Prerequisites - How long do they take?

Published

Hi all!

I'm hoping to start my pre reqs soon. A friend of mine who is a former nurse said they only take about six months, but I've been noticing that most people say they take at least a year and maybe longer. What's your experience? How long do they take? If I went to school full time, what's the shortest time I could finish them in?

Thanks for reading!

[h=1][/h]

Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg, Psych, Geri, LTC, Tele,.

Yes to what CaliOtter said! The challenges include 1) there are prereqs to the prereqs which must be taken in sequence and

2) the classes fill quickly, and in my area, you can't always get in. I had to "add" several times in order to get into my classes.

This meant buying books and taking tests for a class you aren't officially enrolled in, just to get the chance to enroll.

It's not for the faint of heart!

Up Vote Up Vote ×

I just got accepted and it took me about a year and a half going through the community college.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Oncology (Prior: Ortho-Neuro, Metabolic Surgery).

As others say, it depends on your school. Mine is typically a year of prerequisites, but it can theoretically be done in two semesters. However, all the advisors here will tell you that's a very bad idea. My school is much tougher in Anatomy & Physiology than other nearby schools, so the advisors recommend taking that class by itself or only with other very easy classes. Another thing to keep in mind is the prerequisites have their own prerequisites, which will add time. Most schools also have a humanities or general electives requirement. Now that you've taken all those, it still might not be the best idea to jump right into nursing school. Many schools have corequisites, which are courses that must be taken to complete nursing school, but may be taken before entering nursing school. At my school, they strongly recommend taking all of these before nursing school even starts because nursing school is so stressful and time intensive that it would be best to decrease the courseload where possible. Another reason to take as many corequisites early as possible is having taken nutrition, pathophysiology, anatomy & physiology 2, and clinical calculations ahead of nursing school will mean that the material in nursing school will be much easier to understand. Students that delay taking pathophysiology especially struggle in nursing school. Another thing to consider is if you are going to an ADN program and later bridging to BSN, the BSN program may have additional prerequisites. Your situation is going to depend on your school(s) unless you happen to go to the same ones I am going to. Here's the breakdown for my schools:

Prerequisites:

- English Composition 1 - Prerequisite: Placement scores/ACT score

- Psychology: Human Development - Prerequisite: General Psychology (prereq.: College Composition & Reading/ACT scores), English Composition

- Biology: Anatomy & Physiology 1 - Prerequisite: General Biology/Biology CLEP score/Placement score (Prereq: Math Algebraic Literacy/placement score/ACT score, English Composition 1)

- Biology: Microbiology - - Prerequisite: General Biology/Biology CLEP score/Placement score (Prereq: Math Algebraic Literacy/ACT score/placement score, English Composition 1)

Corequisites:

- Biology: Anatomy & Physiology 2 - Prerequisite: Anatomy & Physiology 1

- Biology: Pathophysiology - Prerequisite: Anatomy & Physiology 2

- Math for Clinical Calculations - Prerequisite: Math Algebraic Literacy/Algebra CLEP/placement score

BSN Prerequisites:

- General Chemistry 1 - Prerequisite: Math Quantitative Literacy/Algebra CLEP/placement score

- Math: Statistics - Prerequisite: Math Quantitative Literacy/Algebra CLEP/placement score

- Human Nutrition - Prerequisite: College Compositions & Reading/ACT score/placement score, Math Quantitative Literacy/Algebra CLEP score/ACT score/placement score

Up Vote Up Vote ×

It depends on which program you're enrolling in; is it an ADN or BSN program?

Where I live, the ADN program required these classes before beginning: Composition 1, intro to Psych, Introduction to Biology, human anatomy, intro. to chem., & CNA certification. You had to take biology before you could take anatomy, so unless you took summer classes, it would take a whole year to do pre-requisites. The other non-nursing classes: Am. history, Comp 2, Am. Gov., Physiology, Microbiology, and developmental psychology could be taken ahead of time or done simultaneously with nursing school.

For the Traditional BSN program I chose, everything had to be finished ahead of time. Comp 1 & 2, Gov., History, Gen. Chem., College Algebra, Statistics, 2 classes of foreign languages, Western culture, arts, Non-Western culture, Anatomy, Physiology, Microbiology, Sociology, Pysch, Developmental pysch, nutrition, and one 3000-4000 level class. At least 67 credit hours.

Because nearly everyone in my traditional BSN program took our prerequisites at the same junior college as the ADNs, we had the same restrictions of taking sciences and maths in a certain order. Technically, they could be completed in a year and a half, but not realistically if you wanted to get grades good enough to get into the BSN program. It would be easier to do BSN pre-reqs in 2 years.

You have to watch out for the junior college cancelling classes to keep from falling behind. Mine canceled about 1/4th to 1/3 of classes each semester!

I also CLEPed sociology, psych, and dev. psych. I recommend this approach entirely if you can study well on your own and the programs you want to apply to accept these. The exams are made by the same people who make Advanced Placement tests for high-schoolers, and the content they test over is basically the same, making it very easy to study from the numerous AP reviews put out for high-schoolers.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

I was on a two-year course for my pre-requisites due to the sequence required. Had to have Gen Bio 1 and Gen Bio 2 before taking A&P, eligible for College Algebra before you can take Gen Bio 1, etc. Then they removed half of the the coreqs and prereq courses, I'm so mad about it. I'm in my second semester, and I still won't be able to apply to the nursing program until NEXT fall because I only got registered for A&P for this Fall semester. On the plus side, I will have all my other coreqs done, so I'd only have to complete core nursing classes.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Also, others have mentioned, but required pre-req classes, registering for them is often like the Hunger Games. I literally went to a Starbucks to have secure internet, to refresh over and over, and the A&P class I registered for was full in 5 minutes. It can be insane.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Totally going to depend on your school. Took me a year, 18 credits first semester, 8 credits the next (was supposed to be 14 but I dropped 2 classes) and 1 summer class.

But my school is really light on prerequisites because technically you can take most classes alongside your nursing courses and they accepted bio and chemistry from high school

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Emergency Room, CEN, TCRN.

Most prereqs are about a year and a half to two years -- most of the prereqs have prereqs, so you start taking the courses that unlock the actual program requirements, ie you take a math class to be able to take a chemistry class to be able to take microbiology and A&P

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg, Psych, Geri, LTC, Tele,.
Also, others have mentioned, but required pre-req classes, registering for them is often like the Hunger Games. I literally went to a Starbucks to have secure internet, to refresh over and over, and the A&P class I registered for was full in 5 minutes. It can be insane.

I did this too! But I did at McDonald's free wi fi!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Hospice, Palliative Care.

It took me one year to complete my prerequisites going over the summer. It would have been possible to do it in six months (17 credits each semester).

Up Vote Up Vote ×

There is no uniform pre reqs in the state I live in. Taking me about a year doing: Intro Psych spring semester; AP1 and College Math in the fall; AP 2 and Developmental Psych in the Spring; Chemistry in the Summer; Micro and Stats in the Fall; Apply to programs in the end of the fall.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Also, others have mentioned, but required pre-req classes, registering for them is often like the Hunger Games. I literally went to a Starbucks to have secure internet, to refresh over and over, and the A&P class I registered for was full in 5 minutes. It can be insane.

Learned my lesson would of been able to apply at the end of this year, but didn't register for classes till a week after they opened. If you are already taking classes they give the students a week in advance early registration date. All the AP classes were filled. Registered exactly at 12am the day of registration opened up.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion