Retake sciences, take grad courses or both?

[TxNurseRN]

Hi to all! Like so many applicants to CRNA programs, I have a very poor early GPA. (1.5 very old*15 yrs* random courses, 2.49 ADN, 3.25 BSN). I know that I need to take some steps to improve this portion of my application. My question to those in the know is this... Would it be more beneficial to retake my undergrad science courses, to take graduate level patho, pharm etc, or would I need both?

The rest of my application should look pretty good... 1.5 yrs CV ICU experience by application time, CCRN, have not taken GRE yet but typically score well on standardized tests. All things considered, my main concern is my old GPA.

Thanks for any input...especially from fellow Texas program applicants. TCU is my goal school but I would consider myself lucky to be invited to any of the 4 Texas programs :)!

Thanks for all replies!

TXNurseRN

[manusko]

So what is your overall GPA? Sounds like you may need to both types of classes. You need a minimum of 3.0 GPA at a lot of schools but that is not what a competitive GPA would be for most schools. Some schools are also increasing their minimum time in the ICU to 2 years.

[NAURN]

They are going to want to see a solid foundation is all science courses. If you have less than a 3 in any of them, I would retake them. The graduate courses wouldn't be necessary, but I suppose it couldn't hurt your application and would further raise your overall GPA. You will get your graduate level pharm and patho and a&p thru your CRNA program. If you don't take the classes at the same college you are planning to attend CRNA school, you risk having them not transfer and having to retake them all. If it were me, I would retake the courses I did not do well in (the science ones anyway) and if I needed to raise my GPA even further, I would take some other undergrad science courses that would benefit me, like organic chemistry, math etc.

Good luck

[I_See_You_RN]

I would suggest taking graduate courses. For the most part you have to learn over everything you learned in undergrad, but now, you need to obtain a deeper understanding. Why take over classes to prove that you are a "safe nurse" because that is all undergrad teaches. I say go for the grad classes especially in pharm and patho. You will start to look at medications and pathologies in a different way. It will probably be even more interesting and will engage you on a more mature level, ex. case studies.

If you can prove that you can handle the graduate course, then obviously you can handle the undergrad... this is not so the other way around.

Undergrad chemistries are acceptable to take.

Find out if your school has a hard policy on undergrad GPA or if they are willing to average everything in.

good luck!