Hi, So I’m a sophomore who wants desperately to go to UCLA for nursing. I volunteer at a hospital (600 Hours Total), am in the Medical Science Club, volunteering tutor kids on the weekends, am in the engineering club, am a co-founder and soon to be president of the Historians Club, am Vice President of the French Club, and have been and plan to be on the swim team for the rest of my high school career. I’m still prepping for the PSAT and am in all honors classes and am looking at taking around 2 AP’s next year. The problem is my grades are a big F up. Please help! What can I do? I demonstrate a strong interest in the nursing program and its evident within my extracurriculars, I just don’t function well in my schools enviornment. Please help!!!
UC’s tend to be very GPA focused and with a 2% acceptance for the UCLA Nursing program, your application needs to be competitive all around meaning a High GPA, test scores, personal insight essays and nursing related EC’s.
The UC’s use only 10-11th grades for their capped weighted and fully weighted GPA so I could concentrate on your classes, get extra help from teachers to bring your grades up and cut back on some of your EC’s. So how bad are your grades since you have only completed 1 semester into Sophomore year? What in your HS’s environment is causing you issues?
They are not bad, I pass everything, maybe one or two 'C’s for every semester overall but mostly 'B’s and 'A’s
Well, UCLA is a Reach school for all applicants and especially for Nursing so you will need A’s the next 3 semesters to be a competitive applicant. Here is the link to the UC GPA calculator so at the end of Junior year, you can see where you stand.
You want to aim for a UC capped weighted GPA of 4.2+
https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/
Work hard and best of luck. Remember there are plenty of Nursing schools in which you can apply and all will get you to your goal of being a Nurse.
If you are not instate for California, work with your parents on what they are willing to pay for your education. OOS students pay full fees for the UC’s.
Thanks!
You should figure out what you need to do for better grades. You can ask for advice from teachers in classes where you are getting these C’s about what they think you need to do to improve. And reflect on your own. Are you spending too much time on ECs and not enough on academics? Are you not spending enough time studying and doing practice problems on your own? Were you never taught how to study effectively? For this latter item I suggest reading the book “Make it Stick”. As someone applying to a program with a tiny accept rate you need to be strong everywhere, including grades.
You should also come up with plan B and plan C. If you don’t get in to UCLA, then what? You should be looking at every direct-admit 4-year program you can afford. Another option is to start with an ADN. Instead of a 4-year program at one school you get an RN at a community college (an ADN degree) and then go to one of the RN->BSN programs. Look for a good NCLEX pass rate at the CC. I know nurses that have done this, RN->BSN programs are easier to get into, even at schools that also offer the 4-year nursing program. Fullerton for example says
Their admit rate for the 4-year program is something under 100%.