Did I ruin my chances of getting in?

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Hello All,

I'm 37 years old with a BA in English (3.83 GPA) and have been working in corporate America for the past 15 years. I've pretty much never liked working in business but wasn't sure what else to do and was afraid to make a change. I had first decided I wanted to change careers to nursing 7.5 years ago when I watched my sister die of brain cancer. I took A&P I and II, Microbiology and Stats. However, I had some personal issues of my own arise and also, to be honest, taking one pre-req a semester, which is all I could do with my work schedule, was really draining and demotivating and I lost momentum. In essence I stopped taking my pre-reqs. I've decided once again that I want go for nursing and am not going to stop. Ideally I would like to go for an accellerated BSN but honestly would go for an AA program if I got in.

My question is, most programs require your science pre-reqs to be no older than 10 years at the time of the application. My earlier pre-req's are going to be almost exactly 10 years by the time I'm ready to apply. Even though my pre-req's are technically less than 10 years old, will I be less likely to get accepted than someone whose pre-req's are 3 years old?

I'm torn up about this and am kicking myself for taking a break.

Thanks for any thoughtful responses.

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Specializes in Lactation.

One school that I am looking at has a time limitation of 5 years and the other has a 7 year limit. I have noticed some schools have a test to opt out of taking them again. If I was in your position I would call the schools that I was interested in and ask them, because each school is going to be different.

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I am sorry for your loss.

I believe if your pre-reqs are still considered "valid", they will be weighted the same during the admissions process as another student's 3 year old pre-reqs.

It's also best to check with each program you apply to; some will require pre-reqs to be no more than 7 or even 5 years old. I had to retake A&P because I missed the cutoff by one month.

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Specializes in Medical Surgical/Addiction/Mental Health.
I am sorry for your loss.

I believe if your pre-reqs are still considered "valid", they will be weighted the same during the admissions process as another student's 3 year old pre-reqs.

It's also best to check with each program you apply to; some will require pre-reqs to be no more than 7 or even 5 years old. I had to retake A&P because I missed the cutoff by one month.

I agree. This is good information.

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You should really ask the school. Every schools policy is different as to how old a grade they except. Other then that they don't care, grades don't loose point for age, they just become invalid after a certain point in time.

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Good luck to you, I am a 50 yr old student. Just finished all prereqs. I believe it is never too late. Don't give up regardless of whether they are too old.

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My school requires that the science only be no older than 5 years. You may find that maybe your Bio won't be good, but all of the others will still be good. One or two repeats shouldn't be too bad.

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My school requires that the science only be no older than 5 years. You may find that maybe your Bio won't be good, but all of the others will still be good. One or two repeats shouldn't be too bad.

I've also read that those students whose classes are nearing the cutoff date may benefit from retaking those classes, if only to refresh oneself of key concepts.

And as another poster stated above, some programs will allow you to take one refresher course if say, 2 or more classes have "expired".

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