What is a good HESI A2 score for nursing school?

There is no universal passing score on the HESI A2. Each nursing program sets its own minimum, and those minimums differ widely, though a floor around 75 to 80 percent is common. A good HESI A2 score is one that clears your specific program's cutoff with room to spare. Because nursing seats are limited and competitive, admitted applicants often score in the high 80s and 90s, especially on the science sections that many programs weight most heavily.

The single most useful thing to understand about the HESI A2 is that it is not one standardized bar. It is an admission assessment your program assembles from a menu of sections, scores as a percentage, and compares against a cutoff it chose. So the honest answer to "what is a good score" always points back to your school. Here is how to find your real target and how to beat it.

What is a good HESI A2 score?

A good HESI A2 score is one that gets you a seat, which in practice means clearing your program's minimum comfortably. Many programs set that minimum somewhere around 75 to 80 percent, either per section or as a cumulative average. But a minimum is just the door. Where applicants outnumber seats, and in most nursing programs they do, the students who actually get in tend to score in the high 80s or 90s. As a rough interpretive guide used across test-prep sites: 90 percent and above is excellent, 80 to 89 is very good, and 75 to 79 is generally acceptable. Those bands are an interpretation, not an official HESI grading scale, so always weigh them against the number your program publishes.

How the HESI A2 is scored

Each HESI A2 section is scored as a straight percentage of the questions you answer correctly, and there is no penalty for wrong answers. That last point matters: you should answer every question, even when you are guessing, because a blank and a wrong answer cost the same. Your cumulative score is the average of your section percentages. Some programs go a step further and re-weight the sections when they evaluate you, for example counting the sciences and English more heavily than math, so the composite a school judges you on may not be a flat average. The non-academic Critical Thinking section is scored separately on its own scale, and the Learning Style questionnaire is not scored at all.

What score does your nursing program actually require?

This is the number that decides everything, and it is set by your program, not by HESI or Elsevier. Different schools require different sections, set different minimums, and apply different weightings, so two applicants with the same raw performance can be evaluated against completely different bars. Before you build a study plan, find your program's admission page or ask an advisor for three specifics: which sections you are required to take, the minimum score for each, and whether they weight any sections more heavily. Everything about how you prep, including where you spend your hours, should follow from those three answers.

Which sections matter most

The HESI A2 is built from up to eight academic sections, and your program chooses which you sit. The common set is Mathematics, Reading Comprehension, Vocabulary and General Knowledge, Grammar, Biology, Chemistry, and Anatomy and Physiology, with Physics required only occasionally. Of these, Anatomy and Physiology is frequently the section programs weight most heavily and the one applicants find hardest, so it usually deserves the most practice. Math is high-value too because it is very learnable: the content is finite, an on-screen calculator is provided, and reliable points are there for anyone who drills conversions, ratios and dosage-style problems. Put your hours where the weighting and your weaknesses overlap.

HESI A2 or TEAS: which do I need?

Both the HESI A2 and the ATI TEAS are nursing school entrance exams, and your program requires one or the other, not both. They test similar ground, reading, math, science and English, and neither sets a universal passing score, since the program decides the cutoff in each case. The practical difference is that the HESI A2 is modular, with your school picking from up to eight sections, while the TEAS has a fixed four-section structure. If you are still deciding where to apply or are not sure which test you face, confirm it with each program first, then prep the right one. If your school uses the TEAS, our guide to what is a good TEAS test score covers that target in the same way.

How to raise your HESI A2 score

Most applicants prep over about six to eight weeks, and the method that works is retrieval practice: high-volume questions on the exact sections you will take, with every answer reviewed so weak spots get fixed instead of repeated. Re-reading an anatomy chapter feels productive and mostly is not, because the exam tests recall and application, not recognition. A workable loop is to drill a section, mark what you miss, learn why the right answer is right, and come back to your weakest topics first. If you study from your own class notes, you can turn your anatomy and physiology notes into clean study slides to review between question sets, then quiz yourself on them rather than just reading them again.

That is exactly where an AI tutor helps: it generates unlimited HESI A2-style questions on the sections your program requires, explains each answer choice, and lets you keep hammering Anatomy and Physiology or Chemistry until they stop being the sections that scare you. Start with unlimited HESI A2 practice questions, and remember the A2 is only the first gate: once you are in, the same question-first habit is what gets you through the NCLEX-RN at the other end of the program.

The short version

A good HESI A2 score is one that clears your program's minimum with margin, which usually means aiming for the high 80s or better since seats are competitive. There is no national passing line: find your program's required sections, minimums and weightings, then put your practice hours into the sciences they care about most. Reviewed practice questions, not passive re-reading, are what move the number before test day.