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How to maintain a high GPA in nursing school?


ThisIsMe

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Hi!

I'm a 3rd year nursing student in a collaborative nursing program (so 2 years college and then 2 years university). I finished my 1st semester in university recently and have received all but one of my final grades. My GPA this semester will be either 3.84 or 3.88 on the OMSAS scale (depends on that last grade) but my goal was to get a 3.9.

This past semester I've studied more than I have in my entire life and I've worked really hard, but I feel like I need more help in terms of "studying smart". The way I see it, I have 2 main areas where I need to improve:

1) Subjective assignments (reflections,nursing papers, etc)

2) application based tests (which answer is the best?)

In science-based, objective courses I can get an A+ without a sweat but when it comes to nursing courses, I struggle. I spend weeks on my papers, and then I get an A without any feedback in terms of what I could have done to make it an A+. As for application based tests, I feel like it all comes down to your ability to think on the spot, but sometimes my thinking isn't quite right.

Does anyone have any advice? My winter semester is going to be full of papers and application-based tests, so I really need to improve.

Thank you!!

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Hey,

First I’ll say a 3.88 makes you a competitive applicant for most schools, especially if you are IP for a province outside of Ontario. Also check around the specific school boards and admissions websites because some med schools round to the tenth for gpa, so that 3.88 actually is a 3.9 in some places. 

It can be very difficult to get a 3.9+ in nursing school specifically because of the two things you’ve identified. In terms of subjective assignments, there honestly isn’t a whole lot you can do. Make sure you read the descriptions very carefully and also go by the marking rubric if one is given. Clarify with the prof if there are any inconsistencies or if something doesn’t make sense. They are gonna grade them how they are gonna grade them in my experience. Also in my experience profs are not likely to give you much feedback on how to go from an A to A+ because for a lot of individual school systems those are the same grade, and the profs are more concerned with how to help students go from D to B, and may not care to help you, or see you as fishing for grades.

Application based tests are just something that you’re going to get better at with experience. Read each answer individually and see if it really applies the best to the question. Do the same thing for any SATA questions. Nursing school has to see if you can prioritize and choose the best thing(s) to do or the thing to do first because in practice it’s something that is very important and has an effect on patient outcomes. The NCLEX exam is basically all priority and sata. There is a paid mobile app called nclex mastery that may be worth getting if you want some extra help with these types of questions. It’s all application based multiple choice and sata, and gives you feedback why answers are correct or incorrect. It’s around 40 bucks I think.

Hope that helped a little. 

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  • 1 month later...
On 12/28/2017 at 1:35 PM, Rahvin13 said:

Hey,

First I’ll say a 3.88 makes you a competitive applicant for most schools, especially if you are IP for a province outside of Ontario. Also check around the specific school boards and admissions websites because some med schools round to the tenth for gpa, so that 3.88 actually is a 3.9 in some places. 

It can be very difficult to get a 3.9+ in nursing school specifically because of the two things you’ve identified. In terms of subjective assignments, there honestly isn’t a whole lot you can do. Make sure you read the descriptions very carefully and also go by the marking rubric if one is given. Clarify with the prof if there are any inconsistencies or if something doesn’t make sense. They are gonna grade them how they are gonna grade them in my experience. Also in my experience profs are not likely to give you much feedback on how to go from an A to A+ because for a lot of individual school systems those are the same grade, and the profs are more concerned with how to help students go from D to B, and may not care to help you, or see you as fishing for grades.

Application based tests are just something that you’re going to get better at with experience. Read each answer individually and see if it really applies the best to the question. Do the same thing for any SATA questions. Nursing school has to see if you can prioritize and choose the best thing(s) to do or the thing to do first because in practice it’s something that is very important and has an effect on patient outcomes. The NCLEX exam is basically all priority and sata. There is a paid mobile app called nclex mastery that may be worth getting if you want some extra help with these types of questions. It’s all application based multiple choice and sata, and gives you feedback why answers are correct or incorrect. It’s around 40 bucks I think.

Hope that helped a little. 

Thank you for your response! That's pretty much what I have been doing with my application tests, minus the nclex app. And I guess I'll just have to hope for the best with the essays haha

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On 2/17/2018 at 3:48 PM, Abramula said:

Hey nursing student here, the quickest option I can give you is to throw in a bird course every semester (Through course overload)  to offset the subjectivity of a lot of nursing courses that make the jump from a 3.9 to a 4.0 difficult to hit

That's actually an interesting idea.... Do you have experience using the "course overload" method? I might try this, but I am worried that this might interfere with my performance in nursing courses

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On 2/22/2018 at 0:03 PM, ThisIsMe said:

That's actually an interesting idea.... Do you have experience using the "course overload" method? I might try this, but I am worried that this might interfere with my performance in nursing courses

I, in fact, do have experience using this method extra classes seem to be the best option for helping counteract nursing courses with that element of subjectivity. often times even if you are overloading these courses.

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11 hours ago, getrich said:

Curious as to what school you attend. Does the school affect how "easy" of a GPA you can get?

I can not say for certain how the university you attend affects GPA since I only have attended one university. To take a guess, it would probably come down to how the competition tends to be at said university. 

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