Background: Stress is a state of physical and psychological strain which imposes demands for adjustments upon the individual. It has been reported that student nurses are affected with the stressors in academic, clinical, financial, due to parental expectations, competition for grades, and career choices Aim: Assess the level of stress among the 1st year B.Sc nursing students. Materials and methods: A quantitative descriptive research approach design was adopted for the study. A random sample of 50 bsc nursing students was selected by convenient sampling method. A modified stress scale was used to assess the level of academic stress. The data was analyzed by using the descriptive and inferential statistics. i.e Frequency, percentage and chi-square test. The major findings of the study were 6 students had mild academic stress, 36 students had moderate academic stress and 8 students had severe academic stress. Chi-square test was used to associate the relationship between stress level and various demographic variables. The result shows that there is a significant association between demographic variables with the academic stress level of students. Conclusions: Nursing students suffer from stress regardless their academic degree. Academic stress affects academic performance of students despite their use of management strategies.