I will be pursuing a NURSING major.
Want to know how much my extracurriculars will help to make up for my grades and scores.
I have an upward grade trend!
Freshman sem 1: 3.11
Freshman sem 2: 3.45
Sophomore sem 1: 3.57
Sophomore sem 2: 3.32
Junior sem 1: 3.96
Junior sem 2: 4.00
ACT: 22 (with no studying, obviously will be retaking at least twice more)
I go to a top 10 high school in my state.
Nursing related classes I have taken:
AP psychology-10th grade
AP biology- 11th
Anatomy-11th
My senior year schedule:
AP English language
AP statistics
AP chemistry
Sociology
US history
Study hall
My extracurriculars!!! (The bigger ones)
-more than 600 hours of volunteering since 9th grade (more than 100 in a hospital)
100+ hours of Job shadowing in a hospital.
-student government
My letters of recommendation should be very good. The teachers writing them seem to really like me, and know me pretty well.
Nursing programs always talk about how they want demonstrated interest. I’m wondering how much my shadowing experience will help me out. Can I get into any good nursing programs?
Dream list of schools:
University of Michigan
University of Pittsburgh
Northeastern university
Boston College
University of Washington- Seattle
Umass Amherst
Purdue University
Georgetown University
University of Virginia
**i have other schools on my list that are more match/safeties. I am just curious as to if I had any shot in the world at getting into any of these schools?
How much will upward grade trend help?
Agreed…with a 22 ACT, ALL of the schools on the above list are reaches…especially for nursing. UMass Amherst has a top nursing program, and they admit top students.
Try Niagara University. Excellent nursing program, nice campus on the Niagara gorge. Not far from Buffalo. With your scores, you already land somewhere near NU’s presidential scholarship, which would bring you $16K. They appear to be automatic.
Do you think if I raised my ACT to at least around a 28 (hypothetically of course, based on practice tests) that I would have any chance at these schools?
I won’t comment about Purdue, because I honestly don’t know about them.
ALL the other schools on this list are very competitive for admissions…VERY. You include a number of public universities, and clearly you are not instate for all of them. While UMass isn’t all,that competitive for general admission, it is very competitive for its highly regarded nursing program.
Boston College, Northeastern, Georgetown, and UVA…I think your ACT would need to be above 32 to gain admission…maybe higher. These are very competitive schools.
If you are OOS for Pitt, and UMass, I think getting into nursing with a 28 ACT will be difficult.
University of Washington…competitive for OOS students because it’s a oretty popular place.
I don’t know about Purdue.
In my opinion, these are all reaches for you…and not likely ones. But I’m not an adcom.
@thumper1 I completely agree. Unfortunately, I’m expecting a lot of rejections from these schools, I’m just hoping for at least one of my reach schools.
Thanks for your thorough response
Let’s go ahead and project the 28 – and I sincerely hope you can make that jump. You would still be in the lower 25 percent of accepted students, which would make merit unlikely.
If you are interested in an urban environment, look at Duquesne in Pittburgh.
I’m not sure why a student with modest scores wants a “top school”.
please consider…do you want to be the weakest student in the class? Do you want to possibly get weeded out because your grades will likely be less than the rest?
do you realize that many of these nursing programs are not Direct Admit, and therefore you will likely not get promoted into the Clinicals?
At many/most schools, nursing programs are impacted and/or are not Direct Admit. That means that it can be harder to get into the program, and it can be very hard to get promoted into the clinical years (junior and senior years).
You have very expensive OOS publics on your list.
Have your parents said that they will pay the $45k-50k per year for those schools? If not, then most will not be affordable.
There are MANY, many, many very good nursing programs in the US.
You need a good list based on your stats, your home state, and the amount that your family can pay.
Since you are instate you’d have an excellent chance at Michigan with a 28. Even a 26 would give you a decent shot A 28 is the average for nursing (unlike weaker colleges where nursing is the most competitive that’s not true at u Mich. And since unlike some of the other colleges ( kines especially) for the college of nursing you don’t have recruited athletes artificially lowering the average and there is no affirmative action in MI that’s a pretty solid " true" average. it has excellent aid in state. So work work work on your score.
sorry