How bad is an "F" for a science course

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Hi everyone. i have come to a stressful time in my college life. i received my first "F" in chemistry because it was actually a "c" and for financial aid reasons in order for me to retake the course next semester i must get an "F" for financial aid to cover the class again. so i re took the class and got a "b". Now again i am just finishing up for anatomy and again because i went to the wrong class same lecture than transfered to the new professor messed me up and now i see a big fat "F" in my transcript again because i will be getting a "c" i am so depressed! ... now the school i attend has a nursing school but my heart is in another university. i really really want to go. lets just say hypothetically i do excellent from now on. How bad do this "F" look in my application is my life as a nurse over?. in the school i attend the director spoke to a group and she said that they do not look at the repeated course you pass. they look at the first grade you got when you first took it. i need serious help please. what can i do?

Specializes in being a Credible Source.
WOW. I am beginning to love my school more and more. That is just rediculous. These people should realize "life happens". Yea, I failed A&P I misserably even though I attended every lecture and lab. I have note books full of notes etc etc. But, at the time my mother was/is in hospice and dying. Of course when the semester began my mother was not doing nearly as badly, otherwise I would have put off taking the class. Unfortunately the cancer spread to her brain and pancreas and we all know what happens next. These health advisement offices really should look at the entire picture before rejecting people. Now, if someone has several bad grades and is showing a pattern, ok. But if someone ends up with one bad grade and excells at the rest, show some compassion!!:mad:
I don't really disagree with you but consider the other side: In the recent (or current?) environment where there are far more candidates than seats, is it reasonable to give a seat to someone with a weaker academic record over someone with a stronger record? What if the person with the stronger record also had "life happen" and still managed to be successful? What kinds of conditions should be considered exculpatory? How much effort should be expected of admissions folks to winnow out the legit "life happens" folks from the "I partied too much" folks?

I'm pretty comfortable with excluding people with poor grades unless they've an extended and consistent track record demonstrating present ability. Two F's in core science prereqs is pretty dismal.

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I just reread that. I am not sure I understood, but you only have one actual F now? Then take the C in A&P and avoid another F at all costs.

Try to get any F grades removed from your record, is about all you can do, so far as your total GPA at that school goes. If you can't get into any RN programs, you can certainly get into an LPN and then work up. LPN has a pre-admission exam, but most LPN schools that I've talked to never needed to see any of my college transcripts.

Before giving up on RN, I would study the transfer student and preadmission requirements of many associate degree and diploma RN programs. Find out how the various RN schools determine your GPA for preadmission purposes. Some have a three-year "freshness date" on prereqs (all or some prereqs) and any class older than 3 years is not considered and must be repeated. Or, some only require certain specific classes for admission purposes, and chemistry might not be one, and thus it isn't counted if they only use a GPA derived from certain specific prereq courses. Or, if you have taken a course multiple times, then maybe they only use the most recent one.

Do some digging and see if you can use the schools' own arbitrary admissions criteria to your advantage, i.e. pick schools whose admissions rules look at the strong parts of your transcript or the result of NLN PAX or HESI preadmission or whatever. With them having to numerically rank all students in order to not be biased, you can try to pick schools that rank you to your advantage, not detriment. RN schools each have their own set of admissions criteria. You just shop around.

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Butterfly0328....do you mind telling me what college you attend? I almost want to move there to get in somewhere..... :crying2:

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Ok so I called the school i want to attend and they said they accept the highest score BUT it felt like she wanted to tell me that it over for me. She said they get hundreds of applicants for the program and that there are only about 70seats in top of that she said that the sciences are very competetive and most people do really good she also said that GPA is not as a big factor because you have letters of reference and personal statemeent. Volunteer experience a plus. So now I am still lost I signed again for anatomy for next semseter but I don't know what to do to redem myself.... were your schools ad strict and did you guys have 4.0 ? Help any advice needed :(

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please tell me if i am understanding correctly. So receiving one C is forgivable, but anything lower is putting yourself on the slippery slope. Either way, you need to demonstrate pure redemption with no mercy. Perfection all the way through, no excuses. Please tell me if i am understanding how this pre-nursing stuff goes because I completing my pre-reqs as well and i just want to have a clear understanding of what my science gpa needs to be, b4 i begin my application process.

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Specializes in being a Credible Source.
Ok so I called the school i want to attend and they said they accept the highest score BUT it felt like she wanted to tell me that it over for me. She said they get hundreds of applicants for the program and that there are only about 70seats in top of that she said that the sciences are very competetive and most people do really good she also said that GPA is not as a big factor because you have letters of reference and personal statemeent. Volunteer experience a plus. So now I am still lost I signed again for anatomy for next semseter but I don't know what to do to redem myself.... were your schools ad strict and did you guys have 4.0 ? Help any advice needed :(
The first thing you need to do is to get an A in your second try (which, honestly, shouldn't be any trouble). Beyond that, you should prepare to be denied admittance to the next class and continue to build your profile by taking additional hard sciences or maths.
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I think you are right I will take upper division bio classes and maybe they see that it was a phase. What appropriate excuse is there for my sitiuation? If you have any more advice please let me know. I must keep my slef motivated. Thanks you guys.

Keep in mind that you need to truly understand the basic material in order to do well in upper-level classes. Regardless of whether you have a C or an F right now - neither of those grades guarantee you any type of success in a harder science course. Be careful here, you could end up bombing further courses and that won't help you out at all.

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Yea that is true it what worries me that I can put myself in a bigger hole. I seriously need to re deem myself like the other post said " take no prisoners" and plus do you think it matters were you go to get the pre reqs done? I think it is much worse to fail as a nursing student than to fail a science course I am trying to hope for the best and keep positive. Thank you all for being honest and if you think there are other things I can do pleasevlet me know.

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please tell me if i am understanding correctly. So receiving one C is forgivable, but anything lower is putting yourself on the slippery slope. Either way, you need to demonstrate pure redemption with no mercy. Perfection all the way through, no excuses. Please tell me if i am understanding how this pre-nursing stuff goes because I completing my pre-reqs as well and i just want to have a clear understanding of what my science gpa needs to be, b4 i begin my application process.

Every school is different, and sometimes the requirements change. IE the school I am applying to has competitive admissions, an applicant is only compared to their peers. This system makes for a moving target, one semester the GPA requirment could be low enough to forgive a C but the next may not. The min req at my school is 3.0 but the avg is closer to 3.5, so you can see that too many grades that are not A's can quickly make an applicant uncompetitive.

The real goal is to keep your GPA as close to a 4.0 as possiable. There are schools in CA that have a points table for admissions, but GPA's are vital there too as they account for right around 50% of the possiable points. There are schools where you just have to meet a minimum (usually a 2.5 or 3.0, so C's and B's are forgiveable) and are either placed on a waitlist (months to years in lenght) or in a lottery.

Dont worry about what you can get away with, dont reason that you can take it easy on a class because you can afford to get an C, because in reality that C could be the differance between getting into school and not. And if you can get your grades the first time around, even if a school forgives, or overlooks a course you retook it could still be the deciding factor between you and another applicant with the same stats but that got them his/her first time around.

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Specializes in future OB/L&D nurse(I hope) or hospice.
Butterfly0328....do you mind telling me what college you attend? I almost want to move there to get in somewhere..... :crying2:

I live in Las Vegas and I attend the College of Southern Nevada. The web link is

www.csn.edu. I am sooo fortunate to be going to this school. I also see the point of the one who quorted my post stating the school has many more applicants than seats. The only thing I see wrong with this is that I would NEVER get a chance to attend. I just thank my lucky stars that I will eventually be able to attend. At my school you have 3 chances to get a better grade and the best grade is taken. Of course if you fail three times then your out. But truthfully, if I failed three times I myself would never attempt nursing school. So, yea. check it out. If you have no issues re-locating then I would give it some serious thought. Good Luck:)

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Specializes in future OB/L&D nurse(I hope) or hospice.

Also Lindsy07: This is how it works at my school. They take the following 5 classes (which are the pre-requisites) and average your GPA. Then you receive points, of course the higher the GPA the more points :

*Fundamentals Of Life Science ( which is basic biology of cells etc.)

*A&P I

*English 101

*Psychology 101

*Math

And then there are several "general ed requirments" that if taken prior to application you will be given "points" for. Those classes are:

*A&P II (10 pts)

*Microbiology (5 pts)

*History 101 & 102 (1 pt)

*Communications (5 pts)

*Sociology (1pt)

If you have not completed the above generals then you don't get the points and some must be completed prior to starting the 2nd semester or 3rd semester of nursing school.

And then you must complete the TEAS test and depending upon your score more points are given.

The past 2 semesters no one has been accepted unless they have the points from the generals. As you know it is getting more competative. But from what I understand there have been only about 250-275 applicants and there are 24 part time seats and 136 full time seats. So it is not nearly as competative as other states and schools.

I love this design because it gives everyone a chance to attend. Not just those that are lucky enough to get 4.0 gpa. Lets face it, not everyone is able to attain such a gpa. And don't even think about telling me something like, " just try harder". Some people are just more academically gifted than others.

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where are you going? im in the same boat as the opening poster.. and ive taken most of those!!

Also Lindsy07: This is how it works at my school. They take the following 5 classes (which are the pre-requisites) and average your GPA. Then you receive points, of course the higher the GPA the more points :

*Fundamentals Of Life Science ( which is basic biology of cells etc.)

*A&P I

*English 101

*Psychology 101

*Math

And then there are several "general ed requirments" that if taken prior to application you will be given "points" for. Those classes are:

*A&P II (10 pts)

*Microbiology (5 pts)

*History 101 & 102 (1 pt)

*Communications (5 pts)

*Sociology (1pt)

If you have not completed the above generals then you don't get the points and some must be completed prior to starting the 2nd semester or 3rd semester of nursing school.

And then you must complete the TEAS test and depending upon your score more points are given.

The past 2 semesters no one has been accepted unless they have the points from the generals. As you know it is getting more competative. But from what I understand there have been only about 250-275 applicants and there are 24 part time seats and 136 full time seats. So it is not nearly as competative as other states and schools.

I love this design because it gives everyone a chance to attend. Not just those that are lucky enough to get 4.0 gpa. Lets face it, not everyone is able to attain such a gpa. And don't even think about telling me something like, " just try harder". Some people are just more academically gifted than others.

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