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 programs 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.  The minimum GPA needed in the Pre-Nursing Core varies by program. Please see our Eligibility/Entry Requirements link for each respective program.

Pre-Nursing Core Info

• We require Statistics for the BSN degree, but we do not require that a Statistics course be taken as the CSU GE B4 requirement in the Core.  If students want to save themselves a mathematics course, they can take an approved Statistics course for our major.  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, but such an approved course could be used to meet the Statistics requirement for our BSN programs, provided such a course includes inferential statistics.  If students want to use a Statistics course to also meet their B4 mathematics requirement for our Pre-Nursing Core, such a course must be completed at a California Community College or another CSU campus.
• At our University we teach Anatomy and Physiology in a combined sequence.  We will also accept approved Anatomy and Physiology courses and labs taught as separate semester-long courses.  But courses taken in these different sequences cannot be combined.
• The CSU Pre-Nursing Core requires a 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 for our Nursing Major.
• Some students take more than one B4 mathematics course and sometimes additional A1 or A3 courses even.  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 an A1, A3, or B4 course, and we will use the course with the highest grade.  Please note, as an example, that if a student completed a MATH B4 Statistics course and then takes a PSYC B4 Statistics course, we consider this the same content even though the courses were completed through different academic departments.
• 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.
• 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.