UW ABSN Prospective Student

ahosoda · Jun 30, 2015

I went to the UW for my prereqs and UW School of Nursing was my first choice. I had a 3.95 GPA (darn you, microbio!). I was a CNA for a year at a retirement home. I also volunteered in an emergency room for a year. I applied twice and did not get in either time.

UW is very tricky, and they throw in a lot of wild cards. They definitely appreciate DIVERSITY more than grades and the other traditional stuff that you may think qualifies you for the program. And when I say diversity, I don't necessarily mean different race/ethnicity, although that helps too. The people I know who got into the program usually did not work as hard, but they did something to stand out. I know a girl who had a 2.5 GPA her freshman year (not sure what it was at the time of application, maybe she got it up) but she was most likely accepted into the program because of her "medical mission trip" to Africa. The other people I know who got in were either Asian or African American, with a 3.2-3.4 GPA and barely any medical experience. One girl's experience was working as a food server at a retirement home.

My advice for anyone who wants to get into this program is to try to stand out. You can work your butt off but if you don't stand out, then you won't make the cut. Hope this helps!

montanaray · Aug 31, 2015

Hi there!

I'm currently a ABSN student at UW, and I'd be happy to give you some tips on applying. First of all, if you go onto UW's website, there is a link to watch a recording of one of the information sessions. Watch it: they tell you exactly what they are looking for. The biggest points are that they want to make sure 1) you know what you are getting into, and 2) you know how to follow directions. So in your essay, make sure you spell out exactly what you think nurses do (e.g. some of the less glamorous hygiene tasks, lots of paperwork, etc. Just show them you've really looked into it and you aren't going to be unpleasantly surprised by something and change your mind). As for following directions, they include little things like say "send in your application free of staples or binders," etc., which you want to follow meticulously.

As far as Ahosoda's comments: I think most people had a pretty high GPA coming in, there were probably some exceptions but I'd say the average is at least a 3.5 in nursing pre-reqs. If you have one or two lower grades that's ok, but what they want to see is improvement, so your most recent classes need to have pretty solid grades. I think my admitting GPA was like a 3.9, but I could be remembering wrong. They are definitely looking for diversity. We have a number of people not originally from the US, and several Peace-Corps members. If you don't have that background (which I don't), try to show them you have a lot of cultural awareness, or are at least eager to learn about it.

Pick someone who's willing to put the time in to write your letter of rec; it's a very specific form and what they're looking for is that the writer follows all their prompts and gives examples. They recommend sitting down with your recommender and giving them some examples.

As far as the proctored essay goes, follow the prompts to a tee. Don't skip out on any details or combine aspects of the prompt (are you detecting a theme with following their directions? :) I promise that's a huge part of what they look at). Math is pretty straight-forward, don't over-think it. You should have more or less nice numbers, if you have a crazy decimal you're probably doing something wrong.

I'm trying to remember what else the application entailed...resume? Again, be super specific. The instructions for that are weird, basically they just want lots of detail (e.g. if you were a CNA, don't just say worked as a CNA, say that you helped do pericare, dress people, build relationships, yada yada yada). And I'd put down everything interesting you've done, even if it's just going running with a friend ("Bothell Girls' Running Club"--if you give it a name, it's good enough for them!)

You can look around this site for inspiration for the essay. My advice would be to stay off it the last few weeks. There's no "right way" to write your essay, and eventually you'll start psyching yourself out trying to include everything anyone mentions. They give you a ton of information to cover in only three pages, so just try to touch on everything they want and keep it organized enough.

Best of luck!