Admission Requirements

Applicants must provide evidence of the following:

1.  Graduation with a BS degree in nursing from a college or university having an accredited nursing program satisfactory to the School of Nursing and to the Graduate Division. Or, graduation with a BS degree in nursing from an international institution with a nursing program satisfactory to the School of Nursing and to the Graduate Division. Applicants with a MSN degree already will not be eligible to apply. The UCLA School of Nursing does not offer these specialties as a Post Master's Certificate program.

2.  Status as a licensed registered nurse; prior to entry into the APRN Program, evidence of current licensure as a registered nurse in the State of California is mandatory.

3.  Prerequisite Courses:  All applicants to the MSN APRN/Post Licensure program must complete the following undergraduate courses prior to entering the program: statistics and nursing research. In addition, students admitted to the program in all specialties must have completed a human physiology course within five years from the start of the program and an approved physical assessment course within three years from the start of the program. Courses may be offered during the summer at UCLA for students who have not already completed an acceptable prerequisite course.

• Statistics: An upper division introductory or equivalent biostatistics course that covers the following topics: distributions, sampling, tests of hypotheses, estimation, types of error, significance and confidence intervals, and sample sizes (four quarter units or equivalent; Biostatistics 100A at UCLA). (Approved Statistics Courses)
• Research: An upper division undergraduate level research in nursing course with content that focuses on planning a research project by teaching the student rules for definition of terms, alternative methods of writing proposals, selecting a sample, choosing a data collection instrument, planning for data analysis, protecting human rights, reading research reports and writing a research proposal (four quarter units or equivalent; Nursing 173 at UCLA). (Approved Nursing Research Courses)
• Physical Assessment: A comprehensive physical assessment course within the last three years from the start of the program, providing an in-depth review and synthesis of physical assessment skills and knowledge covering the life span (four quarter units or equivalent; Nursing 174 at UCLA) (If admitted, can be completed at UCLA in the Summer Session). A course syllabus is required upon submission of your application. (Approved Physical Assessment Courses)
• Human Physiology: An upper division or equivalent undergraduate level physiology course that includes human systems physiology through cell physiology with emphasis on membrane properties (four quarter units or equivalent; Nursing 3 at UCLA). (Nursing 3 is an online course offered at UCLA Summer Session). This course must have been completed within the last five years to the start of the program. Pathophysiology is not acceptable. (Approved Physiology Courses)
• Students are required to have basic computer skills prior to admissions

4. Professional and/or academic competence in nursing attested through three personal recommendation forms.

5. A scholarship record satisfactory to the Graduate Division and to the School of Nursing with a minimum grade-point average of 3.0.

6. Applicants from countries where English is not the primary language and medium of instruction must complete the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) with a minimum score of 560 on the written test, 220 on the computer-based test or 87 on the Internet-based test, or complete the International English Language Examination (IELTS) Academic with a minimum overall band score of 7.