The College of Nursing and Health Innovation will stiffen its eligibility requirements for entrance into the nursing school starting next fall.
Pre-nursing and nursing students received e-mails detailing the changes late last week.
Next year, pre-nursing students will have to maintain a 2.75 grade-point average instead of a 1.75 GPA during their first and second semesters to remain in good academic standing. During their third and fourth semesters, students will have to maintain a 3.25 GPA instead of a 2.0 GPA.
Under the new requirement, students who want to change their majors to nursing must have a 2.75 GPA instead of a 2.0 GPA.
Some students said they aren’t happy with the changes.
Nursing sophomore Kelsey Bergstrom said currently students with low GPAs might still be accepted into the nursing program if they have high scores on the Nursing Entrance Test.
Under the new requirements this will not be the case, she said.
“They already asked so much of us, and I don’t understand why they want to ask more now,” Bergstrom said.
Cheryl Herrera, director of student services for the College of Nursing and Health Innovation, said the changes were made because student interest in nursing has increased while the size of the program has decreased due to budget cuts.
Currently the nursing school admits 220 students yearly.
“We sometimes have 400 people apply for the program, and we needed to adjust our admission requirements somehow to find the most capable applicants,” Herrera said.
Nursing sophomore Soraya Sanchez said she thinks there is a better way to find the strongest applicants.
“I think they should do interviews instead of just accepting people with the highest GPAs,” she said.
The nursing program is considering including an interview in the application process, Herrera said. Students used to write application essays, but reviewers found they weren’t helpful in choosing applicants, she said.
Herrera said a problem with implementing individual interviews would be the large number of faculty it would take to complete them. It would also take a significant amount of time, she said.
“We haven’t figured out a way to efficiently interview so many students, but it’s something we are exploring,” she said.
Other nursing program changes will begin in the spring and fall of 2010. The changes include requiring that re-admission GPAs must be 2.75 instead of 2.0.
A complete list of changes can be found on the College of Nursing and Health Innovation Web site.
Sanchez said while she feels the changes are not extremely different, they will affect a lot of students.
“It just doesn’t seem fair to put a test number on a student’s passion,” she said. “Everyone deserves a shot at being a nurse if that is their passion.”
Reach the reporter at sheydt@asu.edu.