I have bad grades, but for good reasons and want to go to nursing school.

[chanticleer]

I really want to be a nurse, especially women's health nursing. I currently have more than 60 hours worth of credits of pretty awful (2.3) grades. I do have good reasons though.

I tried to go to school and drive home all the time and take care of my mother who has lupus which eventually led to avascular necrosis in both hips. The surgery was first suggested in 2003 and she only had it for the first time last month because of all the complications related to the lupus. Tangentally, they were right, her kidneys arre failing, her blood pressure is much too low, along with a host of other issues. Simultaneously, my 80 year old aunt with another litany of health problems was living with us and my mother was trying to do this alone.

My aunt fell and broke her leg and went to an awful nursing home and I couldn't stand it and dropped out of school to take care of them. My aunt died in 2008 and I tried to go back to school, much too early and this led to another year of strange grades. The nurses that were so wonderful when my aunt was ill are the reason why I want to be a nurse in the first place.

I also had no idea what I wanted to do at all in school, but that is true for so many students! My ACT score was 26 if that helps at all. I'm not full of myself, but I'm more than capable of getting As in the prerequisite courses.

I want to be a nurse more than anything! My current plan is to go back to school and take the prerequisites and a couple of my worst classes and then apply when I have them completed. Is there anything else I can do? Do I have a chance?

PS- I also have bipolar disorder which has finally been medicated properly for the first time areound April, although I've had it probably since puberty. Don't know if I should tell anyone that though.

[Hospice Nurse LPN, BSN, RN]

Maybe you can ask for academic bankruptcy. I have a classmate who did that and was able to retake her classes and now has a 3.7 GPA.

[bhanson]

Yes, you will have to disclose the fact that you are bipolar. Because of this you will have to go through a separate process from your BoN to see if you're eligible for licensing.

As far as GPA goes, there are schools that do grade replacement. Find one of those and your previous performance does not matter at all.

[Student4_life]

Your options are limited for sure, but the door is never closed.

You have a good plan with taking pre-reqs and repeating courses, but realize that there are multiple approaches schools take on repeated courses. Some avg, some drop the lower one and some dont allow repeats.

You are going to need to apply to schools that either A) have a waitlist for applicants that have met all the requirments B) have a lottery system for applicants that meet the requirments or C) have an essay portion on their application.

The reason I say that is, even though I am sure you can bring your GPA up to a 2.5 and possiably even a 3.0 depending on how your school handles the grades, very few applicants get into schools by just meeting the minimums. And you stand a chance at getting into a school that uses one of those three methods, however you still need to meet the GPA minimums.

And I wouldnt equate a 26 on the ACT with being more than capable of getting A's in college. It shows that you are decently capable of taking a test of high school knowledge, but it doesnt promise success.

Smash your pre-reqs, prove to admission that you can get A's by getting them (especially in A&P I&II, Microbio and Chem, hopefully you havent taken these courses yet as some schools calc this GPA seperate and consider it the most important section of your package). And be sure you get great letters of rec, vol exp, and get in the 90's for your percentile on whatever standardized test you have to take.

You are going to have to work harder than your classmates, and you are going to see little improvement in your GPA for all your hard work (if you havent taken the 4 classes i mentioned earlier, even if you got straight A's in them over this next year your GPA would only climb to about 2.65). But you can't afford to get discouraged, you have to get those A's you said you can get as admissions already has reason to pass on your app, wow them with your 4.0 since you made the decision to go after nursing.

Good luck.

[Yummy Chocolate]

Find out which schools you want to apply to, then go and see the academic adviser there. Explain your situation and ask them about your next steps. Next ask them about how they look at repeated course to bring up GPA. Other than this, you are on the right track. Good luck!! :)