How to keep a high gpa during nursing program?

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Could any nursing student or graduate give me any suggestion on how to keep a high GPA during the nursing program?

Thank you.

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Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

The main thing is to focus on your studies consistently -- and to not get too distracted by other things in life. Going to school full time should occupy as much of your time and attention as a full time job (40 hours per week). However, many (most?) students don't dedicate that much time to it. Research on college students in general (not just nursing students) have shown that the average student spends less time studying than students of previous generations. They hold jobs, take care of families, have a social life, etc. Some of those things are unavoidable, but the more you can treat your schoolwork like a full time job, the better.

That means really studying -- "hitting the books," etc. -- not just skimming the books while you watch TV, listen to music, etc. on a regular basis. Stay on schedule and don't fall behind ... because it's hard to catch up as the class moves on to the next topic and you are still back at the previous one.

Also ... get a clear sense of each course's goals and objectives from the beginning. Study the syllabus: ask questions about it: review it periodically. Make sure that your work is targeted to the meeting of those goals and objectives and whatever other clues you can find as to what the instructor is looking for and how the grades will be determined. Make friends among upper classmen if possible to learn about their experiences with the same instructors teaching the same courses.

As someone who's been an instructor, that's my best advice.

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Specializes in Junior Year of BSN.

Critical thinking. I think this is important because you need to understand the concept but with the test questions there are always 2 answers that sound correct but one is always the best answer. So if you can apply what you learned critically you can come up with the best answer for that test question since most schools use NCLEX style test questions for exams. Plus critical thinking is one of the most important concepts in nursing in tests, procedures and knowing what you will do next to help your patient all involve how well you critically think. Tests are usually the biggest percentage of the course so if you read the question CAREFULLY and understand what they are asking THEN choose the correct answer this is important. If you study a lot but pick incorrect answers on the test it seems like you don't know what you are doing. Or you ever have those moments when you review your tests and your like I knew the answer why did I choose that it is because you have to understand the question first and not rush the test.

In my school if you don't have at least 70% on the tests alone they do not even calculate care plans, papers, lab procedure, diagrams, ATI etc., until you have 70% on tests. If you don't you repeat the course again and if you fail again your out of the program. Once you have that then they calculate those other things into your score to get your final grade in the class. The schools first mission is to get you to pass the NCLEX so sometimes other things take a back seat since the higher the NCLEX pass rate for the school the better the school seems to be.

Also correctly writing papers is essential. It is amazing to me how many students do not know how to write correct research papers. A lot of them do not know how to cite correctly. At my school each paper is submitted into a essay engine that generates how close your paper is to the one you cited. This way the teacher can see if you basically plagiarized your paper. The higher percentage the lower the grade is on your paper or you must rewrite the paper unless you basically plagiarized the whole paper then you fail the course due to academic dishonesty.

Grammar and spelling counts but a plagiarized paper receives the most deductions obviously and mostly it is because of poor citation or paraphrasing the paper incorrectly. Learn this early and you can get better grades on your essay especially if you will be writing any research articles that most BSN and graduate programs make you write.

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Today I went for an interview with my school and had a chance to talk with some of the actual teachers and what they said was for every hour of theory time (actual class time) you do two hours of studying. I would focus mainly on your classes, and test yourself using study guides, questions in the book and other material. Plan everything out, if you have a test next thursday on 7 chapters then spend like 2-3 hours on each chapter studying unless you feel you have truly gotten the concept down.

ALWAYS stay organized, its going to help you the most throughout schooling. I would invest in a big desk calendar and write down all your test and due dates as soon as possible, then plan out how your going to study for each in advance ALONG with any other homework. This way you'll always know what you have to do.

Always do your work. Never miss anything, even if the homework you have done isn't going to be graded, its only going to help you in the end!

Stay motivated! Even if it's hard it's worth it and you can do it! Just think about where you're going to end up once the schoolings done.

Best of luck!:)

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This page should be FILLED with comments from former nursing students. Thanks to the ones that posted. I will start clinicals next fall and I need all the info I can get!

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This page should be FILLED with comments from former nursing students. Thanks to the ones that posted. I will start clinicals next fall and I need all the info I can get!

It should be, but nursing school is so hard that only those 3 posters got good grades...

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haha student4life! If this were Facebook, I would have to "LIKE" that comment!:yeah:

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lots of NCLEX books to study for your tests!!

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Specializes in Peds, Med-Surg, Disaster Nsg, Parish Nsg.
haha student4life! If this were Facebook, I would have to "LIKE" that comment!:yeah:

You can give that member a kudos by clicking on the KUDOS button. Same thing as a "Like".

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You can give that member a kudos by clicking on the KUDOS button. Same thing as a "Like".

Right, I forgot about that! I'm new here :o

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