CRNA Prerequisite Courses

Which prerequisite courses do CRNA programs actually require?

Here is the part that surprises people. There is no universal CRNA prerequisite list. Not one course on this page is required by every single program, and the most-required course is not chemistry.

It's statistics. 85 of 154 programs want it, which is more than general chemistry, more than anatomy, more than anything else we track. Meanwhile the course everybody panics about, organic chemistry, is required by 32. So the panic is pointed at the wrong class. What that means practically is that two applicants can both be doing everything right and still need completely different semesters, depending on where they are applying.

How many programs require each course?

This is the whole page in one table. Every row is counted from the prerequisite fields on all 154 accredited programs, sorted from most-required to least.

One more caveat. These are counts of whether a course is required at all, not of the level or credit hours a program wants. A program can require general chemistry and also specify that it must be a 4-credit course with a lab, taken within five years, at a 100 level or above. So the count tells you whether to plan for the course. The program's page tells you which section to register for.

Which prerequisite courses are almost never required?

Let's talk about the bottom of that table, because that is where applicants waste the most money. Four courses sit at the bottom and each one gets treated like a requirement in Facebook groups.

Number one, physics. 7 programs require it. That's it. Number two, biochemistry, at 7 programs. Number three, pharmacology, at 14. And number four, research or evidence-based practice, at 17, because most programs teach research inside the DNP curriculum instead of demanding it on the front end.

But I'm not saying these courses are worthless. They're just not gates. Biochemistry in particular is one of the best voluntary courses you can take, not because a program requires it but because it is a genuine level-up over general chemistry and it drags your science GPA in the right direction. Same with graduate pharmacology, which makes your first semester of anesthesia school meaningfully less painful. The difference is that you take those on purpose, as a strategy, not because you assumed they were mandatory.

What chemistry do you actually need for CRNA school?

Chemistry is where most of the confusion lives, so let's separate the three courses people keep blending together.

General chemistry is the baseline. 67 programs require it, 80 do not, 7 don't publish a clear answer. And it is almost always wanted with a lab, and it is the course that feeds everything you will do in pharmacology later. Organic chemistry is the middle tier, required by 32 programs, and when it is required it is one semester, usually with lab. Biochemistry is the top tier and it is required by only 7 programs, which is the lowest count on the entire list alongside physics.

So the ranking of difficulty runs opposite to the ranking of demand. The hardest chemistry course is the one fewest programs ask for.

If you are trying to figure out how these courses actually move your numbers, our free Transcript Analyzer splits your science GPA from your cumulative GPA so you can see which chemistry grade is doing the damage. The science GPA guide covers which courses even land in that bucket.

Do CRNA prerequisites need a lab?

Some of them, and this is the detail that costs people a whole semester when they get it wrong. Statistics and research basically never need a lab. General chemistry, organic chemistry, anatomy, physiology, microbiology, and physics often do.

But the trap is that programs don't always say the word "lab." Sometimes they say "4 credits" for a course that only reaches 4 credits with a lab attached, which is a quiet way of making the lab mandatory without printing it. Sometimes they list the lecture and the lab as two separate course numbers, like the way a lot of online science providers split them, and you have to register for both. And sometimes an online course offers the lab as optional, which is fine for a program that doesn't need it and useless for one that does.

And the other lab question is whether an at-home kit counts. And most online science providers ship a kit and call it a lab. Plenty of programs accept that. Some want a physical campus lab, and a few have never written down an answer. I'm not going to tell you a kit will always be accepted, because it won't be everywhere. What I will tell you is that it is a five-minute email to find out, and that email is cheaper than a $1,500 course that doesn't count.

How old can your prerequisites be?

Most programs won't tell you. Only 30 of 154 programs publish a prerequisite recency window anywhere public. The other 124 say nothing at all.

Among the ones that do publish a window, 13 say five years and 10 say ten, with a scattering naming seven years, three years, or just saying coursework has to be recent without ever attaching a number. So the common wisdom that prerequisites expire in five years is true at a minority of a minority. It is real, it is just not universal.

And silence is not permission. A program that publishes nothing might still have an internal rule, or might evaluate case by case, or might genuinely not care. Someone, not you, but someone finds this out in April of their application year when a school tells them the anatomy they took in 2014 doesn't count anymore.

We wrote a whole breakdown of what to do about an aging transcript, including when retaking is worth it and when it isn't, in do old prerequisites expire for CRNA school. Start there instead of guessing.

Where can you take CRNA prerequisites?

This is the question we get more than any other, and for years the answer was some version of "search around and hope." So we built a place for members to log the courses they actually took, and admins approve them before they go in. The tables below are 51 approved courses across 18 schools, grouped by subject, pulled from the Science Class Vault.

And nearly all of them are online and asynchronous with real deadlines, which is the format that survives a rotating shift schedule without turning into a no-deadline course you take six months to finish. Programs notice that, and so should you. So course lengths run from 5 weeks to 16 weeks, most cost between $1,000 and $2,000, and several university extension options come in under $1,000. Costs and course numbers change, so treat these as a starting list and confirm on the provider's page.

For the deeper walkthrough on accreditation, self-paced formats, and how to pick between providers, read where to take prerequisites for CRNA school. I won't repeat it all here.

How do you fix a bad prerequisite grade?

Go down the list, see what you got a B minus or below in, retake those classes, retake them at a higher level.

That's the whole doctrine and I've said it a hundred times. But the part people skip is "at a higher level." Retaking the exact same course you already struggled in proves you can pass it the second time. Taking a harder course in the same family proves something better, which is that you grew. An admissions committee reading your transcript sees a different story from each one.

So what does leveling up look like in practice? Biochemistry instead of general chemistry. A&P II instead of A&P I. Microbiology instead of general biology. Graduate physiology instead of undergrad physiology. Same subject, higher shelf.

One thing to check before you commit. How a retake affects your GPA depends on the calculation your program uses, and the centralized application does not handle it the way your undergrad registrar did. Some calculations average both attempts, some take the most recent, some take the highest. We broke that down in the CRNA school GPA types and NursingCAS guide, and the companion piece on which science classes to retake goes course by course.

And one course at a time is a real pace, okay? Most ICU nurses spread prerequisites across two or three semesters while working full time. You do not need to take chemistry and statistics in the same twelve weeks that you're picking up overtime. Burning out before CRNA school starts is not a strategy.

How do you verify a course with a program before you pay?

Email them and ask. That's it. It is your responsibility to reach out to the program and get this in writing, because a database, ours included, is a snapshot and an admissions coordinator is the actual authority.

So people overthink this email. They draft four paragraphs about their journey. Don't. Admissions coordinators are answering dozens of these a week, and the short specific ones get answered first. Four lines, one course, done.

Do that for your top 3 to 5 programs before you register for anything, not after. And if you haven't built a target list yet, that's the actual first step. You can compare prerequisite requirements side by side in the free School Database, browse all CRNA programs, or read the full CRNA requirements and CRNA school requirements guides for everything outside of coursework.