Advice needed

[Atlas09]

Some background on myself. I am 24 and currently work in a large ICU where I have been working for about 3 months now. I previously was a med surg nurse but got tired of that setting. I decided about a year ago I wanted to be a CRNA. I'm currently working on my bachelors and should be done in February of next year. Unfortunatley my undergrad GPA prior to my bachelors is quite bad. I went to engineering school out of highschool with no desire to be an engineer and then after a year wandered about the academic sceen until deciding to be a nurse (which I love by the way). I wasn't motivated in school and my undergrad GPA is about a 3.0 with mostly C's in my sciences. My bachelors program however I'm holding a 4.0 and plan to graduate with it.

So here is my question, I want to be a CRNA and will do whatever it takes. So what will it take? Can you guys tell me what certifications I need to go after? What extra classes to take? I know that I need to do some graduate science to show that I can handle it and I need my CCRN but what else is there I can do? Any help is greatly appreciated.

[adamrj8282]

Well first of all, your GPA should end up pretty decent. If you read on the forums, there are plenty of people with ~3.4 GPA that get accepted. If I were you I wouldn't just take any old graduate sciences, I would look at some schools I was interested in and see what some of the generals are (such as graduate patho). That way you'll be ahead when you start CRNA school. A great GRE score would also help your case. I used the Princeton Review book and a website called mygretutor.com and studied for about 3 hours a day for a month and got a 1260. If I had spent another month doing it I feel I would have scored much higher so I'd recommend 2 months.

I didn't have any extra certifications (not even CCRN) so I don't know a whole lot about that, but I do know that the interview committee at Pittsburgh seemed impressed that I was the co-chair of a committee at work and involved with a couple more committees.

-Adam

[Atlas09]

Thanks for the reply, I'll look into some advanced patho courses and some prep for the GRE.

[Simpson1980]

You sound like you are on the right path. Your GPA will be fine if you stick with it. I too was engineering before I got my BSN. Many programs look at the last 100 or so credit hours with a keen eye on the basic sciences. I have TNCC. ACLS, PALS, NRP, and BLS. I have worked in the ICU for 2 years 5 months and start my program in June of 2009. Stay the course :)

[dizzlern84]

I can tell you I think you will do fine. I just got accepted to a CRNA program with a 3.09 GPA overall. I did get my CCRN CMC and CSC certifications. I believe these helped me out tremendously by increasing my knowledge but more importantly showing my motivation for higher learning. I also had 2 years experience before applying as well.