Am I Required to Submit My Poor Transcripts?

[despitetheserains]

Hi,

I am hoping to be admitted to a hospital-based diploma program within the next year. Here is my difficulty: I had great grades in high school (graduated in 2003) and started at a private liberal arts college the fall after graduation. I did pretty well until my junior year (2005-2006) when a series of personal and family issues led to not one, but two semesters of failed classes. Really bad. I know.

Since I left my old school, I have spent the year working, saving my pennies, and sorting out my personal issues. I know that I want to return to school and I believe I can succeed as a nurse. But I'm worried that my terrible transcript is going to hurt my chances of acceptance at the nursing schools I am interested in. I am wondering if it is a viable option to not submit my college transcripts at all in my application. I'd rather not have the failed grades as part of my application if I can avoid it.

If I only submit my HS transcript, would that be considered "falsification" by the schools I'm applying to? Does anyone have advice for me, on what they'd do in my situation? I want so badly to start fresh and put these failures behind me. And I want to start nursing school as soon as I can.

Thanks for any feedback you can offer.

[Northstar Angel]

Wow!!!

Talk about a timely subject. Can somebody explain academic bankruptcy??

In 1988, I went to a college for less than a semester. I am SURE I withdrew from all the classes for personal reasons. Last night, I logged into to the college's website (being a newly accepted student there again) and saw, to my horror, that I had 3 F's and only 1 withdrawal!!!!! This could severely damage my chance of getting into the nursing program in the fall.

I called the school of nursing and was told I needed to talk to an academic advisor, which I will do tomorrow, but she mentioned academic bankruptcy.

Thanks for any info!!

Angelica

[lizmatt]

I believe different schools have different bankruptcy policies. Look in your school handbook. I don't think all schools have it.

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

I too am one of the folks who went to school right after HS, quit going to classes (didn't drop them though) and ended up with a 0.7gpa. Believe me, that was fun. However, went back to NS 13 years later and did fine and yes, I did provide those transcripts.

[Asherah, BSN, RN]

I've been through a similar situation and recommend that you check with the policies/applications of the schools you plan on applying to. As stated above some of them do have a clause that you agree to when signing the app that you have provided all applicable information and transcripts. If you sign this, and then neglect to submit the bad grades, they can remove you from the program if admitted and I've heard administrators state that even after someone has graduated and become licensed, they can even phone the DON and take action to revoke your license. (I'm not sure if this was a veiled threat or example they were giving to the lecture class at the time.)

Also, federal/state financial aid is a common way for schools to determine previous school attendance, so its not quite easy to hide if you've borrowed from the government.

Its best to be completely honest about these things, as they are able to overcome and explain honestly in your personal statement, or if you feel it is necessary, by attaching an additional narrative letter to your application. Think of this as an opportunity to discuss the strategy you used to work through the challenge of your 'bad start' and how you've grown and matured since.

Good luck!

[Asherah, BSN, RN]

Talk about a timely subject. Can somebody explain academic bankruptcy??

At my local CC, the term they use is academic renewal, which means that if you have a poor grade or poor grades from an entire term (D or F, I believe) that is more than 12 months old, a line can be drawn through the grade(s) and the grade(s) is/are exempt from being calculated in your cum. GPA. At this school, the grade(s) remain on your transcript, however. This can only be done if the grade (or the grades of the term) are basically your only instance of an otherwise good/outstanding record, and you will have had to take at least 15 units since the bad grade/term with a good record, to have the derogatory grade/term lined out. Again, this are the details from my local CC only, every school who features this option is probably different.

In my case personally, I was taking a Computer Science class for fun while I was still in HS (10+ years ago) and I honestly think I just forgot to withdraw from it. I have an F on my record, but from academic renewal, it is lined out and doesn't hurt my GPA.

[Northstar Angel]

Thanks for the info everybody!! I'm talking to an advisor via phone in about 10 minutes so I'll let you all know what I find out!

Angelica

[Wsmith16, ADN, BSN]

I know some people who made mistakes in the past and did not submit all their transcripts and they are successful nurses now. If you do not have an enormous amount of student loans from your previous college work then you will most likely not get caught. The truth is the financial aid dept and admissions dept are two seperate entities.

I was in a similar situation as you and tried to do the "right thing" by submitting my undergrad grades to an accelarated BSN program. Although, I did really well in my pre reqs I did not have an overall gpa of a 3.0 in my bachelor's degree and was rejected by every bsn school that I applied too. I even had one admissions counselor tell me to "go back to work because I would never be a nurse."

So, I applied to many many ADN programs. Some with all my transcripts and some with just my pre req grades. I got accepted to a few solely based on my pre-reqs and was lucky enough to have been accepted to some of the schools who had ALL my transcripts as well. I've decided to go to the school that has accepeted me with all my grades because I am a worry wart and don't want to take a chance.

But again you have to do what's best for you if this is the only way that you feel you will be given the opp'ty to become a nurse you have to do it. It's unfortunate that some schools will not give a former student who made a mistake a second chance. Even some criminals get second chances...

Apply to more then one school, and see what happens. I wish you the best of luck in your classes.

[despitetheserains]

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for your words of advice! I am still considering my options and will probably talk to some people in admissions at the diploma programs I am looking at before I decide. But it's great to have some feedback from people who have "been there"... gives me hope!