Pet peeve - so many schools have their acceptance rates 75%, 50% listed but this is very very misleading for those who are Nursing majors. Why can’t colleges list this as a separate category as it really does not show the true nature of their acceptance rates? I have had two children apply so far and there is so much more work / guessing involved than the average major.
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It can be difficult to suss out acceptance rates for highly competitive majors, as well as average stats of those admitted (usually much higher than listed minimums). I encourage potential applicants to reach out to the directors of these programs and/or admissions to ask these questions. Most schools are forthcoming with this information.
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It’s the rare college that lists acceptance rate by school or major.
Yes - saying here that I would appreciate that to be changed. It is rather silly to see a college saying “85% acceptance rate” when realistically it is more like 12% for Nursing majors. They should break it down or at least * it. Colleges/Universities are in the business of teaching and learning - they should be at the forefront of disseminating accurate and reliable information.
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Since they are educational institutions they should easily be able to mark by major the acceptance rate. They just do not want to be bothered. We called over 30 schools between two children and many were unable find that information other than “Nursing is hard to get into” hmmm
We ran into the same issue with engineering and I agree that it would be helpful and more transparent to list acceptances by majors. The guess work makes it stressful.
I agree with reaching out to departments directly.
I’m sorry to hear that, I have never had anyone decline to give me that info (if they had it…it could take a few calls to get to the right person who has the info). And I agree, it shouldn’t be this difficult.
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It was a few of the bigger universities - literally had to speak to 4-5 people to get just a few basic questions answered!
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Yes - from what I understand Engineering and perhaps a few OT PT programs have similar issues like this.
Earlier this year, NYU issued a press release listing the acceptance rates for some of their individual schools and included the nursing school — Rory Meyers College of Nursing (3%).
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I couldn’t agree more. It is extremely difficult to build an application list (safety, match, reach) when you truly don’t have a good sense of where these Nursing programs fall. All you hear is… it is extremely competitive.
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Nursing has the additional complication that many of them have competitive secondary admission after initial pre-nursing admission, or have high weed-out grade/GPA requirements after direct admission to the nursing major.
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I had pushed this research all off to my daughter, who is the applicant. She has been ripping her hair out trying to keep it all straight. She emailed admissions counselors and some were extremely helpful… others… not so much. One, without knowing her at all, told her it is extremely competitive, and you can speak directly with an admission counselor if you decide to change your major after applying!
Nursing is also one of those specialty majors which requires an application to demonstrate interest and experience in the field. Thus, overall admit rates would be of little value. For example, someone with good grades and 4 years of volunteering in a health care setting and wonderful recs might have an 80% admit rate, but someone with better grades but zero experience in the field might have a 10% admit rate. Average those two, and one gets a 45% admit rate overall.
If you are an applicant, how can you interpret such data?
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I don’t know why colleges don’t freely share this information.
However, it’s worth remembering that just like any other college, the hardest to get into nursing programs are probably at the most desirable universities and/or in the most desirable locations. These colleges will be reaches for nursing, by and large, just as they probably will be for most engineering or CS majors.
As a general rule of thumb, nursing school applicants should assume that they face stiff competition and present the best application they can.
I typed in “easiest to get into nursing programs” and this list came up. 40 Easiest Nursing Schools To Get Into – 2023
It won’t escape anyone’s notice that a lot of these colleges are in places that aren’t at the top of a lot of peoples’ lists.
Personally, I’d look into U Montana in Missoula. Missoula is becoming a real hotspot for young people these days and as part of a real university, it might offer options for students who decide they don’t actually want to go into nursing.
Also, consider a school like Elon, which is apparently just starting a nursing school. There are no doubt some other reputable college out there who are starting nursing schools, which might provide some options.
Shout-out to the universities that DO provide clear information across their colleges and majors. The University of Illinois is particularly transparent when it comes to transfers. This page makes it crystal clear what you need to get into different programs:
This page also hints at a reason why most universities DON’T provide this data: internal politics. It’s a sensitive matter that the Social Work majors can get in with a 2.5 while Business wants at least a 3.6 and Engineering a 3.7+. Think about the race, gender, and socioeconomic demographics in those fields. Broadcasting this data is stigmatizing to the easy-access majors. I think they should do it anyway, and I applaud them for doing it anyway. But imagine being the dean of the College of Social Work at a school like this and trying to get respect vis-a-vis the dean of Engineering. It starts to make more sense why most universities hide the ball.
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Agreed!! If it’s any help Pitt incoming 2026 was 22%, but they didn’t break out by in state/out of state.
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UCs are pretty good about this for transfer students, but not frosh:
Some, but not all, CSUs post past cycle admission thresholds (though the next admission cycle may differ, since thresholds are determined competitively). An example is SJSU (however, it only admits to pre-nursing, so students face secondary admission to nursing after enrolling):
My daughter’s direct BSN program (Cincinnati) was very forthcoming with that data during an open house seminar you had to sign up for. Pre-Covid, this was held in-person and the program admission director shared stats about admitted students. I don’t think they have it on the website but I agree with someone up thread, the information exists you just need to know whom to ask. When we were searching for DA programs, we emailed the nursing program deans and they had that information handy.
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Of course, hiding the information feeds into the perception that college admission is harder for Asian applicants because they are Asian, as opposed to because they are more likely to apply for more competitive majors like CS or engineering majors. For example, in the SJSU example, frosh applicants needed a 4.35 recalculated HS GPA (near the maximum possible for that recalculation) get admitted for CS. But frosh applicants to many other majors like English, math, history, chemistry, physics, foreign languages and literatures, philosophy, sociology, economics, most arts other than animation and digital media, etc. needed only a 2.5 or 2.6 recalculated HS GPA.