BSN with Honors...How Important for Grad School?

Nursing Students Post Graduate

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Specializes in Acute Care Psych, DNP Student.

I have a concern about planning for admission to grad school to become an NP. I am currently in a BSN program. If the next few semesters go as the last two and a half years have, I will graduate with a ~ 3.9 GPA, as it is now. This GPA would qualify me to graduate with honors such as summa cum laude or magna cum laude. However, I cannot graduate with honors if I take my remaining liberal arts classes at our local community college and transfer those credits in. I'd have to take these remaining credits at the university to qualify for honors.

The difference in tuition is a few thousand dollars. I'm up to my neck in student loans, and I'd really like to take the classes at the community college to save money. My graduating GPA will be the same either way - just one would have honors on the diploma, and the other would not, due to fewer classes at the home university.

How important is it to be able to put "Summa Cum Laude" or "Magna Cum Laude" on my applications for grad school NP programs? If the effect is significant, then I suppose I'd take the remaining classes at the U.

Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

I think it is minimally important. I recommend saving the money -- assuming that the quality of the community college classes is high.

The people who serve on graduate admissions committes are not stupid about these things -- having served on one before myself. :-)

Yes, it's theoretically possible that the honors would help you a little if you were tyring to get into a really competitive program. 9 times out of 10 it won't make any difference. I guess the question is whether or not you expect your situation to be that 1 in 10 ... and whether you are willing to take that chance.

Good luck.

(Reason for edit. I made a really stupid typo. I said the people on admission committees were stupid when I meant to say they were not stupid. If I offended anyone on an admissions committee, I apologize.)

Specializes in Acute Care Psych, DNP Student.

Thank you, llg. I was hoping you would see my thread and reply. :D It sounds like graduating with honors is nice, but has a minor impact on my profile.

I'm leaning towards risking it. I just calculated that the difference in tuition would be ~ $6500. Also, I find the community college liberal arts classes (carefully chosen according to location and time of class) to be better than the university liberal arts classes. I've been surprised and disappointed at the quality of general ed at my so-called "public ivy" university.

Careful selection of classes at my cc leads to classes comprised of mostly middle-aged career changers. IMHO, that elevates the quality of discussion compared to university classes with 19, 20ish year olds - who are at a different level. (Of course none of this telegraphs thru my transcript...)

Obviously, graduating with honors would be better than not graduating with honors, but not $6500 worth of "better"! It might give you a slight advantage, but it certainly does not mean the difference between getting into school or not ... :)

Specializes in CCU/ Tele.

I would think that if your GPA remained the same than it wouldn't matter. The admissions criteria states GPA over......not did you graduate with honors, yes or no?

I think you will be more than ok going to the community college and saving your cash!

Specializes in FNP, Peds, Epilepsy, Mgt., Occ. Ed.
graduating with honors would be better than not graduating with honors, but not $6500 worth of "better"

I agree. I think they'll look at your GPA and not whether or not you actually graduate with honors.

I was an ADN nurse, then got my BSN through a bridge program. Because the school required a certain number of hours in residence to graduate with honors, none of us in the bridge program could graduate with honors, though several of us had the GPA. I immediately went to graduate school after my BSN, and not having the honors didn't hurt me any. (We weren't really happy with the policy, because at graduation it looked as if none of us had done quite as well as some of the "generic" students, though in fact we may have done better!)

You'll need the $6500 for graduate school!

Specializes in Trauma,ER,CCU/OHU/Nsg Ed/Nsg Research.

I agree with the others. I have been asked about my GPA, but not about honors status. Although I think I'll have enough credits from my BSN program to graduate Summa, it hasn't come up during my application/interview process for the program I'm trying to get into now. There are just so many non-trad nursing students out there, that it wouldn't make much sense to focus on that. Good luck to you- you should have no problem getting into your program with a GPA of 3.9!

Specializes in DNAP Student.

Do people know I graduated summa cum laude in my BSN? Not all except my claasmates.

Did they asked me during my CRNA interview? Yes

Did it matter then? Im not sure but they were impressed.

Does it matter now? Not really. I actually forgot about it till I read this post. I dont even know where my diploma is.

Am I proud of it? Of course!

little more than zilch

your gpa is stellar, they'll notice, don't worry

Specializes in Infection Preventionist/ Occ Health.

I graduated summa cum laude for what it's worth, which is nothing in the real world :)

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