Build Your Nursing Career
If you’re ready to move beyond staff nurse positions, a bachelor’s in nursing can help you achieve that goal. A BSN could both advance and expand your career opportunities. It’s the pathway to leadership and management, a stepping stone toward advanced practice, and can help you apply your nursing knowledge outside of hospital settings. In a word, it’s your gateway to more.
Transfer Your Credits to ACE
Our BSN program is designed for students with an associate degree or diploma in registered nursing, which equates to 90 credits. We can then help you reach the 120 total credits you need to earn a bachelor’s degree. If any additional credits are needed, we’ll help you cross the finish line through trusted academic providers whose courses seamlessly transfer into ACE.
Skills and Knowledge Gained
A bachelor’s degree in nursing doesn’t just help you improve your patient care. It provides broader preparation for navigating and building a career within the healthcare system, including training in leadership, evidence-based practice and population health. It can help you shift your mindset from how to improve individual patient care to how to improve care across a unit, helping you practice big-picture thinking in preparation for more responsibility. Here are other skills you’ll hone in a BSN program:
- Leadership skills and effective collaboration
- Clinical judgement, critical thinking and evidence-based practice
- Research evaluation and interpretation
- Information management and patient care technology
- Policy development
- Resource management
- Strategic planning
Nursing Career Alignment
A bachelor’s degree in nursing can put you on the leadership track, making you competitive for charge nurse, team lead, lead nurse or preceptor positions. Pairing a BSN with work experience could help you reach assistant nurse manager, nurse manager and house supervisor positions. A BSN can also help you pursue systems-level positions, such as quality improvement nurse, risk management nurse, case manager, population health nurse and more. Finally, it’s a requirement if you want to pursue higher-level degrees, such as master’s degrees or doctorates.
Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing Admission
Along with ACE’s general admission requirements, prospective bachelor’s degree students must hold an associate degree in nursing or a diploma in registered nursing, with a minimum GPA of 2.25 on a 4.0 scale. We may grant provisional admission for a GPA of 2.0. You also must provide evidence of an active, unencumbered RN license. Additional documentation may be required to fulfill state requirements. Find detailed admission requirements for your program of interest on the program’s page.
We can quickly review your prior academic credits before you apply so that you’ll know exactly how many credits you can transfer into our degree completion programs. Start your free credit review today.
*Source: Student Right to Know
Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing FAQs
What is an RN to BSN online completion program?
An RN to BSN program helps people who are already registered nurses earn a bachelor’s degree in nursing quickly by applying coursework they’ve already completed toward BSN credit requirements. Because registered nurses must complete coursework – typically through an associate degree (ADN) program – to earn their RN license, RN to BSN programs are an attractive pathway for practicing nurses since they honor previous academic credits and accelerate time to completion.
Is a BSN required to become a registered nurse?
Typically, an ADN is sufficient to become an RN as long as you also pass the NCLEX-RN exam. However, being an RN with a BSN equips you with more knowledge and skills that can lead to more career opportunities.
Does a BSN degree prepare you for the NCLEX-RN exam?
A BSN degree can prepare you to take the NCLEX-RN exam. However, RN to BSN programs are not designed to do so, because they are for students who are already licensed nurses.
What is a BSN?
BSN stands for a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, and it’s the next level up from an Associate Degree in Nursing. A BSN helps prepare you for a career in nursing by teaching you essential bedside care combined with training in leadership and broader healthcare system knowledge.
How long does it take to complete a BSN program?
Bachelor’s degrees typically take four years to complete, but RN to BSN programs can be much shorter because you transfer in credits you’ve already completed from an associate degree. ACE’s RN to BSN program takes 18 months to complete.*
*This is an estimated time to completion. Actual completion time may vary depending on the number of transfer credits applied, availability of courses, satisfactory pace, multiple course requests, successful course completion, and meeting program milestones as required.