Freshman Year: English Honors, English Lab, World History Honors, Spanish 2 (my school only offers honors for levels 3+), Choir, Biology, Gym/Health, Geometry
Sophomore Year: APUSH 1 (my school splits it into two years), AP Euro, Algebra 2, English Honors, Spanish 3 Honors, Chemistry Honors, Fashion, Finlit (online), Gym/Health
Junior Year: APUSH 2, AP Lang, AP Physics 1, AP Psychology, Spanish 4 Honors, Social Media Marketing Honors, Gym/Health, Precalc
Senior Year (not started yet): AP Lit, AP Stats, AP Spanish Lang, AP Bio, Anatomy 1, Sociology
Awards
Girl Scout Bronze, Silver, Gold Award (in progress)
AP Scholar with Distinction (assumed based on test scores but will find out for sure tomorrow)
STAMPS 4S Seal of Biliteracy (Spanish)
Extracurriculars
Member (Grade 10), Officer (Grade 11) and VP (Grade 12) of my school’s volunteer club (100+ members, one of our largest clubs)
Founder/president of a charitable organization (hard to describe without being too identifying, but we donate hair accessories to girls in need to help boost self esteem since hair contributes a significant amount to self-worth)
Girl Scout since kindergarten, completed my Bronze and Silver Awards and in the process of completing my Gold Award (anticipated by May 2027)
Developed a curriculum to foster connection and eliminate cultural barriers between healthcare workers and their patients and presented it in a professional meeting setting
High School Liaison to my local Board of Health (this was a selection process where I had to apply, write an essay, etc.)
Volunteer at local nursing home since freshman year (~30 hours so far, sometimes it gets hard to fit it in with school)
Member of DECA since sophomore year, qualified for States two years in a row and improved placement at districts from 12th (sophomore year) to 2nd (junior year)
~200 volunteer hours overall between Girl Scouts, volunteer club, nursing home experience, and volunteering abroad last summer in a daycare (I probably will not list the volunteering abroad on my applications because I know that colleges sometimes don’t like that)
Essays/LORs/Other
My essay is about how a positive (and unique) experience with a nurse when I was chronically ill as a kid (the essay is not about the chronic illness at all) led me to want to pursue nursing, and I think it’s decently strong but am continuing to edit it.
LOR from faculty advisor of volunteer club (saw me go from club member to VP and can vouch for how I will serve people as a nurse) and from junior year Spanish teacher (I have a good/close relationship with her and I think she will talk about how my dedication to learning Spanish shows how I will always dedicate the time/effort in to show patients that I care for them even if it means speaking another language, and hopefully she can tie in the curriculum for cultural connections between healthcare professionals and patients that I created).
Schools
Safety: Elon, Kentucky, TCU, Southern Miss
Match: Auburn, FSU, Baylor, Mercer, Anderson (SC), Belmont, UL-Lafayette
I’m mainly looking for DA programs in the Southeast (but I’m open to some that aren’t DA, like Auburn, if they have high acceptance rates to the Upper Division).
How much can you and your parents afford, and what state of residency?
You can calculate your unweighted GPA yourself by doing a simple average of your grade points (A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, F=0) in academic courses (English, math, foreign language, history, social studies, science, arts).
I just realized that a lot of what I wrote got deleted, so here is additional information: NJ resident applying out of state to basically every school, ideally looking for merit scholarships and an all-in cost (after merit) of 30K or less.
Except that daycare is a good experience to have for a potential nurse.
Being bilingual, particularly with English and Spanish, will be a significant advantage for a nurse. A nurse who I know very well has told me that the ability to speak Spanish has been a plus for every job that she has ever had.
As mentioned above, you should be able to calculate your unweighted GPA yourself. It would be helpful to know this for each year of high school, particularly since for many schools your freshman year will not matter as much as sophomore and junior years.
You should add some in-state options. Rutgers and Seton Hall come to mind as good options, although there should be other good choices also.
Make sure that you know what your budget is, and keep it in mind when applying to universities. Nursing is a field where you can get a good job straight out of university with a bachelor’s degree, but it will still help you a lot if you can avoid or at least minimize the amount of debt that you take on while getting your bachelor’s degree.
I’m avoiding in-state schools because they are known for giving very little merit aid and are just as (if not more) expensive as out of state tuition at many OOS schools.
You will likely have to remove most of the state schools from your list, because none are likely to get to your price point. Schools that give only need based aid will have to come off your list…that’s UPenn. You may be limited to community college or your in-state options…Rutgers, Ramapo, Monmouth all have DA nursing.
Rutgers will be $35,000, you won’t get merit, but you might get merit at TCNJ, Rowan, etc. My health science major from NJ had a 3.95 uw, 9 AP’s including AP BC calc, 34 ACT, ended up at UDel honors with the highest regular merit, but it still cost more than Rutgers. I think you will find that east coast publics will not beat out Rutgers with merit, might need to go south or west for that. UMASS, UCONN, same deal. I think one if your best bets for < $30,000 is a non flagship in NJ.
You have constructed a fine list of schools. I would also drop UPenn and add Duke or Emory as a reach option. You indicate that you are primarily interested in nursing programs located in the Southeastern U.S. Duke and UNC (already on your list) are both located in NC; Emory is located in GA. Plus, I think you’d have a slightly better chance at Duke, even better at Emory than UPenn. Unless you have some particular reason for applying to UPenn. If you are able to score a “5” in AP Statistics, that would be nice. I don’t think retaking ACT math or science (already 97’s) would provide much benefit, at least not for Duke or Emory. Acing medication & drug dosage calculation examinations is what is going to matter.
Duke does not offer undergraduate nursing. UPenn is out because OP’s budget is <$30K and they won’t qualify for need based aid (Penn gives no merit aid.)
You are correct. Duke offers this accelerated option that is only open to people that have already earned a previous bachelor’s degree. I thought it was also available to first-year freshmen. I do agree with not applying to UPenn; I don’t think futurenurse_27 would get admitted.
This is not true, you should list this volunteer experience. Depending on how you want to list your activities, you may be able to combine volunteer roles.
For schools that require two teacher LoRs, you will need a second teacher (you need to check if any of the schools on your list require two teacher LoRs.) The faculty advisor LoR can be used for an extra LoR at the schools that allow that. This is all in addition to your counselor LoR.
I think that it is worth applying to a few in-state universities, waiting until you get your offers with financial details from multiple universities, and see what offers you get.
The nurse who I know very well did get very good merit aid from Seton Hall, but that was a long time ago.
I didn’t think of these, but I agree completely. I think that it is worth sending in the applications, along with other applications to out of state schools, and then seeing what offers come back.
For U.Mass, there is U.Mass Amherst which is very good, but U.Mass Lowell is also quite good. Both have some merit aid for out of state students, but my impression is that U.Mass Lowell might on average be more generous with merit aid.
My GD, a rising senior in HS, has the same interest as you to go south for nursing. So, we’ve looked at a variety of options already. We’ve also had one previous fo through nursing school who is a nurse practitioner in a top hospital, and a third, her cousin, who is now working as a nurse a couple of years out of college and plans to go on to become a nurse practitioner.
From those experiences, it seems to me that the most important thing that will determine the quality of your experience in nursing school is the clinical placements. Any nursing school can teach you the basics. But at a top hospital, especially if it’s a teaching hospital, will expose you to best practices, the latest research, the most challenging and demanding cases, and overall excellence. Using my GD as an example, who is interested in becoming a NICU nurse, she is now looking at nursing schools in and around Boston, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati because they have top children’s hospitals. Do you have a nursing field that you are interested in?
I would also take into consideration where the clinicals are located in relation to the college. One popular southern university told us that the clinicals are in a number of cases 60-70 miles from campus. Does that make sense? Penn State nurses move o Hershey eventually because that’s where the med school is and there are not enough clinicals in or near State College. I suggest that you take into account practical considerations and research where the clinicals are located and what their quality is. The best clinicals are going to tend to be in big cities although West Virginia U has a big hospital right on campus. Duke and UNC have excellent hospitals as does Atlanta. Where you do clinicals can also lead to your first job placement as well.