University of San Francisco Acceptance Rate, GPA, and Admission Requirements

USF is unusual among selective universities in explicitly stating that nursing applicants do not receive priority for submitting early: "We review all applications at the deadline. You do not get priority for submitting early, so we recommend carefully working through your application rather than rushing." All nursing applicants are reviewed together at the deadline, which is January 15 for fall entry (same as Regular Decision). The deadline for spring entry is November 1. The nursing program limits intake to approximately 100 students per entering class across the San Francisco campus. Applicants with a grade below a C average in chemistry, biology, physics, physiology, Algebra II, or any AP/honors science course cannot be admitted - a hard academic bar that distinguishes nursing from USF's general admissions, which is test-optional and holistic. All admitted nursing students must also complete a background check and ten-panel drug screening before beginning clinical coursework.

Nursing applicants must submit a required short answer (200 words maximum) beyond the Common App personal statement: "What will be your responsibility to others as a Jesuit-educated, BSN professional registered nurse?" This essay must be entirely distinct from the personal statement - USF explicitly states not to paste or excerpt from the main essay. The response is short enough that generic language about helping people is immediately visible as a non-answer. The strongest responses name Jesuit values by their specific terms - cura personalis (care for the whole person), accompaniment, justice, human dignity - and then connect them to a real and specific moment: a patient encounter, a family illness, volunteering at a clinic, a healthcare access barrier witnessed. At 200 words, an opening sentence that doesn't immediately establish the specific responsibility the student intends to articulate is wasted space.

For all applicants who are not applying to the nursing program, USF requires no supplemental essay beyond the Common App personal statement. This is structurally significant: it means the personal statement, the activities list, and the transcript are the entire written record on which USF makes its holistic decision. USF's "What We Look For" page explicitly asks applicants to address community involvement, what making the world a better place means to them, and how they will contribute to the Jesuit mission of social responsibility. These are not supplemental prompts - they are the framing through which admissions reads the personal statement USF receives. Non-nursing applicants who write a generic personal statement without connecting their story to service, community, or Jesuit-aligned values are submitting a file that is technically complete but thematically misaligned with how USF reviews it.

USF offers Early Decision I (binding, November 1, for students whose first choice is USF), Early Action (non-binding, November 1), and Early Decision II and Regular Decision (both January 15). Test-optional policy applies to all pathways - and USF superscores both the ACT and SAT if scores are submitted. For the fall 2025 entering nursing class, 84% of admitted students were admitted without test scores, making the nursing-specific short answer and chemistry prerequisite the actual differentiators in that pool. For non-nursing applicants, the typical USF overall acceptance rate of approximately 51% masks significant variation by program - nursing is substantially more selective. Students who are applying without test scores should know that USF explicitly places more weight on the short answer question and academic profile when scores are withheld, making the activities list and transcript especially important to complete thoroughly.