No. There is no quota or priority given to Ontario applicants for Compressed Nursing.

No. Applicants can have completed their university education at any accredited university.

No. The Undergraduate Admissions Office can only provide information about admission requirements. We suggest that students reach out to academic advising at their home institution/faculty, particularly regarding course registration questions.

No. The Undergraduate Admissions Office does not pre-evaluate educational backgrounds prior to receiving a formal online application submitted through the Ontario Universities Application Centre (OUAC).

No. The RPN Stream A is only for applicants who have completed 5.0 full university course equivalents as well as a Practical Nursing diploma program from an accredited College of Applied Arts and Technology in Ontario with a minimum average of 75%, as calculated by the Undergraduate Admissions Office once converted to Western’s grading scale. If you completed a Licensed Practical Nursing (LPN) diploma in another Canadian province or territory, you may be eligible to apply to our 22-month RPN Stream B, which you can learn more about here.

No. You can apply while you are still in your RPN program, but your diploma must be completed by May in the year seeking admission, and you must have passed your RExPN licensing exam and provided proof of registration and good standing with the CNO by July in the year seeking admission.

No. We accept applications from students from all accredited two-year Practical Nursing Diploma programs from Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology, including students from Fanshawe College.

You can apply through the Ontario Universities Application Centre (OUAC). Applications typically open by early October for admission in September of the following year. The OUAC program code for the RPN Stream A is ENA.

The deadline to submit an application through the OUAC is February 15 of the year seeking admission.

No. We do not issue alternate offers to other streams of the CTF BScN program or to the Direct Entry BScN program if you are ineligible for the stream/program to which you have applied. Admission requirements differ for each stream of Compressed Nursing and for the Direct Entry BScN program, so you are responsible for reviewing the admission requirements for each stream and program and ensuring that you have applied to a stream for which you are eligible. If you have applied to the wrong stream, you can return to your OUAC account and change your program choices as long as the application deadline has not passed. Program choices cannot be changed once the application has closed.

No. As of the 2024/25 application cycle, the Casper test offered through Acuity Insights is not required for applicants to any of the three streams of the Compressed Time Frame BScN program.

You will only need to provide your supporting documentation regarding your experience and registration if you are admitted to the program. You are not asked to submit this information at the time of application for RPN Stream A.

Yes, as long as you have completed a two-year RPN diploma program. All applicants admitted to the RPN Stream A will need to have RPN registration in good standing with the CNO and be entitled to practice with no restrictions. However, if you completed the PN diploma more than five years prior to applying, you will also need to have completed the equivalent of two years of full-time RPN practice experience (3,640 hours) in Canada and submit a completed Verification of Employment Hours form (provided to you after receiving an offer of admission to the RPN Stream A).

Yes. Applicants with university preparation outside of North America must submit an ICAP Course-by-Course evaluation through World Education Services (WES). If you are unsure of how your international education equates to a Canadian standard, we would recommend completing a WES evaluation prior to applying. This will give you an idea of how we will review your previous education.

No. An Educational Credential Assessment (ECA) for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) completed by WES may be sufficient for immigration purposes, but it doesn’t provide the detail needed for academic purposes. The ECA only gives an overall summary for Canadian immigration purposes of what your final credential is equivalent to in Canada; it does not include an individual course-by-course breakdown with equivalent credit weightings and converted grades, which is what we require to evaluate your educational background against our admission requirements for Compressed Nursing.

Yes! We accept applications from international students. Those who are planning to practice as a Registered Nurse (RN) in Ontario after graduation should review the residency requirements for the College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO). Please note that the College of Nurses of Ontario, the licensing body for registered nurses in Ontario, does have a citizenship/residency requirement to register. You can review that information on their website here. You should also direct any questions about the NCLEX and possibility of employment to them, as they are involved with those processes. It is also recommended that applicants review the eligibility requirements for becoming a nurse in their desired country to ensure that Western’s Compressed Nursing program meets those requirements.

Applicants must meet the minimum published requirements for the program in order to be considered for admission. This means that you must meet both the minimum average for the Practical Nursing diploma component and the minimum average for the university education component to be eligible to apply. To receive an offer of admission, applicants not only need to meet the minimum requirements but will also need to have a competitive average as calculated by Western’s Undergraduate Admissions Office.

When we refer to 5.0 university courses, we are looking for 5.0 full degree-level courses (30 credit hours or 1 full year equivalent) completed at an accredited university. These courses can be completed at any year level and do not need to be completed as part of a university degree, but must be degree-level, so we cannot consider certificate- or diploma-level courses. At Western, half-year courses are weighted at 0.5 credits, and full-year courses are weighted at 1.0 credits. Other universities may weight their half-year courses at 3.0 credits and full-year courses at 6.0 credits. We calculate an average over your highest 5.0 full courses or 10.0 half-year courses, or your highest 30.0 credits of degree-level university study.

Yes. We use fall, winter, and spring/summer term courses in the average calculation.

We include undergraduate and graduate coursework, courses taken as part of your degree requirements and electives, post-degree studies, exchanges, and courses taken on Letter of Permission. As long as a course is degree-level, is completed at an accredited university, has a credit weighting, and has an alphanumeric final grade (letter or number grade), it can be included within your best 5.0 university course equivalents.

If you completed courses for credit but no grade (reported on your transcript as Pass, P, PAS, CR, Satisfactory), we will skip over those courses and will use other courses that have alphanumeric grades.

If you have not completed any university education and plan to complete the 5.0 university degree-credit courses to apply to this RPN stream, you would need to apply to a university of your choice and meet that institution's specific admission requirements for the program you want to enter - for part-time, full-time, or open learning studies. Applicants are not required to complete their university coursework at Western in order to be eligible to apply to the RPN Stream A of Compressed Nursing. You may wish to look into online open learning options, depending on your personal interests, circumstances, finances, and time commitments. University courses required to support your admission to this Stream should be completed by the end of April in the year seeking admission.

No. You can take courses from any subject area that is of interest to you and in which you will be academically successful. They do not need to be science courses or related to Nursing.

Yes. Courses offered online either through traditional universities or taken through an accredited online open-learning university are acceptable for consideration.

University courses can be in progress at the time of application, but we will expect to see that you have completed at least 5.0 degree-credit courses (30.0 degree-level credits) by the end of April in the year seeking admission.

Compressed Nursing is a competitive program with limited enrollment. Applicants to the RPN Stream A must meet the minimum requirements for both the Practical Nursing diploma average and the university average to be eligible for consideration; possession of the minimum requirements should not be viewed as a guarantee of admission. We can't confirm from cycle to cycle what the competitive requirement will be, but we recommend students aim for their RPN program grades to be in the 80s to be competitive for admission to this program. What constitutes a competitive average varies from year to year, depending on the number of seats available in the program, along with the size and academic strength of the applicant pool in the year you apply.

Maybe. Nursing requires a higher degree of English proficiency due to the clinical placements in the program and the importance of these interactions. Applicants whose first language is not English and/or who have completed post-secondary education outside of North America should be prepared to provide proof of English language proficiency. We do not determine if this will be required prior to receiving a formal application to our program. When the Undergraduate Admissions Office has received your application, it will be determined at that time if proof of English proficiency is required. If it is, it will be included on the personalized To Do List of required items that will be created for you and posted to your Western Student Center.

The following are acceptable tests for Western’s Nursing programs and the minimum scores you need to achieve:

• TOEFL: 580 paper-based; 237 computer-based and TSE (Test of Spoken English) 50 or greater; Internet-based-total score of 92-93, with 22-24 in Writing, 26 in Speaking, 20 in Reading, and 20 in Listening.
• IELTS Academic: 7 Overall, with at least 6.5 in Reading and Listening, and at least 7 in Writing and Speaking.
• Duolingo: 135 Overall, with at least 130 in Literacy and no other sub-scores below 125.

Applicants are encouraged to write an acceptable test at the earliest possible date and at the latest by March in the year seeking admission. Scores for any test written more than two years prior to applying will not be accepted.