RN-MSN GPA question

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Emergency.

Hi everyone, long time lurker, first time poster here! Just graduated this weekend with my ADN and now waiting to get my ATT for NCLEX. I'm so fortunate to have secured myself a job on a med-surg floor before graduation starting on the 26th, and they offer tuition reimbursement in order to help pay for the costs of the BSN requirement. We have to be in a program within 2 years and finished within 5, but I plan to do things more quickly than that.

Background: I'm 30 years old, have always wanted to be a practitioner of some sort and fell in love with nursing after researching the nursing model vs. medical model. Unfortunately, my love for the nursing model came after I bombed PA school miserably. And I do mean MISERABLY. I was in no way prepared for school at 18 and by the time I was 23, "boasted" a 1.8 GPA. I worked diligently over the next several years to build it up to a point where I could get accepted to nursing programs and was fortunate to get accepted into an ADN program 2 years ago, which I made it through with a 3.08 GPA overall in my nursing and nursing required courses. Since enrolling in my current school, I have raised my overall, including all of my old coursework, GPA to a 2.82 and my GPA at school from other coursework and my ADN is a 3.31.

That being said- I'm looking to get into nurse practitioner programs after I gain experience as an RN. Clearly, my abysmal 2.82 GPA will not suffice to get me in, and I don't know that even doing an RN-BSN program will be enough to get me to the 3.0 mark, let alone a spot where I'd be likely to get in to a program. I was considering doing the WGU RN-MSN Ed. program because I want to teach as well as practice as an ARNP, but I am concerned because of the pass/fail system that my undergrad GPA will be taken into account and not be enough.

So after all that tl;dr: would you go for a "traditional" RN-BSN program or RN-MSN program, or take the "risk" of WGU (I realize that WGU is a good school, I'm just saying that for me personally it would be "risky" because of the pass/fail vs. traditional GPA)? I want to do what will make sense and I keep going back and forth on all of it. I appreciate any input good or bad!

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

As an educator, I feel it is my mission in life to correct the "anyone can teach" myth for a number of reasons. Primarily, because I believe that this claptrap is at the root of most of our problems with nursing education today.

Education is a completely different specialty area... complete with its own knowledge and skill set. You will not obtain any of that in an NP program. In fact, most MSN-Edu programs don't have sufficient content in the discipline of education. You really need to pick a side of the fence (NP or education) and focus on that area. It is true that many academic instructors lack sufficient preparation, but their employing institution normally provides the initial and ongoing professional development - required for accreditation requirements.

That being said, grad schools in my part of the world place a lot of emphasis on GRE results .... so if you obtain fairly high scores, it can overshadow a mediocre GPA. The MSN Edu programs also give consideration to prior experience in education, so that could also provide extra leverage.

Best of luck to you on your educational journey.

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Emergency.

I promise I don't feel that anyone can teach, and I'm truly sorry if my post was worded in a way that made you feel that way. I actually fell in love with teaching while helping classmates during my program. I found that I was able to break things down for them and several of them improved their grades significantly after we studied together.

I do, however, agree with you that I do need to choose one or the other, at least in the interim. I think, that for my current aspirations, it would be better to go the NP route and then down the line continue my education for the nurse educator route. I truly do love to teach and perhaps teaching in a nurse practitioner program would fulfill both desires.

Thank you so much for your input, I appreciate all that nurse educators do.

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