I'm a Us Citizen, studied nursing in the Philippines and I'm now moving to back to the US.

akulahawkRN, ADN, RN, EMT-P · Feb 17, 2015

Here's the deal with being a foreign-educated nurse... you'll have potentially several (potentially very difficult) hurdles to hop over when you return to the US. You will very likely have problems getting licensed in California. Thousands of nurses from the Philippines are having big problems getting licensed due to coursework/clinical concurrency issues that are well known here on this site.

In any event, you'll need your transcripts evaluated to determine what units you've already taken will transfer to a US school. It's going to be a bit of a process, I'm afraid. I wasn't foreign educated as a nurse and haven't studied overseas (from the US perspective) so I don't know exactly the process to transfer your courses back to the US.

zzbxdo · Feb 17, 2015

I'm under the impression you're asking about nursing program in the states, and post high-school from the pi. If that's the case, it's all good. If you started taking classes already, you'll need to get them evaluated but assume they will never be completely aligned. If you're not in a nursing program yet, don't bother and just wait til you're back in the states. If you've already started.. Then see which states will take your degree, CA certainly will not thus further studying will do you no good here. I'f you're planning to reside in the states I'd probably not consider pursuing education there.

As for your answers, you really didn't give us enough information on what kind of education you have thus far. Prerequisites plus the program itself (2 to 3 years for a traditional BSN program in the states).

loriangel14, RN · Feb 17, 2015

Quite likely anything taken outside of the US will not transfer.

timtams · Feb 17, 2015

I'm under the impression you're asking about nursing program in the states, and post high-school from the pi. If that's the case, it's all good. If you started taking classes already, you'll need to get them evaluated but assume they will never be completely aligned. If you're not in a nursing program yet, don't bother and just wait til you're back in the states. If you've already started.. Then see which states will take your degree, CA certainly will not thus further studying will do you no good here. I'f you're planning to reside in the states I'd probably not consider pursuing education there.
As for your answers, you really didn't give us enough information on what kind of education you have thus far. Prerequisites plus the program itself (2 to 3 years for a traditional BSN program in the states).

I'm on my fourth year. I completed all my major subjects in the philippines and yes my case loads are complete but not for US standards. Here we only need three for each case, but in the US I think its five. I don't know, but for me taking minor subjects like filipino or p.e are useless if I'm gonna go back to the states. Cause yes I'm just going to get a degree, but still need to study if I want to take the board exam.

JustBeachyNurse, LPN · Feb 17, 2015

To put it simply it is not common for students to transfer nursing schools in the US midprogram. While the overall content may be the same the order of classes and occasionally pre- and co- requisite course often differ. Many students must start over. A course in Filipino language is definitely not required in US curriculums and may or may not be accepted for transfer for a foreign language requirement in a US school. Many universities require a 2 semester foreign language course (that the student is not already proficient in) as a graduation requirement. Most require a health or physical education class as s general education graduation requirement.

US schools do not offer nor require "cases" as the PRC requires (cord care, delivery assist, major/minor surgery etc) as these are not undergraduate student roles. Clinical rotations in the US are very different and the skills and responsibilities increase as a student progresses through the program. Overall nursing education in the US does not use students as staff (assisting in surgery, assisting with delivery, etc) nor are fresh grads required to have a financial backer (or student to pay) to get a hospital job.

Please do not be surprised if very little of your overseas education is accepted and credited in transfer to a U.S. nursing program. Acceptance to US BSN programs is FTE highly competitive and its even more competitive to be accepted in a transfer from another nursing program. Many must restart their nursing education from first year.

Contact admissions or nursing programs you wish to apply to directly to find out what you need to do and what may be accepted in transfer. Many programs have admission cut offs 3-12 months prior to program start. My school had a January acceptance deadline for September start.

zzbxdo · Feb 17, 2015

You need to know which states will take your degree if you plan on finishing. CA will not, for sure. Wouldn't count on your classes transferring over midway either.

mgp6 · Apr 4, 2015

Just as a reference, when we moved here to US, my sister finished 2 years out of 4yrs of a nursing program in the Philippines. She got her transcripts evaluated but CSU nursing programs told her she has to start over.. And she did.