CSU Pre-Nursing Core 

The CSUSM courses below, or approved equivalents, meet the CSU Pre-Nursing Core requirement for entry to any of our BSN program at CSU San Marcos.  Please use the ASSIST Web site for finding approved equivalents.  We also honor any courses completed at other CSU campuses with Nursing programs, which meet the CSU Pre-Nursing Core at that campus. 

Pre-Nursing Core Info

• We require a CSU B4 Statistics for the BSN degree.  Our University does not accept Statistics courses from UC campuses, Out-of-State, or any private school to meet the CSU GE B4 requirement at CSU San Marcos.
• At our University we teach Anatomy and Physiology in a combined sequence.  We will also accept approved Human Anatomy and Human Physiology courses and labs taught as separate semester-long courses.  But courses taken in these different sequences cannot be combined.  In other words a student could not take a Human Anatomy course, in  combination with Anatomy & Physiology I, to meet the Pre-Nursing Core requirement.
• The CSU Pre-Nursing Core requires an single Integrated Chemistry course and lab, or approved equivalents.  The integrated course should be designed for Health Professions and should include Inorganic, Organic and Biochemistry.  Please refer to the Assist Web site for other approved combinations of Chemistry courses and labs or our Nursing major. If another CSU only lists an Organic or Biochemistry course to meet the Pre-Nursing Core, pre-requisite chemistry courses  must also be completed and grades in such courses will be averaged together for the Integrated Chemistry equivalent. 
• Some students take more than one A1 or A3 courses.  In these instances, we will use the course with the highest grade. Thus, if a student wants to earn a higher Pre-Nursing Core GPA, they have the option of taking a completely different course and content than was previously completed. For example A3 Philosophy and A3 Literature course.
• All Core courses must be completed with a minimum grade of C or better. We do not accept a grade of C- or below for any separately listed courses to be utilized for meeting the Pre-Nursing Core.
• Pre-Nursing Core courses can only be repeated once, and we will average the grades for the first and second attempts, unless a course has been exempted through Academic Renewal. The exception to this would be solely for repeat reasons, without taking into consideration improved academic performance and a length of time to have elapsed for typical 'Academic Renewal'.
• We weight-average the grades for each science requirement in the Pre-Nursing Core, but then equally average the grades for all eight of the Pre-Nursing Core requirements in order to reach the Core GPA used for admission purposes to the program.