School of Nursing

Admission for Students with All or Part of Coursework Completed Outside of the United States

Please refer to the University Admissions Web site (www.csusm.edu/admissions/) for the University admissions requirements, deadlines to apply, etc.

For the consideration to enter any of our Nursing Programs, the School of Nursing requires that any coursework completed outside of the United States must first be evaluated by one of the approved evaluation companies.  The original transcripts and an official copy of the Evaluation must be submitted to the School of Nursing for all Pre-Nursing and Nursing Program applicants. Please be aware that the University never accepts coursework completed outside of the U.S. to meet the Area A requirements, which are part of the CSU Pre-Nursing Core.

See the following list of Foreign Transcript Evaluation Companies for a complete list of evaluation companies approved for use by Cal State San Marcos. 

These companies can vary in the cost of preparing an evaluation and in the processing time of completing an evaluation.   You may use any of the evaluation companies listed on the link above. 

The evaluation you are seeking needs to include the U.S. equivalency for college credit.  It needs to further provide the U.S. equivalency for each course, including course title, equivalent number of U.S. semester units, and grade equivalency to the U.S. grading structure.

Students can apply for admission:

• To the University as a Pre-Nursing student to complete any missing Pre-Nursing Core courses and to take any other non-NURS courses required as part of the BSN degree, prior to being admitted into an actual Nursing program.
  OR
• To the University directly into one of the Nursing Programs; and
  To the School of Nursing directly into any of our Nursing programs

Generic/Basic BSN
RN to BSN
LVN to BSN

Applicants must apply separately to the School of Nursing for admission to a specific Nursing program.  The next opportunity for admission to our RN to BSN program will be for entry in Fall 2008.  The next opportunity for admission to our Generic/Basic BSN and LVN to BSN programs will be for entry in Fall 2009.  Applications will be posted on our Nursing Program Web page, under the Nursing Program link for which you want to apply. 

Please be aware that admission to the University as a Pre-Nursing student does not guarantee you a spot into an Impacted Nursing program. Currently our only Impacted Nursing program is the Generic/Basic BSN program.  Applicants to this program are rank ordered based on points earned according to the Supplemental Admission Criteria, as linked under the Generic/Basic BSN program on the Nursing Programs Web page.

Contact us at nursingapplication@csusm.edu if you should have further questions.