Some fear that the added demands of the Affordable Care Act may worsen already high attrition rates among nurses. One potential solution is that graduate nursing programs must do a better job of selecting and retaining those who can persist in training to gain the clinical and leadership skills necessary to fill these new roles. Some believe emotional intelligence (EI) may help with the selection and retention of graduate nursing students. This study examined EI in 216 nurse anesthesia (NA) students. Q-factor analysis was used to create EI profiles of first-semester, 1-year, and last-semester NA students. It showed one EI type was consistent at each point in the program: High Facial Reader/Low EI Manager