Have a few people read your statement.

You are right, the GPA is a problem. A private school may have the time to look at your application.

I will look into the schools that you mentioned. A few nurses that I work with know some of the faculty - one of them is in the Masters degree program for one of the schools. They are all writing letters of recommendations for me. Thanks so much for the info.

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I hope this is helpful, but maybe you can apply to programs offering an associate's degree. You don't necessarily have to get a bachelor's degree in order to get a degree to practice nursing. ADNs and BSNs both make you eligible to sit in for the NCLEX to get the RN title. The bachelor's degree becomes more important if you plan on furthering your education; i.e. you plan on getting an advanced diploma such as a doctorate or PhD after you get licensed. If you really do want a bachelor's degree and using the direct route isn't working for you, you can always start off by obtaining an associate's degree, I believe there are some programs out there that will allow you to take additional courses later on until you have enough credits for a bachelor. Bright side, an associate's degree will take you less time to finish and you can start working as a nurse sooner. :)

Thanks Compassion4Others. I will apply to a few associate degree programs this time around. I talked to a few of the schools and even though I have much of the pre-reqs completed, it will still take the same amount of time to complete an associates as someone who has not taken any of these courses. Nonetheless I will keep my options open and will apply to those schools as well.

Do you know of any? The only ones that I know are Beth Israel, BMCC, LaGuardia, LICHSON, St. Paul's (which I do not plan on applying). Any others within the area?

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