GPA for USC?

[jelly221,RN]

Hi there! I'm in an MSN program now (it was almost as fast for me to do an MSN as a BSN) and I'm hoping to go to USC's CRNA program. I know it's ridiculously competitive, hence my question.

One of my classes right now has discussion boards weekly, and I missed one due to being in the hospital. My teacher is very strict about deadlines, that's her thing. Fine. The post I missed was 7% of my grade, so the best I can get in the class now is an A-. I've had this teacher several times before, and getting the A- is totally doable.

As long as I get all A's in the rest of my program (which I've done so far), I'll graduate with a 3.96. I have the option to drop the class and take it later, which would bump my overall program GPA to 3.98.

So my question is, will the 3.96 vs 3.98 make any difference in my application for USC's program with all other factors being equal?

As far as other things go, I'm working on a cardiac DOU and am transferring to CVICU in a few weeks, I'm working on shadowing a CRNA, and I do well with standardized tests, so I'm not too nervous about the GRE (my MSN program had a bunch of different requirements, so we didn't have to do GRE). I plan on working in CVICU for 2 years before applying, which will give me about 9 months break after finishing my MSN, during which I'm hoping to do some research and (fingers, toes, arms, legs crossed) publish.

Am I just being OCD about the GPA?

[tothepointeLVN, LVN]

Maybe especially since you have such an excellent GPA. I would think they look for a lot of other things other than pure GPA. I don't know what exactly to except to be encouraging