Where to Take Prerequisites for CRNA School

Updated September 2026

Figuring out where to take prerequisites for CRNA school comes down to one rule. Of our 154 accredited programs, only 28 say organic chemistry or biochemistry can replace general chemistry, 7 say it cannot, and 119 say nothing at all. So email admissions with the exact course number first.

Why does nobody just tell you where to take these classes?

Because they can't. And I say that as someone who wasted a whole summer and about four hundred bucks on a class that ended up sitting on my transcript doing absolutely nothing for me.

So look at the split again. 28 programs out of 154 will tell you in writing that organic chem or biochem can stand in for general chemistry. 7 will tell you flat out that it can't. And then there's 119 that just say "general chemistry" and leave you standing there holding your course catalog.

And that last number is the whole problem. It's not that programs are hiding the ball on purpose. It's that a prerequisite line on a website is written to cover a hundred different transcripts, and yours is one of them. I'm not saying the programs are being sloppy about it. Most of them will answer you in a day or two if you just ask, which is kind of the point of this entire post.

So the honest answer to "where do I take biochem" is: somewhere regionally accredited, with a lab if the program wants a lab, after a human being at that program has looked at the course number and said yes. That's it. That's the rule.

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Do CRNA programs accept online prerequisite courses?

Short version, yes, if it's the right kind of online. 127 of our 154 programs deliver part of their own curriculum online, so the format alone is rarely the problem. But I've been getting a lot of questions lately about Portage and the other self-paced online providers, so let me be really clear about what programs are actually checking.

Number one, accreditation. Some of these online universities aren't accredited, and some are nationally accredited, which is not the same thing as regionally accredited. Regional is the highest rigor accreditation, and 55 of the 154 programs in our database say in writing that your coursework has to come from a regionally accredited institution. A handful go further and spell out exactly what they won't accept. One program takes self-paced providers only if you finished the class inside a normal 16-week semester. One won't take community college science at all. Three reject "intro" or "survey" chemistry outright. That's all sitting on their websites and in their FAQs.

Number two, structure. You want a course that simulates the rigor of CRNA school, because that's part of what the committee is reading into your transcript. An unlimited, no-deadline course that you stretch out over six months tells them nothing about how you handle a real semester with real due dates. Pick the version with a schedule and a lab.

So the safest option is a community college or a four-year regionally accredited institution, in person or online, with a lab if the program wants a lab. And the second safest option is an online course from a regionally accredited school with actual deadlines. When a program does say no to an online class, in my experience it's one of these:

• No lab. This is the big one. A lecture-only chemistry course with no wet lab component gets rejected constantly, and honestly the online version is where that happens most.
• The school isn't regionally accredited. Some of the cheap fast-track course mills fall in this bucket and nurses find out after they've paid.
• Self-paced with no end date. Some programs will tell you flat out that they want a semester-length course.
• Pass/fail grading, sometimes. Some programs want a letter grade they can put into a GPA calculation.

Now, I'm not saying every online course is a problem. Check the accreditation. Check the lab. Check that it has deadlines. Then read the program's website and their FAQ page, go to their open house if they run one, and ask. The blanket fear that "online won't count" isn't what the data shows, but "any online course counts" isn't either.

So where to take prerequisites for CRNA school, ranked?

All right, so this is the part where someone always wants me to name a school, and I'm not going to do that, because what counts is decided by the program you're applying to and not by me. But I can absolutely rank the types of places by how much drama they tend to cause.

And that first row is the one nurses skip and I don't understand why. Check your employer's tuition benefits. A lot of hospitals will cover prerequisite coursework and nobody tells you, it's buried in a benefits portal you logged into once during orientation. I know several people who paid for classes out of pocket while sitting on a benefit that would have covered most of it.

Should you take biochem instead of general chemistry?

If the program allows it, yes. Level up. Every single time.

Here's how I think about it. You're going to spend the money and the semester either way, right? So spend it on the class that does two jobs instead of one. Biochem instead of gen chem. A&P II instead of A&P I. Microbiology instead of general bio. Same tuition, same hours of your life, but now you've got a harder course on your transcript and a stronger science GPA line for the admissions committee to look at.

And I want you to notice the giant "if" in that first sentence. If the program allows it. This is exactly where those 28 versus 7 versus 119 numbers matter. Leveling up only works if the program counts it, and for most programs you genuinely do not know until you ask.

But I'm not saying go sign up for graduate-level anything to prove a point. That's overkill, and it's a great way to put a C on a transcript that didn't need one. Take the harder class you can actually get an A in.

What do you say in the email to admissions?

Okay so this is where people freeze up. They think emailing admissions makes them look dumb, or annoying, or like they can't read a website. Nobody thinks that. Literally nobody. Admissions people answer this question all day long and they would much rather answer it now than tell you in an interview that your chemistry doesn't count.

Keep it to four lines:

1. Who you are and when you plan to apply. One sentence.
2. The exact course. Number, title, credit hours, whether it has a lab, and the school. Not "a biochem class." The actual course code off the catalog page.
3. The direct question: does this satisfy your [chemistry / pharmacology / statistics] requirement?
4. Thank you. Done. Don't write a personal essay.

And then save the reply. Screenshot it, forward it to yourself, whatever you do. Because faculty turn over and requirements get updated, and a dated email from the program saying "yes that counts" is the only thing that protects you two years later. It's your responsibility to get that answer, not theirs to volunteer it.

What does this cost you if you get it wrong?

The money stings but it's not the real damage. The real damage is time.

So say someone, not you, but someone takes a gen chem course in the spring that a program won't count. They don't find out until they're building the application in the fall. Now the replacement class doesn't start until January, it runs sixteen weeks, and the whole application cycle just slid by a year. That's the cost. One unverified course number, one full year.

And that's the thing about this false timeline we all put on ourselves. A year feels catastrophic when you're in it. It isn't, and plenty of people apply on a second pass and get in. But it's a completely avoidable year, which is a different kind of annoying, right?

Our Final Thoughts

Don't let a $400 class turn into a lost year. Before you register for anything, pull the course number, send the four-line email, and save what they send back. And then take the higher-level version of the class if they let you. That's the whole strategy. It's not complicated, it's just one email that most people don't send, okay?