high school student aspiring to become a nurse

Sour Lemon · Aug 9, 2018

I have several questions about requirements to make it into a college program for nursing. First i have a 2.3 gpa but i am going into senior year and this past year i averaged a 3.3 gpa. I expect it to rise to about a 2.5 at least and have taken 3 Ap classes to help raise it. It is so low because of a dip in my sophmore year. However i do have about 200 community service hours, a nursing internship next week, work experience, sports and clubs in school, and will have a good essay. im very worried i wont make it even though some schools might accept me. i just want to know
- What most people had for a gpa in highschool and how it affected their college search
- SAT scores
- anything i could possibly do more to increase my chances of becoming a nurse
- should i do early action or decision?
- ultimately overall chance

Every nursing school has different criteria, so no one will be able to give good answers to your questions ...but most nursing programs require college prerequisites to be taken before their nursing program can be applied to. Those prerequisite college classes and the grades you make in them are usually what matter- not your high school grades.

What type of nursing program do you plan to complete? I'd suggest a site search of "ADN verses BSN" for all the pros and cons of each.

Also be aware of minimum requirements when deciding which school(s) to apply for. Successful applicants often score higher on everything, and students who only meet the minimums have no actual chance of acceptance.

Good luck!

EmDash · Aug 9, 2018

Yeah, unless you are applying to these early admit nursing programs, your high school grades or test scores aren't going to matter unless some of the classes you've taken so far are for college credit. Like said, nursing programs look at your college GPA, prereq GPA, and maybe certain specialized test scores (TEAS, HESI, etc) since you have to take certain classes before you start nursing. You can also start off at a community college to get those prereq courses and such, and then apply and get into a nursing program at another college, at a university, etc.

To better your chances, you're going to want to really buckle down and start working on how you approach classes because you should try to keep your college GPA fairly high, especially your prereq GPA. The average prereq GPA of those accepted into my program was a 3.8. If you start figuring out how you need to study and learn now, you won't run into so many hiccups when you start college.