ABSN How to Apply

1. Apply online via NursingCAS

Complete and submit the 2024 Summer ABSN application in NursingCAS by October 1, 2023 at 11:59 pm EST. Our program begins in Summer 2024.

You must submit your NursingCAS application before starting your supplemental application.

The NursingCAS application includes the following:

• Biographical data
• Education history
• Course history
• Work and volunteer experience
• Extracurricular activities
• Honors and awards
• Community standards
• Admissions essays
• $60 NursingCAS application fee

2. Submit the UNC Supplemental Application
Within a few business days of submitting your NursingCAS application, you will receive an email with instructions and a link to begin the online UNC supplemental application. The deadline to submit the supplemental application is October 9, 2023 at 11:59 pm EST.

The supplemental application includes the following:

• Family information
• Education history
• Military service
• Residency information
• $85 UNC application fee

3. Submit official transcripts
Request official copies of your college transcripts as soon as you begin your NursingCAS application. All transcripts must be submitted to NursingCAS by October 9, 2023. It can take several weeks for transcripts to be issued by your school, posted to your application, and verified by NursingCAS, so we encourage you to start this process early. Contact NursingCAS at (617) 612-2880 to inquire about the status of your transcripts.

4. Check the status of your application
Log-in to your NursingCAS applicant portal regularly to check on the status of your application and transcripts.

Questions about the application? Contact us at sonapp@unc.edu.

Submit official college transcripts directly to NursingCAS as described above.

UNC-CH requires official high school transcripts from students who are admitted to the program. If you are selected for admission, additional details will be provided in your offer letter regarding submission of your high school transcript. We encourage you to request that an official copy be mailed to yourself now in case you are admitted. Keep it sealed so it remains official.

Essays are to be uploaded as your Personal Statement in the Documents section of the application. Because we don’t have the opportunity to meet or interview all of our applicants personally, we ask that you help us get to know you better through the required essays. Please read the questions carefully, and limit your responses to the lengths indicated.

For your essays, please create a single, double-spaced document, with a font size of 11 or higher. Each essay should begin on a new page. Please include your full legal name at the top of each page and number each essay or identify it with the corresponding question. Please limit your responses to a maximum of two pages per essay, or six pages total. Once you have uploaded your document, you will have the option to view or remove it. Please select PREVIEW to make sure you have uploaded the correct document. If you attempt to upload more than one document (i.e. save a separate document for each essay) only the last document uploaded will be saved.

Each essay question may contain multiple parts so be sure to address all components. Carefully check your essays for spelling and grammar. Your ability to communicate will be evident in your essays. By signing the statement at the end of application, you verify that the essays are your own and were written by you.

• Failure to adhere to the formatting guidelines may result in your application being considered incomplete.
• Failure to submit two to three distinct essays may result in your application being considered incomplete.

All essay questions are required.

1. Why have you chosen to pursue a career in nursing and what are your professional goals? What are the skills and talents you possess that will contribute to your future work as a nurse? If you are a second degree student, also discuss why nursing is a better career choice at this time in your life.
2. Describe a very difficult and/or rewarding experience you have had, and discuss how you dealt with it. Discuss in detail the way in which this particular experience impacted your life, and how it might influence your future practice as a nurse.
3. How will your life experiences foster a positive and dynamic learning environment within the school of nursing and benefit your future patients?

We often receive questions about how we define foreign language fluency for the purposes of the application. Please see the guidelines below. Definitions are adapted from American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Proficiency Guidelines.

LOW FLUENCY
Speakers at the Low level can communicate short messages on highly predictable, everyday topics that affect them directly. They do so primarily through the use of isolated words and phrases that have been encountered, memorized, and recalled. Low-level speakers may be difficult to understand even by the most sympathetic interlocutors accustomed to non-native speech.

MODERATE FLUENCY
Speakers at the Moderate level are distinguished primarily by their ability to create with the language when talking about familiar topics related to their daily life. They are able to recombine learned material in order to express personal meaning. Moderate-level speakers can ask simple questions and can handle a straightforward survival situation. They produce sentence-level language, ranging from discrete sentences to strings of sentences, typically in present time. Moderate-level speakers are understood by interlocutors who are accustomed to dealing with non-native learners of the language.

HIGH FLUENCY
Speakers at the High level engage in conversation in a clearly participatory manner in order to communicate information on autobiographical topics, as well as topics of community, national, or international interest. The topics are handled concretely by means of narration and description in the major times frames of past, present, and future. These speakers can also deal with a social situation with an unexpected complication. The language of High-level speakers is abundant, the oral paragraph being the measure of High-level length and discourse. High- level speakers have sufficient control of basic structures and generic vocabulary to be understood by native speakers of the language, including those unaccustomed to non-native speech.

English Language Proficiency
If your country of origin is other than the United States and English is not the official language, you must submit test scores to demonstrate their English proficiency. The official report must be submitted to the Office of Student Affairs at UNC School of Nursing by the application deadline or you may upload it under “Test Score Report.” Contact the Office of Student Affairs for information regarding waiver eligibility. Minimum acceptable scores are as follows:
TOEFL or TOEFL iBT Home Edition – 100 or higher
TOEFL ITP Plus for China – 627 or higher
IELTS or IELTS Indicator – 7.0 or higher

Foreign Coursework
Applicants who have attended college outside of the United States must submit an official copy of an independently conducted verification of your academic credentials by an education evaluation service. The assessment must include a course-by-course evaluation showing credit hours and letter grade equivalency as well as US equivalency of all degrees earned. NursingCAS provides additional information on their website.

Newly admitted students are required to attend a Pre-Orientation Session shortly after admissions decisions are released. Additional information will be included in the admission letter. Mandatory orientation for incoming ABSN students is held on the two business days prior to the start of classes. Classes begin May 17, 2023.