I am due to Graduate this year in May 2016 with a BA in History and Social Science with a double major in Asian Studies and Public Health From Eastern Connecticut State University. My GPA 2.50 and I am projected to graduate in the 2.70 to 2.90 range. I am looking for Nursing schools on the East Coast and preferably out of Connecticut and in the Mid-Atlantic to the South. Also No further than Texas and along the Amtrak line. I'm also looking for Nursing schools that don't require TEAS's testing because i'm not a fan of TEAS test. I am looking to just get my BSN and work with the BOP before getting my NP. I'm looking for a Nursing school that has a minimum GPA of 2.70 to Enter.
I have finished most of my prerequisite such as Gen Psych, Social, Lifespan dev, Nutrition and stats. I am planning to take my science classes over the summer and looking to start in the Fall of 2016.
I am wondering, do Nursing schools allow you to apply even though they are waiting for science prereqs over the summer. I am also wondering can you clep classes to apply to Nursing schools.
Career goal wise is that I want to be a Nurse and work for the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps with the US Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The reason why I I can't afford exams like the GRE & TEAS is that Money is a MAJOR issue to pay to take those exams and i'm a poor disabled college student. That's why I am looking for 2nd degree BSN programs that don't require me to pay to take the GRE & TEAS exam.
The reason why I I can't afford exams like the GRE & TEAS is that Money is a MAJOR issue to pay to take those exams and i'm a poor disabled college student. That's why I am looking for 2nd degree BSN programs that don't require me to pay to take the GRE & TEAS exam.
Are you aware that as a 2nd degree BSN student you will have less options for Financial Aid? No Pell Grants and once you use up your amounts for the federal loans you will be stuck with personal loans. There are some entry level MEPN programs that are not a NP track that would open more options for FA (if that is how you are funding school). Additionally, the 2nd degree programs and post bac programs tend to be much more expensive than regular BSN programs, from my research. I'm just wondering if a testing fee is going to stop you from applying for a program, how do you expect to pay for the degree?
That's why I am researching and I know their are 2nd degree Nursing programs that have a GPA minimum between 2.5 and 2.7
What people here are trying to tell you is that just because a school says in its literature that the minimum GPA to apply is 2.5 or 2.75, or whatever, that doesn't mean that anyone with a GPA that low actually gets accepted. Nursing schools have become incredibly competitive and selective over the last twenty years or so. You used to be able to get into nursing school with just good intentions and mediocre grades. Not any more. Schools are swamped with highly qualified candidates with high GPAs, many more than they can actually accept, and the challenge for the schools is how to decide which of the many highly qualified applicants are going to get the comparatively few available seats. At the last BSN program in which I taught (a state university program, respectable but nothing special), all the literature said that a 2.75 GPA was the minimum to apply, but the reality was that no one with less than a 3.7 GPA got accepted (the program administrators were v. proud of this, and bragged about it all the time). There were so many more applicants each year with 3.7, 3.8, 3.9, 4.0 GPAs than we could accept that the candidates with lower GPAs never even got serious consideration. It's like that all over the country now, except for (as already noted) the questionable "diploma mill" schools that take one with, as the old saying goes, "a pulse and a checkbook."
I would never say it's impossible, but I believe you are going to have a v. hard time finding a school that will meet all of your specifications. Best wishes, though!
Then you wonder why Nurses say their is a Nursing shortage in the profession but Nursing schools put up so much barriers that they often times hinder the shortage and exacerbate the shortage. So if Nurse's says their is a shortage, why make it harder to get into nursing school and into the Nursing profession. It seems like putting barriers such as making people get higher GPA or take a TEAS test is reinforcing the Nursing school Shortage. Even as an EMT, you don't see a shortage of people wanting to be EMT's or work their way into Paramedic school. If people say you need a GPA of 3.0 or above into Nursing school, how come they are not pushed Physician Assistant school or even medical school. It seems like to me, GPA or test scores are not a predictor of who makes a great Nurse and as an EMT, I have seen my fair share of good and bad Nurses. I have seen Nurses who would crack if I roll in hot with a Trauma patient or drag a Nurse along on a run to a multi car MVA.
There is no nursing shortage. And nursing schools have no problem filling spots for their programs.
Name one Nursing school has no problem filling spots. It seems like Nursing has a shortage from two ends Nurses who want to retire and Nursing schools who don't have enough teachers. It seems like putting barriers such as higher GPA or test scores do not show who will make a good nurse.
Have you considered an Associates degree? I have an undergraduate GPA of 3.23 and even mine is not competitive enough for most schools. There is a community college near me that only looks at the Associate prereqs to determine GPA. Since I have A's in most of those, including my science prereqs, I have a 3.8 as far as they are concerned. Since I have a previous Bachelors I am exempt from the HESI exam. This school has a very good reputation as well. They accept based on a points system based on number of prereqs completed and grades achieved. Maybe a better option for you?
I have looked at ADN schools but many Nurses I have talked to have said that Hospitals are not taking Nurses who have ADN or if they are, they are pushing them to get a BSN.
For example, look at this Article;
Job-Seeking Nurses Face Higher Hurdle as Hospitals Require More-Advanced Degrees
Oct 14, 2015 By Anna Louie Sussman
Megan Goodman was a dean's list student at Pennsylvania College of Health Sciences who served on two student nursing boards before she earned her associate degree in nursing in May.
Since then, the 30-year-old Downingtown, Pa., resident still is seeking work after applying for more than three dozen hospital jobs. Truthfully, an associate's program is not really going to get you anywhere anymore,†she said.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans flocked to nursing schools over the past decade, drawn by the prospect of a well-paying job with a degree that takes as little as two years. But many have graduated only to find the goal posts have shifted, as hospitals seek nurses with more-advanced degrees, partly in response to an increasingly complex health-care system.
The trend in nursing mirrors a wider one unfolding in other sectors such as manufacturing and office administration, which are demanding more education and skills than in the past. As the number of job candidates with bachelor's degrees rose during the recession, due to layoffs and people returning to school, employers began expecting degrees for positions that previously didn't require them.
Such upskilling†in reaction to a slack labor market was particularly intense in nursing, which saw a flood of new entrants over the past decade. The number of programs of all kinds jumped 41% to 2,270 between 2002 and 2012 amid a widely perceived shortage of nurses, according to a 2014 paper in the journal Nursing Economics. In roughly the same period, the ranks of young registered nurses swelled about 80%, while the number of those over 50 doubled to one million, as would-be retirees stayed on the job.
Meanwhile, the Institute of Medicine, an influential independent advisory group, called in 2010 for 80% of the nursing workforce to have bachelor's degrees by 2020. It based that goal on research dating to the early 2000s showing that hospitals with a higher proportion of nurses with a bachelor's degree scored higher on important indicators of overall quality of care.
The hospitals said ‘Where do I get the best value, the highest outcomes for the cost? From a baccalaureate nurse,'†said Peter Buerhaus, a nursing economist at Montana State University.
At the same time, the Affordable Care Act has put more focus on chronic and preventive care, prompting hospitals to seek more coordination and leadership skills from their nurses—skills that aren't generally taught as part of associate's-degree curriculum.
A push by hospitals to obtain Magnet†status, a certification that helps hospitals to recruit and retain nurses, also tilts the field toward bachelor's-degree holders, since nurses in leadership roles at Magnet hospitals must have a bachelor's degree.
Diana Mason, president of the American Academy of Nursing and a nursing professor at Hunter College in New York, is concerned that hospitals' increasing preference for nurses with four-year degrees could block what has been seen as a reliable way into the middle class.
That's a beautiful aspect of nursing's career ladder, is that it enables people to move from maybe a family growing up in poverty, to solidly middle class,†she said. It provides access to people who can't afford a baccalaureate education.â€
Some hospital systems, such as Main Line Health in Pennsylvania and Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, explicitly require bachelor's degrees or higher for their nursing residency programs. Hospitals that do hire associate-degree nurses are increasingly putting provisions in their contracts that require completion of a bachelor's degree within a set period, usually three to five years.
Ida Danzey, associate dean of health sciences at Santa Monica College, remembers when the nursing career fair drew local hospitals. Beginning around 2008, their numbers dwindled. Local universities advertising BSN completion†programs, which allow associate's-degree graduates to earn their Bachelor of Science in Nursing with additional course work, have taken their place.
The extra 18 months or so of education often includes courses in things like leadership, evaluating research and the history of nursing, prompting complaints about unnecessary costs.
What we had to pay for was just fluff,†said Rebeka Rivera, a pediatric nurse at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta who took those courses in the final year of her bachelor's program. You're not taking any science courses at that point.â€
Others say the evidence shows that better-educated nurses lead to improved health outcomes, and that the skills taught in a bachelor's-degree or BSN-completion program are increasingly relevant to the way care is now delivered.
The health-care industry has changed dramatically as a direct result of the economy and health policies in flux,†said Veronica Feeg, associate dean and director of the Center for Nursing Research and Scholarly Practice at Molloy College in New York. New roles for nurses emerge every day. The need for educated health workers who care for the most vulnerable people and carry enormous responsibility is not new, but requires more critical thinking than ever before.â€
Ms. Goodman, who graduated in May, is already pursuing a bachelor's degree online through Villanova University as she continues to apply for nursing jobs and works two part-time jobs, as a lifeguard and an emergency medical technician.
It's really wearing me down,†she said. I wish hospitals would look at the person. I have life experience.â€
Have you considered an Associates degree? I have an undergraduate GPA of 3.23 and even mine is not competitive enough for most schools. There is a community college near me that only looks at the Associate prereqs to determine GPA. Since I have A's in most of those, including my science prereqs, I have a 3.8 as far as they are concerned. Since I have a previous Bachelors I am exempt from the HESI exam. This school has a very good reputation as well. They accept based on a points system based on number of prereqs completed and grades achieved. Maybe a better option for you?
I have looked at ADN programs in my state and they have a 4 year wait list
The reason why I I can't afford exams like the GRE & TEAS is that Money is a MAJOR issue to pay to take those exams and i'm a poordisabled college student. That's why I am looking for 2nd degree BSN programs that don't require me to pay to take the GRE & TEAS exam.
You will not have to take GRE for any undergraduate degree. TEAS costs roughly somewhere between $80 and $140. It is approximately as much as you'll be charged for nursing school uniform plus a somewhat decent stetoscope, or a couple of used textbooks, and not even near the exorbitant prices "for profit" nursing diploma mills are charging their students.
You wrote that you are "disabled". Even without knowing the nature of your health problems, I hope that you are aware of tremendous amount of physical and psychological stress studying in nursing school and following work implies. For you, it very well may be a double whammy because you are EMT and EMT and paramedic students are often and actively discriminated against by nursing school professors and clinical instructors. There were multiple topics on this forum discussing this subject.
As it was mentioned above, there is no nursing shortage, and rather oversupply of well - qualified applicants for nursing schools. Both are not likely to reverse within the next 10 to 15 years or so. Schools may put whatever they want on paper, but in practice almost all of them require GPA much higher than posted, as well as finished pre-recs, some sort of general science exam, interview and/or essay. It is a subject of dispute whether so high admission requirements really help to determine who is able to become a successful nursing student or successful practicing nurse (IMH(umble)O, these are two different things and the former one is not a good predictor for the latter). But your baseline situation is that, from your description, you won't make a competitive applicant in the wast majority of non-for-profit schools and have very low chances to get admitted. You may have to choose between entering questionable quality and very expensive for-profit (which, in addition, can kill your chances to get into any reputable grad school should you ever desire it, put you in inordinate amount of debt and seriously hurt your employment opportunities for life) or get some sort of payed job and repeat all your pre-recs in a community college, making sure to get A in every of them before you attempt to apply.
Name one Nursing school has no problem filling spots. It seems like Nursing has a shortage from two ends Nurses who want to retire and Nursing schools who don't have enough teachers. It seems like putting barriers such as higher GPA or test scores do not show who will make a good nurse.
Again, I think you need to do some research. Spend some time poking around on the boards here and researching schools. Believe me, all the schools I have been looking at average about 200 - 500 applicants for 40-100 slots. The minimum requirement will generally be 3.0 but if you gather the statistics from the last few classes you will see those accepted probably had an average GPA of 3.8. If the minimal TEAS score was 82, then the average for those who got in was around 90. There are shortages of RN's in specific areas and for some experienced RNs. But there is not a shortage of new grad RNs. In fact, it is probably the opposite. Especially in some states like California. You can easily find past acceptance statistics on many threads on AN.
IF you think your undergraduate classes were difficult, then you have not even scratched the surface for nursing. Plus you'll be spending time in the lab practicing skills and at clinicals. Colleges can afford to be very picky in order to have the greatest chance of having students finish the program and pass NCLEX.
Not picking on you, but from reading your posts it just seems like you are not fully aware of the current situation. Also, I'm not sure from your posts, but if the grades that are holding you GPA down are from way back -- that is great. You have a much better chance of overcoming this challenge by finding a program that has a bit more flexibility. You may find on their website that they use terms like "they look at the whole student," or they look at students "holistically." If you can prove through your recent performance (several semesters worth) that you have overcome your difficulties, they will be more willing to take a chance. However if you have C's / D's scattered throughout your transcript, you will have a tough time. I speak from experience. I finished my Junior year with a 2.0; sucked as a college student (didn't care). Went in the Army, studied and became fluent in several languages with an A average. Then I went back to college MANY years later to finish pre-requisites. I got a 4.0 for those and just barely brought my GPA up the minimal level (I had so many hours it was tough to improve much). Anyways, I got into what was then The Medical College of Georgia. However, I was one of the last people accepted for my class. There were students I did pre-reqs with that I helped to study who got in months before me. They waiting until I finished all my classes to accept me. Probably one B would have doomed me. It is possible, but I still got in with a 3.0 (just barely); I don't think it would have happened if my GPA was any lower.
Again, good luck and do some research. The program you are looking for is probably out there; you just need to find it. And be prepared to have backup plans.
kamododragon
26 Posts
I'm also looking for 2nd degree BSN programs that are flexible in allowing me in but letting me finish the prereqs prior to starting Nursing classes.