Nursing Science PhD Admissions

Admission Guidelines

We evaluate applicants based on the following:

• Nurses who hold a bachelor’s or master’s degree are eligible to apply. We also encourage non-nurses who hold a graduate degree in a health-related field to apply.
• GPAs of 3.0 or higher (on a 4.0 scale). 
• Substantive answers to personal essay questions (included in the Program Materials section of NursingCAS).
• Three professional letters of recommendation.  
  • One letter must be from someone who holds a PhD (does not have to be an RN).  
  • Choose recommenders who know you well and can evaluate your abilities, critical thinking and potential for successfully completing graduate school. 
  • Recommendations from friends, relatives or co-workers will not be accepted. Your application will be delayed or denied.  
• Resume or CV that includes the following information: 
  • Community service. 
  • Educational, leadership and professional organization activities. 
  • Nursing license number and state. 
  • Scholarly activities, including publications, presentations, research, honors and awards. 
  • Work experience. 
• TOEFL scores if required. 
• Personal interviews with faculty.

GRE scores are not required.

Applicants who fail to submit accurate information or all of the required information will not be considered for admission.

How to Apply to the Nursing Science PhD Program

Applications are submitted through NursingCAS, the centralized application service for nursing.  

NursingCAS collects and processes your application documents and verifies transcripts. We receive the information from NursingCAS and use it to make our admission decision. 

How to apply: 

• Submit a completed application to NursingCAS. 
  • You will be asked to enter the specific program. 
  • You may apply to only one RUSH program and one admission term. 
• Pay the non-refundable $80 fee to NursingCAS. 
• Complete the brief RUSH supplemental application, which will be sent to you after submitting your application to NursingCAS. The supplemental application fee is $40. 

We recommend that you complete your application and have all official transcripts sent to Nursing CAS well before the application deadline.  

It can take several weeks for NursingCAS to verify and process your transcripts. 

We will not consider your application if it is inaccurate or incomplete.