Guide for getting into nursing school.

If you follow this guide for getting into nursing school then you will be a successful student, and you will get into nursing school. The successful pre-nursing major student will go through their ups and downs, but following these tips will make your life a lot easier, and will ensure acceptance into a nursing program. Remember to stay focused, friendly, and to get help when you need it. Nurses Announcements Archive Article

Guide for getting into nursing school.

It is important to make straight A's. One or two B's is alright, depending upon your program, is okay, but to be safe, make all A's. If you are having problems with your school work, ask you teacher for tips and then form a study group. If it comes down to it, retake classes. Just remember to bust your rear-end to get really good grades.

Prepare yourself for nursing school entrance exams. See if your entrance exam has an official study guide. ATI has made an official study guide for the TEAS V. Also, check and see if your school offers study sessions for their nursing school entrance exams. If all else fails, do a Google or amazon search and I bet you will find something there.

Keep in good standings with your class mates and instructors. Some programs require letters of recommendation, and instructors are perfect for this. I'm not saying to kiss their bottom every chance you get, but try to be friendly with them. And you never know when a class-mate will end up working at a potential place of work, and the person over hiring and firing asks them about you.

Keep a positive attitude, and learn to love being a student. You are going to be one for the rest of your life.

Prepare yourself financially for nursing school beforehand. Also, you will need to prepare a lot of free time to study your heart-out in nursing school, so be sure to make arrangements. It's not impossible to get through the nursing school process with a family. In fact, many others have done it, but it does complicate things a bit.

You are never too old to enter the field. If an older nurse came into my room with me as the patient, I would just assume that they have been doing this job for a long time, and that would actually make me feel much more comfortable. Just be sure to show confidence. Also, don't be scared to enter nursing because you are a male or any other minority. There are places for everyone within the nursing field, regardless of where you live. Most males end up working in the ER like units which is where the vast majority prefer to be anyway.

Develop a support group. Getting through the pre-req's with flying colors can be very stress inducing, and having a family member or friend there to support you in the rough time can be very helpful, if you don't have those things then allnurses.com members are known for their encouraging words to struggling students. Just make sure that this is what you want to be doing, and that you are not going into nursing for the wrong reasons. Make sure that you are going in because you love patient care, and not for a pay check because you will be miserable beyond all means if you do, and not just at the nursing level, but also at the pre-nursing student level too.

Volunteer or work as a CNA first. Some schools favor students who volunteer their time or work as a CNA because it shows that they are really going into nursing for the right reasons.

Good luck, study hard and then have fun!

Point by point format

  1. Make good grades
  2. Study official nursing school entrance exam study, or similar material.
  3. Keep in good standings with your classmates and instructors
  4. Prepare yourself financially and free up ample time for studying.
  5. One is never too old, or is of the wrong minority to enter nursing.
  6. Develop a support group to reduce stress.
  7. Do volunteer work.
  8. Keep a positive attitude.
Thujone

About Thujone

CMA (AAMA), EMT-B

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This is great advice!!! Now I just need help getting straight A's :specs:

Another possible thing to add is to try to get some experience/volunteer work. The school I applied to (and didn't get into) noted that was a major drawback on my application.

Also, make sure to make A's the first time around! In some cases, retakes can be a negative when the number of slots is low and the quality applicant count is high. It can be the difference between acceptance and a waitlist! I speak from experience, but everything works out! Just do the best you can and apply to as many places as you can to have options. :)

If your choice of schools offer information sessions. go to one. If they don't, get to know someone in the admissions department. Find out what THEY think is most important on an application. I was told by several people to do volunteer work to get extra points towards getting into the school I wanted in but at the info session (nowhere else) they said up front, volunteering doesnt matter, grades matter. So I put my time into making As the first time around instead of volunteering and I got in.

Different schools look at different things, make the effort, find out what your top choices look at and focus on that instead of assuming what's generally true will definitely be true.

Specializes in Hospitalist Medicine.

I second Grizabelle's comments. Determine which program you want to get into and then attend their pre-nursing seminar (if available). Meet with a pre-nursing advisor to make sure you're taking the correct classes. And most of all, if your school is based on a points system, find out what's going to earn you the most points for admissions and do it! Besides grades, the program I want to get into gives bonus points for either CNA, Phlebotomy, Medical Assisting or other type of medical certification (EMT, Respiratory Therapy, etc.) You also get points for volunteering or working in the medical field. With over 350 applicants for 128 spots, you need all the points you can get!!!

Specializes in Emergency Room.

Awesome advice, I would like add a few things and make a few comments.

1. Cannot emphasize enough how much harder it is to get into school if you become complacent with just Bs and even get Cs, this probably delayed me at least a couple of years. Do it right the first time!

2. In addition to the study guide, I would also purchase at least one of the online practice tests through ATI and review each justification for each wrong answer so you can increase your score.

4.Exactly, you'll always need to do continuing education to keep up with your license and learn new things as the field advances.

6. One of the traveler's at my work started nursing school in his 50s and he is an excellent nurse. He worked as a truck driver and as a peace officer before and he said school was one of the hardest things he had ever done but it goes to show that it's never too late.

7. "Make sure that you are going in because you love patient care, and not for a pay check because you will be miserable beyond all means if you do, and not just at the nursing level, but also at the pre-nursing student level too." I could not agree more with you. I understand that people have gone through hard times and many are pursuing nursing as a second career but if you are in it solely for financial purposes then you might want to reconsider your choice. I work as an ER technician right now and I know that I am capable of working in a high stress environment for 12 hours or more at a time. Health care isn't always as glorious as it is portrayed to be. You see some very sad things: you deal with very sick people, you deal with people that have hit rock bottom, you see people that have been abused and you deal with a lot of people who are not appreciative of what you do. I accept all of this as a reality and I honestly cannot see myself doing anything else, THAT is why I want to be a nurse, the paycheck is a nice bonus.

8. I think this is honestly one of the most important ones in my book. I wanted to know if this field was for me so I got certified as an EMT. I loved my ambulance ride along and my hospital clinical so after my class ended I applied to an internship at a local hospital. I got to volunteer in Telemetry, the ER (where I now work), the OR, and the NICU. This exposed me to a variety of hospital settings and made me appreciate how different members of the health care team worked together. It also showed that I am able to handle the things in health care that makes some people squeamish such as doing bed baths on patients, watching traumatic cases in the ER and literally seeing peoples' insides in the OR. If this field wasn't for me, I would have found out a long time ago before I finished my pre-reqs and applied to schools. For this reason I think everyone needs to volunteer before they make the huge commitment of going to nursing school.

Well I'd say one thing from your post is make sure you want to do this. As a career changer, I can tell you how emotionally draining it is to have a job you hate. There are a lot of jobs out there where you can make as much or more than a nurse without many of the headaches. I sometimes think I'm crazy because I'm trying to get into a field with less income potential than my current career. Nursing is the only thing I can think about doing though.

About a year ago, I decided to get into nursing after graduating with a BS in 2010. 2 weeks ago, I got accepted into the one nursing school I applied to in NY...yess....pretty bawlsy.

One advice...and the ONLY advice. Get all A's or very few B's for your pre-reqs. Primarily, grades determine if you will get in or not. Unfair...I know. IF you have a 2.7 gpa with good experience and recs, you're prolly not gonna get in. This is not the 90's or early 2000's anymore when you can just apply to a nursing school and start school the following semester.

I'm quitting my decent paying job to go back to school for 2 years and I've been having a lot of second thoughts lately.

This is really great advice! However, I thought I'd ask...I graduated with a BS in Biology with a 3.59 GPA. I have A's in A&P 1 and 2, A's in my Chemistry courses, but I have a B+ in Microbiology and a B in Statistics (a prereq for many programs around me). Can anyone offer an opinion on if they think this would hurt me in getting into nursing school? I don't understand how getting a B in something is a bad thing. Some professors are really really difficult no matter how hard you try! :)

Hester,

The idea is really to do the best you can in order to be the most competitive applicant you can be. If you ask schools, they will tell you that their entrance pre-req GPAs have a wide range but the schools I've looked at have average pre-req entrance GPAs of 3.6 to 3.8. So there will be 4.0 students to offset the non 4.0 students but the closer you are to 4.0, the more competitive you are GPA-wise.

This is really great advice! However, I thought I'd ask...I graduated with a BS in Biology with a 3.59 GPA. I have A's in A&P 1 and 2, A's in my Chemistry courses, but I have a B+ in Microbiology and a B in Statistics (a prereq for many programs around me). Can anyone offer an opinion on if they think this would hurt me in getting into nursing school? I don't understand how getting a B in something is a bad thing. Some professors are really really difficult no matter how hard you try! :)

Seems good! B's are def not a bad thing....even a C in a class is not gonna hurt too much either. But try to get A's and try to get above 3.7 (pre-req) gpa.