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).

All applicants must 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 Regular Stream of Compressed Nursing is ENS.

No. As of the 2025/26 admissions cycle, all applicants, including students currently enrolled at Western, have to apply through the OUAC online application.

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.

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 the CNO, as they are involved with those processes.

We do not offer a bridging program for internationally trained nurses. Depending on the education you’ve completed, you may be eligible for entry to first year in one of our undergraduate Nursing (BScN) programs. The Compressed Time Frame BScN program’s Regular Stream requires applicants to have completed at least 10.0 full course equivalents or 60.0 credits of bachelor’s degree-level study at an accredited university in order to be eligible to apply.

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. WES is the only credential evaluation service that we accept.

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.

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 most recently completed (chronologically) 10.0 full courses or 20.0 half-year courses, or your most recently completed 60.0 credits of degree-level university study. This typically works out to approximately your last two full-time years of undergraduate studies.

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 most recently completed 10.0 courses.

If you completed courses for credit but no grade (reported on your transcript as Pass, P, PAS, CR, Satisfactory) that fall within your most recently completed 10.0 courses, we will skip over those courses and will use the next most recent courses that have alphanumeric grades.

Yes. If your international exchange falls within your most recently completed 10.0 course equivalents/60.0 credits, then this coursework must be included in your average calculation, and you will be required to obtain a WES Course-by-Course evaluation for those courses. After you have submitted an application, you are welcome to reach out to the Undergraduate Admissions Office to determine whether this international education is included within your last 10.0 courses.

Yes. Applicants must have completed at least 10.0 full university courses (equivalent to 60.0 degree-level credits) by the end of April in the year seeking admission. However, if you will have completed only 10.0 full courses, no more than 5.0 courses (30.0 credits) can be at the introductory level (equivalent to courses numbered at the 1000-level at Western University).

Compressed Nursing is a competitive program with limited enrolment. Meeting the minimum requirements for consideration should not be seen as a guarantee of admission. Applicants who receive an offer of admission typically have averages higher than the minimum requirement. 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. Typically, we recommend that applicants aim for an average over their last 10.0 courses in the low 80s for best chances at receiving an offer of admission.

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.

All applicants must have completed approved courses in the following areas:

• 1.0 course, or equivalent, in Human or Mammalian Physiology
• 0.5 course in Human Anatomy
• 0.5 course in Introductory Statistics

Yes. Applicants must achieve a minimum final grade of 60% in each prerequisite subject. If an applicant needs to complete more than one course to satisfy a prerequisite, the average of the courses must be at least 60%.

Yes. Applicants can repeat courses being presented for prerequisite purposes. We will use the higher of the two attempts. However, if both course attempts fall within your most recent 10.0 courses, both grades will be included in the average calculation.

Prerequisites must be completed within 10 years of the year seeking admission.

Prerequisites completed more than 10 years ago are not eligible for consideration. You would need to re-take approved courses to meet the requirements for our program.

Prerequisites can be in progress at the time you submit your application, but the School of Nursing and the Undergraduate Admissions Office strongly recommend that you complete all prerequisite courses by the end of April in the year seeking admission, with final grades sent to the Undergraduate Admissions Office by early to mid-May. Depending on the competitiveness of your application, completing courses any later than that could result in your application being considered for a waitlist position only.

Prospective applicants should refer to our Course Equivalency List. This list is used for the purposes of verifying prerequisite admission requirements only. It is subject to change and is not exhaustive. If you have taken a course that does not appear on our list, you can submit a detailed course syllabus for assessment after you have applied to our program. If a course is not approved after a careful review by the expert faculty in the relevant field of study, your application will be denied, and application fees are non-refundable. Therefore, we strongly recommend that you complete prerequisite courses that have already been approved, if possible.

If you present courses on your Compressed Nursing Prerequisite Check Form that are not included on the published Course Equivalency List, you should be prepared to submit a detailed syllabus for each course. After you have applied, the Undergraduate Admissions Office will review your application and may notify you if further details (such as a course syllabus) are required. A syllabus should include details such as the course code and title, the term or year the course was taken, required textbooks and weekly readings, topics taught each week (e.g. a lecture schedule), assignments, and grading information. A short paragraph from a university academic calendar does not provide sufficient detail for review purposes.