Top Online Nursing Schools With No TEAS or HESI Requirement

Yes, many nursing schools admit students without the ATI TEAS or HESI A2, but they rarely admit them without some other gatekeeper. Where a vendor exam is waived, the screen usually moves to science prerequisite GPA, often in the 3.0 to 3.7 range, plus interviews and written essays. A TEAS attempt runs $70 to $120, so the waiver saves money, yet it can raise the stakes on transcripts.

The listed programs are fully online RN to BSN programs, LPN to RN bridge programs, and MSN options, vetted against official admissions pages as of October 2026. Most are post-licensure, where an active RN license does the work an entrance exam does for first-time students.

Pre-licensure seats remain scarce, and that scarcity is why exam-optional policies still come with competitive GPA cutoffs.

Best Online Nursing Programs With No TEAS or HESI Requirement

For faculty and program leaders tracking admissions-policy shifts, the clearest no-exam online pathways are post-licensure programs. These include RN-to-BSN and related bridge tracks, where an active RN license and prior coursework replace vendor entrance exams such as the ATI TEAS and HESI A2. As allnurses notes in its guide to nursing programs that don't require TEAS or HESI (https://allnurses.com/programs/nursing-programs-do-not-require-teas-hesi-r187/), selective prelicensure programs that drop these exams typically screen on prerequisite-science GPA instead, which shifts validation work onto transcript review and prerequisite rigor. The schools below were selected from our research set for their established post-licensure nursing footprints. Specific program titles, delivery formats, tuition, and accreditation status were not available in verified data and should be confirmed directly with each institution before advising students or benchmarking.

How We Ranked Online Nursing Schools Without TEAS or HESI

What has to be true for a program to appear on this list, and what pushes one school above another? The methodology has two parts: inclusion and ordering.

Inclusion Rules

A program had to meet every one of these before it was considered:

• Fully online delivery: Hybrid and on-campus prelicensure formats were excluded. Clinical placements are the exception, since those are site-based by nature.
• Documented policy: We required a citation from the school's official admissions or program page confirming that neither the ATI TEAS nor the HESI A2 , the two most common nursing school entrance exams , is required. A third-party claim alone was not enough.
• Active accreditation: The program had to hold current accreditation from either ACEN or CCNE. Programs with lapsed or candidate-only status were set aside.

How the Order Was Set

The ranking reflects a composite, not a single metric. Test-waiver eligibility, student retention, program completion, and overall institutional quality carried the most weight. Tuition and reported graduate earnings were treated as moderate factors that break near-ties. This is deliberately not a cost or ROI ranking, so the cheapest option here will not always sit at the top.

Sources and Verification

We pulled from official admissions pages, the ACEN and CCNE accreditor directories, and state board of nursing NCLEX pass-rate reports. Figures were last verified in October 2026.

Admissions policies shift by catalog year, and a school can reinstate an entrance exam between cycles. Always confirm current nursing school requirements directly with the program before applying. If you spot a detail that has changed, let us know through the contact channels on registerednursing.org so we can re-verify and update the entry.

Accreditation Status and Tuition for the Listed Programs

Accreditation is the trust filter most no-TEAS lists skip: CCNE or ACEN status protects your eligibility for graduate study, employer tuition benefits and many federal aid pathways, while state board of nursing approval governs whether a program's graduates can be licensed or authorized in your state, so confirm both before you apply. The figures below come from each school's published 2026 tuition information (the Arkansas State figures are from its Online MSN Nurse Educator page), and residency, transfer credit and catalog year can all change what you actually pay, so treat totals as estimates and verify them on the school's official tuition page. Where a school did not itemize mandatory or clinical-related fees, or where we could not confirm state board approval from the sources reviewed, the table says so rather than guessing.

No TEAS or HESI vs. No Entrance Exam: What Schools Substitute

George Washington University's nursing admissions team reviews overall GPA alongside prerequisite grades in Anatomy and Physiology 1 and 2, Microbiology, and Statistics, with a 3.0 benchmark, and requires no TEAS or HESI entrance exam.¹ That single policy makes the central point: dropping a standardized entrance test does not mean dropping screening. It means moving the screen somewhere else.

'No TEAS/HESI' Is Not 'No Admissions Gate'

When a program waives the vendor exam, it almost always substitutes one or more of the following:

• Prerequisite GPA cutoffs: George Washington weighs both cumulative and prerequisite-science GPA, so your grades in A&P and Microbiology carry the evaluative weight the test used to hold. Applicants below 3.0 may still apply because every file is read, but the GPA review is the screen.¹
• Holistic committee review: Chamberlain University uses a committee that considers coursework and cumulative GPA. Notably, Chamberlain does not blanket-waive testing; it lets an ACT, SAT, or TEAS score from within the last five years substitute for the HESI A2, which is closer to flexibility than a true waiver.²
• Internal or on-campus placement testing: Denver College of Nursing requires no entrance testing for its online programs, yet its on-campus ADN and BSN tracks still require a passing HESI A2 for applicants without a prior bachelor's degree.³ Same institution, different gate depending on the pathway.
• Minimal published criteria: Georgia State University's RN-to-BSN program does not require the TEAS, but its published policy does not spell out a specific replacement screen, which is common for bridge programs that lean on an existing RN license as the competency signal.⁴

In-Program HESI and ATI Are a Separate Thing

Do not confuse an admissions exam with a progression or exit exam. Many schools administer ATI or HESI assessments after you enroll as course or progression checkpoints. Those ATI nursing exam preparation checkpoints are not admissions gates, and a program can waive the entrance test while still using HESI internally.

A Rule of Thumb for Policy Wording

Read the verbs carefully. "Not required" and "waived" usually mean the test genuinely is not part of your application. "Optional" often means a strong score can help but is not mandatory; compare each school's TEAS score requirements for nursing school before deciding. And a conditional waiver, as at Denver, may apply only to one pathway, so confirm which program the language covers before you assume you are exempt.

Why Schools Are Dropping TEAS and HESI: The Institutional View

Prelicensure nursing admissions are shifting away from vendor-written entrance exams, and the reasons are as much operational as philosophical.

What the Source Says, and What We Could Confirm

The allnurses guide to programs that skip TEAS and HESI describes no-exam tracks as leaning on science-prerequisite GPA cutoffs of roughly 3.0 to 3.7. One dating note: the guide's title carries 2026, but the page was published on June 19, 2025 and updated on July 17, 2025. We use those dates, not the title's.

Its two named examples, CSU Fullerton's BSN and OHSU's 3-year BSN, are campus-based, so they fall outside our online scope. OHSU's separate RN to B.S. is the online option. The guide reports that both schools require no exam and that CSU Fullerton uses holistic admissions. We could not tie the GPA range, fee figures or retake waits to any single program's published policy, so read them as typical ranges, not fixed rules.

The Equity, Cost and Delay Argument

The guide puts traditional exams at $70 to $120 per attempt plus prep subscriptions, with a 30- to 90-day HESI A2 retake waiting period. For a working applicant, a weak first score can cost money and push an application back a full cycle. Schools that drop the exam typically argue that this burden falls hardest on applicants with the least slack, and that a strong record in science coursework says more about readiness than one sitting.

Where the Burden Moves

Without a vendor benchmark, faculty and admissions staff have to judge the rigor of anatomy, physiology and microbiology themselves. Those courses vary by institution, which makes transcript articulation the real gatekeeper. That matters beyond the BSN, because the cohorts admitted today feed RN-to-BSN, Master of Science in Nursing (MSN), and DNP pipelines later. Weak screening at entry could surface as uneven preparation for graduate study, though the evidence on that is still thin.

Operational Implications

Exam-optional admissions changes what programs need to manage:

• Prerequisite GPA data: Offices need clean, comparable records of science grades, course sources and repeat attempts.
• Clinical capacity: Placement slots are a hard ceiling, so cohort size is often set by clinical partners, not applicant demand.
• Faculty workload: Holistic review of transcripts, essays and interviews takes more reviewer hours than reading a score.

For applicants, the takeaway is that skipping the exam does not mean skipping scrutiny. The evaluation just moves to your transcript.

How Does a No-Exam Admissions Track Compare With a TEAS or HESI Track?

The figures below come from the allnurses guide to programs that waive the ATI TEAS and HESI A2. They describe general track patterns, not the policies of any single online program, so confirm details with each school. The takeaway: removing the exam does not lower the bar. The science prerequisite GPA becomes the real gate, and cutoffs often run higher than applicants expect.

What You Need Instead: GPA, Prerequisites, Essays and Interviews

Skipping the TEAS or HESI does not lower the bar. It moves the scrutiny to your transcript and application materials. Confirm each item with the school, since requirements change by intake term.

1. Science or prerequisite GPA

   Expect roughly 2.75 to 3.5. Maryland prefers a 2.75 science GPA, Cleveland State asks for 3.0, and UNF requires 3.50 for Spring 2027 entry and later. Columbia sets no minimum.
2. Prerequisite courses

   Anatomy and Physiology I and II with lab and Microbiology with lab are near-universal. Statistics, nutrition and human development are common, and Regis adds Chemistry I and II.
3. Completion timing and grades

   Ohio State requires a B- or higher, with every prerequisite finished by the deadline. USD allows one course in progress and wants sciences taken within seven years. Columbia allows completion before classes start.
4. Active RN license (bridge tracks)

   Post-licensure pathways such as Cleveland State's BSN-to-graduate option require an active, unencumbered RN license.
5. Essay or personal statement

   UNF asks for 500 words in APA format. Cleveland State also requires an essay.
6. Interview

   UNF and Cleveland State require one. USD interviews only invited applicants.
7. Upcoming deadlines

   Ohio State's next deadline is October 16, 2026, for a Summer 2027 start. Columbia's final deadline is November 16, Maryland's is January 5, 2027, and Cleveland State lists January 9, 2027, for a May 15 start.

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