LVN to RN in CA

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Hi everyone,

I have been a LVN for the past 2 years, currently in the bay area. I am trying to get accepted to a LVN-RN bridge program somewhere in Nor-cal but it just seems so difficult. I have all of my pre-requisites completed from more than 5 years ago from before I even started my LVN so those are now expiring because most schools have a 5 year recency. I have an associates degree. About a 3.0 GPA. Got 83% on my TEAS exam. I have tried local community colleges but all have crazy long wait lists. I don't care about the cost of the program at this point and willing to pay whatever amount. I even tried applying to Unitek college in Fremont and got REJECTED twice for their bridge program. They had about 190 applications and only accept 28 students. I was even willing to pay that ridiculous amount of 50K for that school. I just don't know what to do at this point and I am trying for Carrington college bridge program in Sacramento now and then try for Gurnick academy of medical arts bridge program in Fresno. Both of these have 8-9 month long bridge programs for ADN costing about 35k. Anybody went to Carrington college in sacramento before for the LVN to RN bridge program and can tell me what the acceptance rate is? or how I can make myself more competitive? At this point if I don't get accepted to any of these two schools either, I honestly don't know what I will do.

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Can you move for school? Bridge programs aren't usually that difficult to get into from what I understand.

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Yes, I am willing to move anywhere in CA where I can easily get accepted to a bridge program. Yeah, that's what I thought too. Apparently even colleges like Unitek is hard to get into now.

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For my school, even the bridging people needed to meet all of the requirements to get in and got chosen along with the rest of us. A 3.0 is a pretty low GPA for such a competitive area. If you will likely need to re-do some pre-reqs due to them expiring, what about taking them at a community college, or cheaper school to boost the GPA and prevent the expiration? Good luck!

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Specializes in Primary Care.

I am on the same boat as you. I applied to CSM and got placed on the wait list. I have to reapply next spring. I was going to apply to CCSF, but I missed their deadline to apply. They don't have a bridge program, but they do have advanced placement which cuts the program from 2 years to 1.5 years, or something like that. DeAnza's waiting list seems the most logical. You apply quarterly, I believe, and if you're wait listed, you stay on that wait list and just file a form each application period that you want to continue to stay on the wait list. CSM and DeAnza are both 2 semester programs (8 months approx). Ohlone is also 8 months, but I haven't looked that far into it.

How did you get rejected from Unitek twice?! I find that hard to believe since they're all about the $$$$$$.

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