Help! What are my chances?

[Smarietb]

Hey guys, i just need your opinion on my situation....

I'm 25 years old and was having some issues after high school. I went straight to Community college (health science) but i kept having set backs due to 'family issues'...long story short it took me 6 years to finish a 2 year program! and i had to retake a few courses a long the way. My overall GPA is about a 2.6 maybe a little higher. (Will be higher after i take my last couple of courses) i retook a few classes and passed them with B's or A's.

Do you think b/c it took me so long to finish my associates degree and the fact I had to re-take courses will effect my chances of getting into nursing school? i just don't want to waste my time even trying if i have no chance. What should my next option be? Is there a way to start fresh from square one at a new school out of state ( I plan on moving in a year) Any advice would help. Thanks guys!

[idkmybffjill]

Going to depend on the program. Some of the programs will only consider your first attempt in your prereq GPA, so anything after that won't help. However, there are still quite a bit that will take the last grade up to the 3rd attempt or more. I haven't heard of a program viewing the length of how long you've taken to get a degree as a negative or positive. It could be something that you acknowledge and explain in an essay, interview, etc--and how dealing with the family issues made you a better nursing student candidate.

Your GPA, I think, is going to be the biggest hurdle. It depends on what the acceptance GPA is of the programs around you, but usually you want to be higher than 2.6 to be competitive. Having a high prereq GPA might balance that out a bit, so I'm not sure what grades you got on A&P, micro, etc.

And you really can't "start fresh." A nursing program is going to require you send them transcripts from every college you've attended period. If you fail to give them all transcripts, you can be kicked out of the program/immediately disqualified.

[Smarietb]

Thank you for your response, this was extremely helpful & made me feel a bit better lol !

My grades were actually pretty good in my health science classes such as A&P, Med term, etc... the lowest score i received in any of my science classes are B.

Im most likely going to take a few extra classes this summer just boost my GPA to at least a 3.0 bc a lot of nursing programs require nothing lower than that.