Saint Martin's first, PLU as the in-state backstop, Concordia if speed beats everything. Saint Martin's wins on the two things that matter most from Lacey: her 3.85 earns a $27,000/year merit award on top of likely state-grant money, and campus plus both named hospitals are minutes from home. PLU Lynnwood looks admissible on a rolling basis but runs ~$70k tuition with zero PLU scholarships and a brutal commute. Concordia (Portland) is the fastest to an RN (~May 2028) and very likely admissible, but costs ~$67.5k, gets no Washington grant money, and licenses her in Oregon first. All three are worth applying to — alongside, not instead of, the community-college applications.
Each program has exactly one deal-breaker question that no website answers. PLU: do her Washington quarter credits satisfy the "60 semester-based credits" rule — or does that secretly mean ~90 quarter credits? (Could push her start back a year.) Concordia: do her exact courses cover its six named prerequisites — her Fall 2026 nutrition and public speaking classes don't count there. Saint Martin's: is the deadline February 1 or February 10, 2027? Their own catalog and website disagree — plan for Feb 1 until told otherwise.
| 1. Saint Martin's (Lacey) | 2. PLU ABSN (Lynnwood) | 3. Concordia St. Paul (Portland) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Admission odds | Selective — 16–30% transfer admit, holistic review, waiting list | Realistic — rolling review, no published competition; eligibility timing is the risk | Very likely admissible — but TEAS exam + six specific prereqs are real gates |
| Bachelor's needed? | No | No — 60 semester credits instead (see flag) | No — 54 non-nursing credits |
| Entrance exam | None | None found (confirm) | TEAS, 65%+ required |
| Earliest start → RN | Fall 2027 → ~May 2029 | Jun/Sep 2027 → ~Oct 2028–Jan 2029 | Jan 2027 → ~May 2028 |
| Sticker cost (nursing portion) | ~$96.5k tuition / 2 yrs + fees | ~$69.7k tuition, $74–77k w/ fees | ~$67.5k (maybe $72.7k) |
| Aid that actually applies | $27k/yr merit + WA College Grant + Pell → net tuition low-to-mid five figures total | No PLU scholarships for ABSN; state grant unconfirmed → near-full-price loans | No WA grant (Minnesota school); thin unconfirmed scholarships → near-full-price loans |
| Commute from Lacey | Minutes — campus and both hospitals local | Poor — past Seattle; PLU expects students to live nearby | Worst — ~100 miles; school says live within commuting distance |
| License | Washington, directly | Washington, directly | Oregon first, then WA by endorsement (~10–12 weeks; temp permit ~7 days) |
| NCLEX pass rate, 2025 (state board data) | 86.7% | 86.0% (all PLU BSN combined) | 92% (Portland site) |
When would Concordia jump to #2? If she decides the fastest possible finish with the highest admission certainty is worth relocating to Portland and doing the two-state licensing dance. That's the whole trade: PLU keeps her in-state with no extra exam; Concordia finishes ~5 months sooner with better odds. Cost is a wash between them.
Pre-licensure BSN in Lacey itself. She clears every published requirement: no bachelor's needed, 3.85 vs a 3.0 floor, no TEAS, no CNA requirement (hers still counts as holistic healthcare experience), all prereqs at B or better. The catch is that this is the selective door — transfer applicants get in at roughly 16–30%, space-available, with a waiting list. Strong profile, no guarantee. It's also the slowest: one review per year.
| When | What |
|---|---|
| ~Aug 1, 2026 | Application opens (confirm the site has rolled to the Fall 2027 / Spring 2028 cycle — as of July 19 it still showed last year's window) |
| Feb 1 or 10, 2027 | Deadline — the school's catalog says Feb 1, its website says Feb 10. Plan for Feb 1. |
| Mar 2027 | Decision: admit / waitlist / deny. One review fills both Fall 2027 and Spring 2028 cohorts — she can state a Fall preference but isn't guaranteed it |
| Fall 2027 or Spring 2028 | Start upper-division nursing (4 semesters) |
| ~May 2029 / ~Dec 2029 | Graduate, sit NCLEX, licensed in WA |
SMU application with nursing essay questions, transcripts from every college, a resume, and two letters of recommendation (preferably professors) — ask her Fall 2026 instructors early in the term while she's in their classes. No application fee, no interview found. Her Fall 2026 nutrition course is literally one of SMU's prerequisites (their NUR/EXS 203), so her plan lines up; public speaking isn't on their list at all. The catalog explicitly allows applying before prerequisites finish, as long as they're done before nursing coursework begins.
Four semesters of upper-division nursing entered directly — no filler semesters. The two named acute-care clinical sites are Providence St. Peter and Capital Medical Center, both in Olympia, minutes from home; community rotations (schools, hospice, home health) are unnamed but her drive tolerance easily absorbs them. Students provide their own transportation. Advertised 650 direct-patient-care hours (the catalog's course math says 600 — a discrepancy in the school's own documents). The weekly class schedule for this track is not published, and neither is a policy on working during the program — plan on part-time CNA shifts at most, and ask (checklist below).
| Year | NCLEX first-attempt (WA Board of Nursing data) | Test takers |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 73.9% | 23 |
| 2023 | 81.8% | 44 |
| 2024 | 92.9% | 56 |
| 2025 | 86.7% | 45 |
Trend is upward since the weak 2022 cohort. CCNE-accredited through June 30, 2029; the Washington board lists SMU with full, unconditional approval — no warning flags, unlike some programs on the same list. The university overall went through financial restructuring (projected $4.3M deficit FY2024-25), but the nursing program specifically has been growing — state-approved expansion to 36 students twice a year. No nursing-specific job-placement or attrition rate is published anywhere; progression rules are strict (C minimum in every upper-division course, one nursing-course repeat allowed program-wide).
Sticker: $48,264/year tuition (2026-27) plus nursing add-ons — $90/credit surcharge on nursing courses, $555/semester program fee, $825 book fee per junior/senior nursing course, $120 lab fees. Full commuter cost-of-attendance is modeled at $74,225/year, but she lives in Lacey, so most of that housing/food line doesn't apply. Against that:
This is the program her "60+ credits" reading came from — and the reading is right, with one dangerous asterisk. PLU's accelerated BSN at its Lynnwood site takes students with 60 non-nursing college credits OR any bachelor's, minimum 3.0 GPA (she's at 3.85), B− or better in seven prerequisites, no entrance exam found, no healthcare experience required. Rolling admission, three cohorts a year (February, June, September), decisions "within weeks."
PLU's admissions page says 60 "semester-based" credits. Washington community colleges award quarter credits, and 60 quarter credits convert to only ~40 semester credits — meaning she might actually need ~90 quarter credits, not 60. If so, her first eligible cohort slides back roughly a year. This is the single most important question on the whole page: get a PLU transcript evaluation before planning anything around this program.
| Start | Feasibility | Graduate |
|---|---|---|
| Feb 2027 | Only if credits + prereqs verify right after Fall 2026 grades post — tight | ~Jun 2028 |
| Jun 2027 | Realistic | ~Oct 2028 |
| Sep 2027 | Comfortable | ~Jan 2029 |
Actual application cutoff dates are not published anywhere — rolling only. Note: whether the Lynnwood site is currently accepting applications is itself an inference (PLU's Tacoma program is closed to 2026-27 transfers and redirects people to Lynnwood, which implies it's open) — confirm directly. The seven prerequisites map to microbiology, A&P I & II, chemistry, lifespan development, statistics, and a 1-credit nutrition course (her Fall 2026 class covers that); sciences must be within 6 years of the start date — check her earliest course dates.
16 months, four full-time semesters, ~68 nursing credits plus 4 required religion credits (it's a Lutheran school). Hybrid: coursework is online and self-paced, but there are mandatory weekly in-person labs in Lynnwood plus ~600 clinical hours starting in the first semester. PLU arranges all placements — in and around Seattle (UW Medical Center, Virginia Mason, Swedish, Seattle Children's cited as examples). No Oregon sites; her Portland flexibility doesn't help here. Expect a 40–60 hour/week workload; PLU discourages working but names flexible CNA work as the most compatible option. How many days per week are on-site, and whether labs run daytime or evening, is not published — and it decides whether commuting from Lacey (across the entire Tacoma–Seattle metro) is survivable at all. PLU says students "must live within driving distance of the Lynnwood area," a soft signal they expect relocation.
| Year | NCLEX first-attempt, all PLU BSN combined (WA board data) | Test takers |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 83.7% | 92 |
| 2022 | 74.2% | 97 |
| 2023 | 78.0% | 132 |
| 2024 | 93.5% | 154 |
| 2025 | 86.0% | 222 |
The state lumps Tacoma and Lynnwood graduates into one line, so there is no ABSN-specific pass rate — the swelling test-taker count (92→222) is probably the Lynnwood cohorts arriving, but the report doesn't say. PLU's marketing claim of "100% passed" is undated and can't be reconciled with these numbers. CCNE-accredited; the Washington board lists "Pacific Lutheran University – Lynnwood" as a separately approved program with no warning or conditional flags. No nursing-specific employment rate is published.
First, the identity: Concordia University Portland closed in 2020. The live program is Concordia University St. Paul (a Minnesota school, HLC-accredited since 1959) running an accelerated BSN at a site near Portland airport (11703 NE Glenn Widing Dr). It's legitimate: CCNE-accredited nursing, Oregon board-approved with no flags, and the strongest exam results of the three — 92–94% NCLEX pass rates each of the last three years at the Portland site on the Oregon board's own tables.
Eligibility: 54 non-nursing credits, no bachelor's needed, 3.0 GPA floor (she's well clear), sciences within 7 years. Two real gates: the TEAS entrance exam (65%+ required, taken within a year of applying, max two attempts/year — she hasn't taken it), and six specific prerequisite courses — psychology, statistics, chemistry-for-health, microbiology, and A&P I & II. Her Fall 2026 nutrition and public speaking courses do not count here; whether her existing courses map to all six is the question that decides her start date. No CNA requirement, essay, or interview.
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Now – Sep 2026 | Verify prereq equivalencies with a counselor; register for and take the TEAS |
| Fall 2026 | Apply — files go to a nursing committee; deadlines are set per-applicant by an assigned counselor, not published |
| Jan 2027 | Earliest realistic start (starts are Jan / May / Sep) — tight if any prereq is missing; May 2027 is the comfortable fallback |
| ~May 2028 | Graduate at the marketed 16-month length (the catalog's credit grid implies slightly longer — confirm) |
| +3 months | Oregon license via NCLEX, then Washington license by endorsement (~10–12 weeks; temporary permit ~7 days) before working at home |
Blended: online coursework plus in-person skills labs, proctored testing, and clinicals. CSP states students "must live or relocate within commuting distance" of the Portland site — from Lacey that's ~100 miles each way, at or beyond her 2-hour line in Portland traffic. Realistically this program means relocating or a punishing drive several days a week. Clinical partner hospitals, total clinical hours, and placement logistics are not published (Legacy, Kaiser, and Adventist are named only as examples of metro hospitals, not confirmed partners). Program self-describes a 40+ hour/week load and advises against working beyond occasional per-diem CNA shifts. One internal contradiction to resolve: marketing says 61 nursing credits / 16 months; the academic catalog's grid sums to 66 credits — a ~$5,250 difference.
| Year | NCLEX first-time, Portland site (Oregon board data) | Test takers |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 88% | 361 |
| 2022 | 89% | 224 |
| 2023 | 94% | 272 |
| 2024 | 94% | 232 |
| 2025 | 92% | 256 |
For context on the same 2025 table: OHSU's accelerated Portland program hit 97%, University of Portland 80%, and the statewide field ran 68–100% — CSP sits upper-middle with big cohorts. No attrition or job-placement figures are published, and claims that local employers favor its grads couldn't be sourced. A 2021 COVID-era lawsuit predates the current program; nothing adverse found 2024–2026.
| When | Action |
|---|---|
| Late Jul 2026 | Make the three deal-breaker calls (PLU credit conversion · Concordia prereq mapping · SMU deadline date). Register for the TEAS. Drive-test both long commutes. |
| Aug 1, 2026 | SMU application opens — confirm cycle rollover, start the file. Request transcripts + PLU/Concordia evaluations. |
| Sep–Oct 2026 | Ask two professors for SMU recommendation letters early in the term. Take the TEAS. Open the PLU (rolling) and Concordia (counselor-driven) applications. Draft the SMU essay + resume. |
| Dec 2026 | Fall grades post → ~60 credits, nutrition prereq done. Send final transcripts to all three. Lock target cohorts (PLU Jun/Sep 2027; Concordia May 2027 unless January verified). |
| Jan 2027 | File FAFSA/WASFA for 2027-28 immediately — Washington College Grant money is first-come at some schools. |
| by Feb 1, 2027 | SMU deadline (assume the earlier date). Submit well ahead. |
| Mar 2027 | SMU decision. Compare against PLU/Concordia offers on real net cost. |
| Apr–Jun 2027 | Admitted to SMU → accept, start clinical-entry steps (background check, immunizations, BLS). Waitlisted/denied → commit to PLU (Jun/Sep) or Concordia (May/Sep). |
This calendar coexists with the ADN calendar on the RN Pathways page — the community-college windows (TCC, Highline, Pierce, LCC, etc.) run in parallel and none of them conflict with these dates.
Portfolio, not either/or. The three BSNs form a natural spread — Saint Martin's is the high-value reach, PLU and Concordia are higher-odds but expensive — and the ADN applications sit underneath as the cost floor and the most certain local path to an RN license. Three rules keep the portfolio honest:
Apply to Saint Martin's the day it opens and treat it as the prize; get the PLU credit-conversion answer this month before trusting that path; take the TEAS by October so Concordia stays live; and keep every community-college application running underneath. First offer with a real aid letter wins.