Very Low Gpa...Is there still hope?

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Hello,

I graduated from HS in 2013, and from there I attended a local community college where my major was music (huge mistake) I ended up hating music and failing 2 classes that year. i also had low self esteem and no direction as to what I wanted to do in life. I left the local cc with a cumulative gpa of 1.474 at the end of 2014. With my gpa not rising I was put on academic suspension which meant sitting out for 1 year of college. So I ended up becoming an esthetician and laser technician. However, my true passion and dream is to become a nurse! My question is, is it too late for me to become a nurse with my gpa? I honestly feel as though I finally have direction in in my life and truly know what it is that I want to do. Of course I haven't taken any pre-reqs for nursing so is that to my advantage? I also haven't taken a college level math class yet either. Any advice is welcomed.

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You've got to look at specific schools and how they assess for admission. Mine looked at GPA of the hard sciences, only. The fact that you haven't taken any prerequisites yet is good, but the GPA could defiantly be a big obstacle for you, even if you do manage to improve it.

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Hey-

I wanted to share my story with you so that you can see that YES, you can absolutely turn it around and do nursing. I had a story very similar to you in that I was a great HS student and went to UF on a full scholarship but I failed one of the first classes I ever took ( wildlife issues, which was a joke class) because of an online incompatibility error with my computer. I started off college with a .5 GPA. From there, things waxed and waned from semester to semester. They blocked my access to most majors and this left me depressed and unfocused because I was studying something I didn't care about. From there I failed three math classes because I had an undiagnosed learning disorder with math which I didn't know about until after I graduated. I also had a ton of withdrawals for various reasons, mostly that I was unfocused. I graduated with a 2.51 gpa which is not by any means stellar. It limited my ability to of course apply to graduate school and I felt my entire chances of every doing anything else were ruined.

BUT- I decided I could turn things around and wanted to try nursing pre-requisites to see if I could handle them with a new sense of purpose and seriousness. I enrolled in A and P 1 and Lab and got an A so I keep going and I've gotten A's in all my pre-requisites. Right now I'm in my last semester of pre-reqs and I'm in the process of applying to nursing schools. I've already had one preliminary acceptance.

The good news for you is that if you are young, which you seem to be and haven't taken that many college classes, like say, under 30 credits? Your college GPA will be very repairable. Mine was much harder because I had 120 credits with a GPA of 2.51 so I needed 60 credits of straight A's to bring that to a 3.0. The less college credits you have, the BETTER. Eventually the more classes you take and do well in, the more your GPA will raise.

Don't let two failed college classes ruin your pursuit of becoming a nurse. I know so many people that have made these same kind of mistakes when they were young. In the future if you are failing a class always withdraw from it. It doesn't look good of course but it will PROTECT your GPA.

Letting some time go by and then reentering college with a fresh set of grades and doing well in your pre-requisites will make you a great candidate. You'll be one the most focused students and you'll do well because like me, you already understand the consequences of what bad grades can do to your future. I watched people in my pre-requisites drop like flys because they were unprepared, lazy, unsure of what they wanted and unfocused. They failed or withdrew. Me on the other hand, I had been there and done that so I ended up working my butt off, getting the highest grades, the teacher recommendations and I breezed through them one after the other.

As strange as it sounds sometimes, failure can actually prepare you for success.

I hope I have inspired you to continue. Good luck!

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Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.

Not too late. I flunked out of college the first time around. Had a great time. Didn't study much.

Got back into school at my local community college years later. I majored in liberal arts and got good grades. This raised my GPA significantly. Got my Associates in Liberal Arts, then applied to nursing school. Earned the two year RN degree. Went to work. Used tuition reimbursement, earned my BSN and then my MSN, paying next to nothing for both.

You can do this.

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Yes. There is always hope. I can tell you from personal experience that it is possible to reinvent and recover from this, especially so early into your undergraduate career. Just make sure that this is really what you want and that you are prepared to work hard to bring your GPA up. I didn't discover that I didn't like the world of business until I completely decimated my GPA to a 2.5 and graduated from a 4 year university with a degree I didn't want but chose just so that I could get out of there with a diploma. It's going to take work, but it absolutely can be done. I now have my ADN, RN, and working towards a BSN from a highly selective school of nursing (that shall remain anonymous). So yeah, you can recover! (GPA now is >3.5)

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