What Do LPN Programs Actually Require to Get In?
The short answer
Most practical nursing programs ask for four things: a high school diploma or GED, a handful of prerequisite or co-requisite courses, a passing score on a standardized entrance exam, and clearance on a background check plus health and immunization records. Admission is usually competitive or waitlisted rather than first-come, and the specifics are set by the individual school — not by your state board, which approves the program but doesn't write its admission rules.
A good way to see what that looks like in practice is to read an official program page end to end. Columbus State Community College's licensed practical nursing certificate page documents the kind of details you want: how many semesters the certificate runs, that the program is approved by the Ohio Board of Nursing, that it publishes a minimum entrance-exam score, and that completers are eligible to sit for the NCLEX-PN.
The entrance exam
Most LPN programs use a commercial pre-admission test — often the HESI A2 or a similar exam — covering reading comprehension, math, grammar, and some basic science. Two things to check before you register for one:
- The score the program requires, which may be an overall number, a per-section minimum, or both.
- The retake policy — how long you have to wait, how many attempts count, and whether the school uses your best or your most recent score.
This exam is not the licensure exam. The NCLEX-PN comes at the end, after you graduate, and it's administered under the rules described by NCSBN. If you want the comparison between the two nursing licensure exams, see NCLEX-PN vs NCLEX-RN.
Prerequisites and co-requisites
The academic prerequisites for practical nursing are usually lighter than for an associate-degree RN program, which is part of why the timeline is shorter. Expect some combination of:
- English composition or a reading/writing placement
- Basic math or a math placement
- An introductory anatomy and physiology course, sometimes taken alongside the nursing courses rather than before them
Watch for the word co-requisite. A course listed that way is taken during the program, which changes your term-by-term workload even though it doesn't delay your start. The published program length rarely includes the time you spend finishing prerequisites — we unpack that in how long is an LPN program.
The non-academic requirements
These trip people up more often than the test does, because clinical sites impose them:
- Criminal background check and fingerprinting. Policies vary, and a record is not automatically disqualifying — but it's a conversation to have early with both the school and your state board of nursing, since licensure eligibility is the board's call, not the school's.
- Immunization and health documentation, plus CPR certification, because clinical partners require them.
- Drug screening in many programs.
How to tell a program will count
Before you pay a deposit, confirm two separate things. First, that the program is approved by your state's board of nursing — that's what makes graduates eligible for the NCLEX-PN. Second, whether it's also accredited, which matters mostly if you plan to bridge to RN later; the ACEN program directory lets you search accredited practical, associate, and baccalaureate programs. The distinction is genuinely important and we spell it out in board approval vs accreditation.
If you already know you want to end up as an RN, it's worth asking the admissions office one more question: which of these credits transfer into their own ADN program, and on what terms. That answer varies a lot, and it's cheaper to learn now than two years from now.