Published Apr 17, 2017
Pianoplaya94
68 Posts
I live in Canada and just finished my undergraduate education. I would like to pursue an accelerated 2 year nursing program to gain a BSN. I plan to apply at the end of the year to start in September 2018. I understand that each school is different and an answer to my question would depend on the strength of the applicants the year I apply. But I would like some opinions.
Most of the schools require a minimum of a 3.0 GPA (although I would likely need much higher), reference letters, and a statement of purpose/letter of intent.
I graduated from U of Toronto and currently I have a cGPA of 3.5 and a GPA of 3.65 over the past 2 years of study (not including this semester since I have not received all marks yet). I have hundreds of hours over the past 3 years working at a children's hospital (SickKids) working in various roles. I have worked directly with patients and parents, worked with nurses, and worked on several research projects (2 of the projects were clinical). I have worked in 3 different departments / units at the hospital. Since I have pursued so many roles at SickKids, I have a broad range of experience working in hospitals. I have experience dealing with patients and families, handling medical equipment, different hospital emergency codes, appropriate medical attire for different illnesses, understanding the jobs of nurses, organizing test results and diagnoses, triaging, etc. I also worked at a 4th unit at another (more local) hospital. In addition to these 3 projects at SickKids, I have worked on 2 additional projects with Health Canada (one is being submitted to the British Medical Journal with my name on it). I have spent close to 30 hours taking modules on ethics, hospital safety, WHMIS, patient safety, etc. I worked on several student organizations related to health and medicine with student publications. My strongest courses are in anatomy and pathology, but I have a very muti-disciplinary undergrad degree. As a long-term goal I plan to pursue research as well as acting as an RN (although I hope to get a masters to become an NP).
I know there's no way you can tell if I'll be accepted. But, would I be competitive in your opinion? All the schools say their program is extremely competitive. This is my dream and I'm doing everything possible to pursue it (I am an EXTREMELY ambitious person... no friends and all I do is study lol). Worried my GPA may be too low :/