Emory's Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing simplified its application requirements for students matriculating from Emory or Oxford College this fall.
In the past, students needed to submit three letters of recommendation, write an essay and take an exam following their sophomore year in the College, said Lynell Cadray, associate dean of enrollment and student affairs at the nursing school.
Now, students will automatically be admitted to the school after completing an informal application, earning a minimum of 60-credit hours – excluding Physical Education classes – at Emory College or Oxford College and earning at least a "C" in prerequisite courses.
The nursing school requires students to take several prerequisite courses in health, science and math, as well as at least seven humanities and social sciences courses, two of which must be writing-intensive.
While the admissions requirements are changing, the school still expects students to complete the program in four semesters of full-time enrollment and graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, according to the school's website.
Cadray said the School of Nursing's administration believes Emory students are among "the best and brightest" and thus prefer that students focus on real-life liberal arts skills in their first two years in college rather than stressing about deadlines and "complex admission" processes.
Furthermore, Cadray said she hopes that this simplified process will attract more Emory students to the program than the current one-third of Emory undergraduate students who enroll in the School of Nursing.
College sophomore and pre-nursing student Jamie Li said she feels the changes "make sense." The fact that she was accepted into Emory should be enough to qualify her for the pre-nursing track and "an entirely new application seemed a little unnecessary," she said.
"The pre-reqs are so specific for nursing that to switch to a different major at the end of sophomore year would be very difficult" if one did not get accepted into the school, she said.
While College sophomore and pre-nursing student Emily Dixon also said she believes the changes will "attract more students to enter the nursing program," she added that the change has caused some confusion for current sophomores as they are "on a very different track due to the old requirements."
Current sophomores are, however, meant to "follow old guidelines," Dixon said.
– By Naomi Maisel
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