Hey! As far as a quick list as "good" nursing schools in St. Louis: -Barnes-Jewish Goldfarb School of Nursing -UMSL School of Nursing -SLU School of Nursing -St. Louis Comm. College -St. Charles Comm. College I would AVOID both Sanford-Brown and Chamberlain. This advice would come directly from my stepmom who is a head nurse of her division. She controls the hiring of all of her staff, and they won't even consider applicants from those schools. I myself am going to Barnes, and as the previous posters said--there are multiple options for an accelerated degree. Those being SLU, UMSL, Barnes. (I'm actually not 100% UMSL has one, they do though I'm sure). Yeah, about 1 year of prereqs minimum. Good luck on your search!