"System-wide" Prerequisites

[emilystarr]

Hi all-

Thanks for your patience if this is a repeated subject. I am just getting started in beginning my prerequisites for nursing school. I already have a Bachelors in a liberal arts field but I am hoping to acquire a BSN in an accelerated program once I complete my prereqs.

I am keeping my options open for schools I am considering so I'm feeling overwhelmed with with the prereqs I should take since they vary SO much from school to school. How did you all decide which pre-reqs to take before deciding on which schools you would like to apply for? Obviously, chemistry, microbiology, Anatomy, and Physiology are "system-wide" and necessary at all schools. But what about General Psych vs Lifespan/Development Psych vs Abnormal Psych? General Stats vs. Inferential Stats? etc etc etc. I live in the SF bay area so I am looking at schools here but am open to moving to other cities as well.

Thank you in advance!

[verene, MSN]

I made an excel spreadsheet with all the programs I was interested in, their deadlines, and their requirements. Any requirement that went with all programs was done first (or as soon as possible if their were pre-reqs to the pre-req), then the requirements that went with most programs, and so on.

I'm a visual person so having everything laid out in a table helped me really see the information and make decisions. Both about which classes to take, and it helped me move programs up and down in my priority list for sending out applications. I even dropped a few programs off the list altogether.

One thing that helped me in creating this list was finding my state equivalencies guide for coursework, which let me see which course-codes were considered equivalent across all colleges and universities in the state. Then I could just transfer all program requirements into my community college course codes in my chart.

[LessValuableNinja]

I second spreadsheet. I prefer to use either gsheets or Excel online, since either can be edited from many places.