I found out yesterday I was accepted to the BSN program at Hawaii Pacific University (HPU). I would like to share the details about my journey and perhaps it can be of help!
About me: I have a BS in Microbiology and Biology and my GPA was a less than stellar 2.78 at NMSU. I earned those degrees about 10 years ago. Also, I took pre-nursing prerequisites at a community college in Virginia and received much better grades and had a 3.5 GPA (I took those within the last 4 years). I decided to hold off on applying because we were about to move (my husband is in the military). Also, I did earn my MPH and it didn't seem like HPU used it in their decision making. Although, I did use a snippet of my thesis for my writing portion when I applied to HPU as pre-nursing.
October 2013 I applied to HPU as a pre-nursing student and was accepted within a week of applying. Next, I took the TEAS test January 2014 and got a 84.7% which ranked me in the 95th percentile nationally and 89th for the program. My ATI academic preparedness level was categorized as "advanced". The National Mean was 64.3% and the Program Mean was 70.6%. I used ATI's online practice exams, ATI study guide book, and McGraw Hills TEAS V practice tests to prepare. The ATI online exams seemed to be the most helpful, yet using all of these books together helped overall. I spent about a month studying for the test. I took the ATI online practice exam at first to get a baseline for studying. It help me focus on my weaknesses.
HPU evaluates you once you are within a semester of finishing your prerequisite courses. After I had my transcripts evaluated, I only had one nursing prerequisite left - Economics. I am currently taking that online.
As part of the ranking process to determine who gets into the BSN program, HPU considers your overall GPA from all schools; your GPA for prerequisite science-based courses GPA; TEAS score; and how many credits you have taken at HPU. I do not know what their calculations for my GPAs were since I had transcripts from multiple schools. The minimum is 2.75 GPA. Also, I do not have any credits form HPU and am working on getting 3 credits from the Economics class.
As far as paying for my BSN, I fortunately am able to use the GI Bill. However, we will be out of pocket about $6K a year. The GI Bill pays $19K a year and HPU's BSN is $25K a year. I've been applying for scholarships and as a back up plan I did submit a FAFSA.
HPU does not expire science courses, which was a good thing, otherwise I'd be taking a whole lot more classes! I hope this information is helpful. Good luck!
