acceptance into nursing schools

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I am currently a student at Gwinnett Tech. I have a 4.0 GPA, but that may change with this A & P I. I've always been a hard worker, always gotten good grades, but this class tries to teach a lot in a little bit of time and the tests can be a little tricky since it's applied knowledge (though I've only taken one test so far). Need to complete A&P I, II, and Microbiology before I can apply to the nursing program. Getting discouraged as I'm working really hard, taking unpaid leave from my job to concentrate on my school work, and then I keep hearing how students with 3.65, 3.8 and 4.0 GPAs cannot get into a nursing program anywhere (with Gwinnett Tech being the most difficult to get into, it seems). This would be a new career for me. Can't imagine doing my current career for the next 25 years or so till retirement. Guess I'm just wanting to know how many 4.0 GPA or close to 4.0 GPA students are out there who have not been able to get into a program anywere. Is a lot of this hype to discourage competition or is there a lot of truth to it?

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Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.

Depends on the school, how they determine admission and what the applicant pool is.

Are there people who get in with less than a 4.0? Yes. Less than a 3.5? Not as many.

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Specializes in Med Surg, Telemetry, ICU, ER as an Aide.

Hello there,

I don't know about your institution, but I would like to dispel thoughts about your program being the most difficult to get in to. From GA to even here in New Jersey, there's the same story all around about nursing school's being difficult and hard to get into. I checked about school requirements and from there was able to determine what I would be able to do to get in. Are you able to tranfer your current grade to another school and then maybe take one or two classes, and apply for nursing?

Make sure you get the right information from people, it is key to your success. Try to get to know or rub shoulders with current nursing students at your institution. Bad news/ discouraging news always seems to spread among students that haven't gotten in or that have failed.

As I said, the right information empowers you. Don't let your current situation deter you. You're making sacrifices about what you want to do. I personally applied to my program here in New Jersey what would be considered last minute and out of nowhere I did well on the entrance exams (score 99%) and had a 3.47 GPA and had a Phi Theta Kappa membership.

Bottom line: Do your very best, stop worrying about the rest.

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Thanks for your reply. I just got an invite from Phi Theta Kappa last week and will be joining and going to an info session this week. I'm hoping that helps too. I am trying to do what you say -- just do my best, get to know others at the school, and hope it all works out.

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The standards are pretty close at any school. Just buckle down. I took AP I and II in the same semester and got A's in both. It is a lot of info, you just have to put extra time into it.

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I study A & P I every day, for anywhere from 3 to 8 hours a day. Don't think I can study much more than that. I am taking college algebra at the same time, and at some point, I will have to give algebra more study time than I am. I just going to keep plugging along, doing what I'm doing and hope for the best.

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Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.

If you are having to study just one class that much you might run into trouble in nursing school. I would suggest you examine your study habits, maybe attend a study skills seminar etc. to make sure you are working as efficiently as possible. 3-8 hours every day 7 days a week for A&P 1 sounds like an awful lot of studying for just one course. Everyone of course learns differently...needing that much study time for just one thing during nursing school may cause you a lot of stress.

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The 3 hours a day every day is not overkill for this class since Gwinnett Tech recommends at least that for this class because they teach in 10 weeks what UGA teaches in 16 weeks. This number of hours each day of studying has been confirmed by people who've completed the course and who have earned an A. Think of it as an accelerated pace A & P class. My study group came today -- it took the four of us 4 hours just to go through the review questions. And I still feel like I need to study on my own since going through our questions just entails making sure we all agree on the answers, maybe explaining something to someone who does not get the concept, etc. Still, I am open to trying to find more effective ways to study and trying to spend not more than 3 hours on it most days.

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Ill be honest with you, im very discouraged with nursing programs in general. I was a student at university at buffalo and was set to apply to the program this year, with a 3.4 and good science grades and all my pre reqs done I was told I looked good to get in. A month before the application was set to open and after many other schools deadlines had passes they sent out an email saying do to budget cuts they were not accepting any applications and closing out the program for a year. After some parents threatening to sue they accepted 24 people (original promise was close to 120) all whom had 4.0 or very close to it. I was left scrambling to find another program that I was eligible to apply to pre req wise that still had an open deadline. I was only able to find a few private schools that I was eligible with deadlines still open. I couldn't afford to attend any of those. So I applied to my local community college and got accepted. I know I was lucky to be accepted into a community college program at all but Im very frustrated I spent two years at a university working towards a bsn program and now have to go to a community college. Not saying theres anything at all wrong with cc's its just frustrating because I feel like I wasted two years. So what I would tell you is to look at all your options and do it early and have many backups just in case. Also do your own research because nursing advisers wont always be 100 percent honest with you.

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I totally understand your frustration about working hard and then not getting into the university program. A lot of that happens at my current college. There's only 40 slots currently, and they had like 800 people apply last time (2,000 if you listen to the paper, but most of those hadn't completed their prerequisites). Anyway, yes, I'm keeping my options open; I just would rather get out in the shorter length program, start working again as my oldest will be in college by then, and then get my BSN (if I haven't already earned it through dual enrollment of some kind). Glad you got into a program. And in the long run, when you're working, I don't think it's going to matter what college you graduated from as long as you pass the RN exam and you're a knowledgeable, hard, dependable worker. Employers are going to value that more than where you got your degree from.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

Please keep in mind that there is a distinction between 'qualifications' for admission and who actually gets accepted. The school only selts a few from the entire pool of people who meet the qualifications. Of course, they use various schemes to put everyone in to a ranking system for selection - but GPA is always very heavily weighted because it is a good indicator of how well you have been able to learn.

Nursing programs are also very expensive for any college or university - not among the more prestigious or money making programs. They are frequently cut when the school has budgetary problems.

Good luck to everyone!

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