C's in non prerequisite courses for nursing?

[sdesantis]

I am currently at a community college taking prerequisites for nursing. However, in high school I took 2 college spanish courses and received C's before I knew that I wanted to do nursing. This is obviously bringing down my GPA and my community college does not allow people to retake classes you received a C in. When I apply to a nursing program at a 4 year school how much will this affect me? Will they care as much if I got 2 C's in spanish since it isn't even required or will they just look at my GPA?

[FDW630]

It depends on what GPA your nursing program takes into consideration. I had the exact same problem...dual enrolled in high school and got two C's because I was a dumb kid. My school looks at overall GPA but luckily, I had taken enough courses since then to bring it back up to acceptable. A lot of schools only look at prereq GPA.

[queserasera, RN]

I'd just explain it to the school you're applying that you were young and didn't know what the ramifications of a C would be later in life. As long as your science gpa is stellar I'd say no worries.

[christina731]

It depends on the requirements of the specific program that you are interested in. Some nursing schools calculate cumulative GPA and some will calculate the GPA based on certain classes. The nursing program that I will start in January only calculates your GPA based on 5 classes: Biology, A&P I, English, Math & Psychology so for me it was important to do well in those classes, but for the rest, C'a were acceptable.

I would contact the admissions office at the schools that you are interested in applying to and ask them if those particular classes would would potentially affect your chances.