No matter where you plan on ultimately attending nursing school, high school graduates with a low GPA can enroll in a local community college for your general education classes.
If you can, try to ensure that the community college courses you take transfer to your desired nursing program and/or will count as credits for your prereq classes. But even if they don’t, you may be able to raise your GPA enough in as little as one semester that you can apply to nursing school with a higher GPA on your transcripts — all in a much more affordable way thanks to the lower cost of community college.
One important note is to make sure that the classes you take are beneficial; some nursing schools will not factor classes that they deem is irrelevant to your GPA. So, if you try to take a semester of just gym classes to pad your GPA, a potential nursing school could throw out all of those classes while reviewing your application. A better bet is to work with your high school or college counselor to find classes that will help increase your chances of acceptance.
Consider a Waitlist Program
If you are unable to raise your GPA or cannot afford to take additional classes, it may be beneficial to look into nursing programs that work on a waitlist basis. Waitlist nursing programs do not have competitive minimum GPA requirements but instead allow a certain number of students into the program each year, so essentially you are given your “number” in line until you reach the top of the line.
The major drawback to waitlist programs, however, is that you can wait a long time — in some cases, even several years — before you are officially accepted into the program. If your financial aid depends on you actively being enrolled in school, this can be a problem. So do your research, consider how long the wait will be, and determine if you will lose your financial aid or can re-apply after you get in.
Get Involved
An easy way to increase your knowledge and gain valuable hands-on experience is to simply get involved in the field more. There are a variety of ways to get involved in the medical field, even without being an official RN, including
- Volunteering at a local nursing home or hospital
- Job-shadowing a nurse to learn more about on-the-job requirements
- Speaking with unit managers about ways you could get involved
While gaining more hands-on experience may not raise your GPA right away, the knowledge you gain could help you perform better in the future because you’ll have a real-world education to draw from.
Work Your Way Up
If you don’t have the grades to enroll in a competitive nursing program at the moment, explore other educational pathways that will help you get where you want to go. For instance, you could become a Medical Assistant or Certified Nurse Assistant (CNA) and begin working in the medical field. Some facilities even offer tuition assistance to CNAs to further their education.
You could also look into becoming a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) or Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN) and working your way