Bad grades from 8 years ago

Nursing Students Pre-Nursing

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Specializes in ambulatory surgical, ped private duty.

I have a situation and wanted to know if anybody could help me. I went to CSU Bakersfield right after high school. From my time there, I took anatomy twice with D's, and Physiology with U. And then I dropped out and joined the navy. After I did my time in the navy, I went back to school. And so it's 8 years later since my last class from CSU Bakersfield, and I've been at my community college for 1.5 years and have a 3.8 gpa with an:

A in anatomy

B in microbiology

A in physiology,

and the rest of my classes are A's. My problem is, to apply to any BSN program, you only get points on the first attempt. Is there any way that I can get rid of those past grades? How does the nursing school look at an application with those grades? Do I have any chance in getting in the nursing program? Anybody that can give me any info would be appreciated. Thanks

I don't know what schools you are applying to but the schools around where I'm applying to (I'm in the San Diego area but will most likely be applying to schools in NC or GA - my husband is a Marine) have a 5-10 "limit" on A&P and Microbiology. Basically, if it has been that long since you took those classes, you have to retake and then they'll accept the most recent scores.

I'm not sure if that was of much help but I do wish you the best of luck!

Is it Ok not to submit the previous transcripts if you are not planning on transfering any of those credits anyway? If not I am sure you will get in somewhere - It is very common for people (myself included) to do poorly in college after high school and then excel as an adult student - and I am sure that schools are aware of this

good luck!!

Most the schools around here won't accept credits/transcripts from over 5 years ago. Either way you would have to repeat the class. Is the school requiring you to send the transcripts? I wouldn't send them...

Specializes in ambulatory surgical, ped private duty.

I have to turn in those transcripts from my previous school, because the classes that I did good in, like sociology and speech will still transfer. Thanks for all the replies, I felt so hopeless yesterday of not getting in anywhere.

Specializes in Not specified.

First look carefully at the expiration date on your science courses for your school that you are applying to. Some schools willl have different limits depending on their program. If your courses have past the expiration date, then it would be pretty unfair of the school to hold those grades against you.

Second, I would include an addendum to your application, a short letter describing your situation and emphasizing how you have made changes and are a better student and blah blah blah. You don't want to omit transcripts from any schools that you have applied to because ommission may be considered lying or deception and may be grounds for dismissal from their program. When I applied to my program I considered ommitting a school that I had totally withdrawn from and moved out of town from, but decided to include an addendum describing my situation. I got accepted into a very competitive school. Honesty is always the best policy.

The best thing to do is call and inquire at some of the schools you are trying to get in and ask them what they will except and will not except.

To me that is the best way to find out.

Specializes in Level III cardiac/telemetry.

When I applied to a school last year I omitted a previous college and the admissions department kept sending me letters saying I needed to provide a transcript for this school. I had enrolled in a class and gone 2 weeks and then just stopped going - 8 years ago. I should have withdrawn, but instead it went down as an F. I'm told that most colleges have some provisions to expunge certain grades, but they won't be selective about it - if you ask to have it done for a few bad grades they usually do it to ALL of your grades, even the good ones. Another thing, for a school I applied to last year there was an essay portion. I included in my essay how I hadn't been a good students when I first got out of high school and that it took some maturing to learn what I wanted to do with my life and become serious about schoolwork. That was my chance to explain the change in my grades. Unfortunately I decided not to do that program because of price. I am still working to pull up my GPA.

Good luck!

I have a similiar question to Duckies about transcripts. About eight years ago I graduated from college and thought I wanted to get a masters in clincal psychology. Unfortuantely, I became sick and had to drop one class, never finished my graduate stats class, and received a grade in psychotherapy and counseling. Since none of the classes would transfer to a nursing program do I need to send the transcripts? Many schools says they want transcripts from all the colleges you have attended. My concern is that I don't want to tell them I had to drop out for health reasons. I believe my health problems were finally resolved in January with a hysterectomy after ten years but don't know for sure. Finally it gets expensive to request transcripts from every college I have attended. I have the main one I graduated from, one where I took summer classes and an exchange semester, my local community college where I have taken my prereqs and the graduate school. I guess I could always attach an addendum or write about it in my essay.

I have bad grades from about 10 years ago. I spoke with MSU about it because I wanted to keep that information from them by not divulging all college transcripts. I called and was totally honest with the counselor at MSU and he said that you MUST supply ALL transcripts from previous colleges because if you don't it is considered misrepresentation. Apparently bad things can happen if they find out.

Advice to me was to take my pre-req's at a community college. You have to have a cumulative 3.0 between all previous colleges before being accepted into MSU. So I have to take as many classes as I can and get a 4.0 in each of them to bring my GPA up to 3.0 before applying to the BSN program at MSU. Once accepted at MSU your GPA is cleared and you start over again with a new GPA. Then, when I apply to MSU, I should first apply as a general ed student or something like that and take a semester of classes before applying to the program. Those classes will be the pre-req's that I can't take at the community college because they don't transfer. Ok, then I will apply to the BSN program. The reason for this is that people who are already students at MSU get higher consideration into the program than new students.

Also, at MSU they count ALL classes taken at previous colleges as long as they are 2.0 or higher. If you got anything less than a 2.0 in a class, that class is not counted in your GPA for consideration as a possible MSU acceptance. But if you take a class more than once at a previous college.... all occurences of that class will be considered into your GPA, unless it is less than a 2.0.

Sorry so long.... but I think you need to talk directly to the college you want to go to and be honest about your situation. It seems all colleges handle this stuff differently. I was also told that the review board for acceptance does consider situations where students didn't do well years ago, but are doing well now.

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