how important is GPA?

[sourapril]

I am a nursing student. When I asked a nurse manager from a non-teaching private hospital how important is an applicant's GPA, she told me not all that important. She said she would look at someone's experience, connection over academic. Is that the norm? Does it matter if you are applying to a teaching hospital or other facilities? Nurse managers and anyone who ever hired a new grad, feel free to answer.

[MN-Nurse, ASN, RN]

The importance of GPA is inversely proportional to experience. New grad with no experience? GPA is a strong factor. 10 years experience at varying jobs with assorted certifications? They probably won't even look at your GPA.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

when i graduated from my bs program at age 22 i swore i would never, ever go to graduate school, because all of us smart*** new grads knew fer sher that grad school nurses were incompetent ninnies who couldn't make it as "real nurses," i.e., bedside nurses. how we knew this i am not exactly sure, because we met very few grad students, if any, and lord knows we had no meaningful clinical experience beyond school, but there it was. so i was a member of the last class at my college not to be required to take statistics, and i proudly did not, since i was nevernevernever going to grad school. i worked 24hrs/week as a student and graduated with a stellar 2.85 average, although i got a 3.2 my senior year when i didn't have to work since i was then married and my husband, who graduated a year ahead of me, was earning more money than the two of us had earned together in the previous two years. hooray.

fast-forward five years. i am now a hotshot cvicu nurse at a world-class university hospital, and asked to help teach. i discover...egad, i really like it. so i start thinking seriously of getting a teaching job. alas, gotta have a master's for that. so i took a statistics course (loved it, aced it). then i looked into applying to grad school. got 99th percentile in all sections of the gre. and heard in no uncertain terms that a 2.85 wasn't gonna make it for that. i remonstrated, "you can't tell me i can never go to graduate school because i screwed around and didn't work hard when i was 18 and 19." so they said, "take a couple of grad level courses and see how you do, and then we'll talk." did that, got as. it is now seven years after i graduated. applied to and got into a top grad school, did well, loved what i learned, still opens doors for me even though i finished more than 25 years ago (how the heck did those years go by so fast? ).

but i could have had that grad school door open for me a lot more easily if i'd had a better gpa as an undergrad. look, i know, we do what we can, when we can. just sayin', though: you can't know now what will be important later, so if you can, do better, because at some time in the future, it might just count. don't let anybody tell you it doesn't really matter. you never know.

[mindlor]

I think grntea has once again summed it up quite nicely :)

[netglow, ASN, RN]

I have very recently filled out some major applications and needed my GPA for each and every degree, as well as how long it took me to get that degree, as well as any extras in regards eg graduating with highest honors, etc.

Now, other times not even asked.

IDK, but if a computer is in charge of elimination for first round, it's important.

[CVmursenary]

"Books don't have anything to do with nursing"???

Oh, so I shouldn't worry about dysrhythmias when the pt's potassium is 2. And it's actually a healthy sign when the pt's heart sounds are muffled, the pulse pressure is narrowing, the heart rate is 130, and the BP is dropping.

This is something you would want to learn, but much of nursing school is about theory and other information that i have managed to ignore.

[CVmursenary]

While I agree with the second half of your statement, I completely disagree with the first. Learning mostly useless material? That's an unfortunate outlook on the reflection of GPA to a person's knowledge, especially by someone college educated such as yourself. Who disagrees that in any endeavor we undertake that we should settle for 'mediocre'? GPA reflects what you put in to your education, does your GPA reflect who you perceive yourself to be?

No GPA does not reflect who i perceive myself to be. I'm bashing on nursing school itself, not all of academics. I like nursing i just feel that the education could be more pathophysiology based rather than nursing theory.

[AJPV]

Here's the thing... Let's agree that a decent portion (and too large of a portion) of nursing education is "fluff" or "nursing theory" as you describe it. Even so, if I have 2 people to decide between in making an offer, I know that the person with a 3.8 or 4.0 mastered both the "fluff" and the important stuff (the patho, the pharmacology, etc.) As a hiring manager, I would not assume that someone with a 2.8 or 2.9 has mastered the patho & pharm as well as the person with a 3.8 or 4.0. I think that patho & pharm are both extremely relevant as the starting point in developing real-life critical thinking and clinical skills.

[delilas]

Posts like these always make me cringe, because there's always so many who say its not worth it/what you learn in nursing school is useless.

Learning the hell out of your pathophys is never useless. Sure, you're never going to need to know every sign and symptom of all the obscure diseases we're tested on, but you didn't need to know the dates of all those civil war battles in high school either.

Grades still matter. Your level of dedication still matters. Whether you go for grad school, internships, fellowships, or just a highly competitive job. Its worth the time to put in, make yourself stand out, and open yourself to further opportunities.

[Purple_Scrubs, BSN, RN]

I think unless you personally know every nursing manager who is hiring, or you perform a survey, you will never know what they are looking for. Ever interviewed for a job and did not get it? Ever apply and not even get an interview? Who is to say that GPA did not factor into that decision. Even if it is not the first thing managers look at, if there are two otherwise equal candidates, would you take the 4.0 or the 3.2?

Best thing to do is study hard and do the very best you can. I would not use the fact that many managers don't give a rip about your GPA as an excuse to slack off...what if the ONE manager of your dream job DOES care?

[ChinupBSNRN]

A lot of great answers have been given here. I just graduated last May, and in my experience, GPA mattered a LOT. GPA determined where we got to do our capstone. Less than a 3.5 and you were not able to capstone anywhere except med/surg. Not so fun if you wanted to do peds, ICU, ER, etc. Also, to work in a hospital and do a residency program around here, you need a 3.4 gpa or above to even qualify for an interview. Residency is required at the hospital I work at. My ICU doesn't hire an applicant with less than a 3.5 gpa. The childrens hospital here will automatically trash can your resume unless you have a 3.4 gpa. All of these facilities require a copy of your transcript be mailed and received within 2 weeks of your application being submitted. Then there is the whole grad school option. 1 university around here requires 3.3 gpa to attend. If you do not meet that criteria, you can appeal it, but you have to do a project, take 3 special classes, and THEN the board decides if you are going to be accepted into the program. And no, this particular university is not a hoity toity place, it is a typical state school that thousands of people attend every semester.

In this competitive new grad job market, EVERYTHING is important. Tech experience, grades, networking, capstone, etc. I am sure that once you have a few years experience under your belt, the GPA matters less. But without being hired as a new grad, you cannot become an experienced RN.

One last point I want to make. Your academic status is kind of a fingerprint of sorts. How seriously you take your education is very revealing to a potential employer. No, a 4.0 is not required, but when you are interviewing someone that you are trusting to show up to work, take pride in their job, have critical thinking to care for patients when they become unstable and be a well rounded team player, you have to utilize a "filter" of sorts. The potential candidate will have a great answer to every question they ask. But when you look at how well they performed academically, you can kind of compare what they are saying and selling of themselves to what their hard copy academic fingerprint has to say. When someone says they have a strong work ethic and strong critical thinking skills, who would you put more stock into: the 2.9 gpa or the 3.6 gpa? To me, getting good grades in RN school is a good barometer for how much knowledge one has retained. You cannot answer critical thinking NCLEX questions without a strong patho/pharm base knowledge. And to me, how well you did in school can be a pretty good barometer for how much you learned. And what you learned translates into how well equipped you are to be an asset to that manager that is interviewing you.

[55nt29x]

Yes, if you're considering graduate school. I am currently applying to a DNP program at a very competitive nursing school, and I know that this particular college takes a close look at their applicant's GPA.

As far as being hired into a facility after nursing school, I think connections are more important than GPA. I was hired as an RN on the same unit that I worked on as a nurse intern while in nursing school. I expressed interest to my manager before gruduation and she actually opened up an RN position for me. Obviously, this will not always be the case for everyone, but I think that getting your feet wet while in nursing school will help you establish both clinical experience and connections, which may come in handy after graduation!