<p>Generally speaking is it harder for an potential nursing student applicant to gain admission to a state university as an OOS applicant?
For example, a student from the Northeast, applying to a University of South Florida etc</p>
<p>The simple answer to your question is generally yes. Most State Universities give some level of preference to in-state applicants for all majors. For Nursing OOS applicants you will be competing against other OOS applicants and in general will need much higher stats and SAT/ACT scores than those identified as overall averages for the school. While I don’t have specific stats for every school you probably will find that the percentage of OOS students admitted to Nursing will probably be below (to varying degrees) the overall average of OOS students accepted in general to the college. I am not aware that any colleges publish specific percentages just for their Nursing Programs. Some schools may provide you with this information if you ask. At most all colleges the number of Nursing slots is small compared to most other majors so the competition is intense. Probably the only Flagship State University in the country that accepts more OOS students to its Nursing Program compared to in-state applicants is the Univ. of Delaware. This is because the state is small and the majority of all the students (2/3rds) attending UD are from OOS. Of a typical freshman Nursing class of around 135 about 80-85 are OOS students. However, UD gets a very large number of OOS applicants for Nursing and as a result the OOS acceptance rate for Nursing is below 20% (which makes it one of the two most competitive majors for admission to UD). Hope this info is helpful.</p>