My daughter is there at CWRU, and we are from Southern California too. The HEC is amazing, and she loves the facility and the program. As you said, watch out for the long grey cold winters. My daughter is the second year medical student and already tired of Cleveland :/.They had some low single digit days this year with wind effect making it feel sub zero. Let me know if you have any questions.
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My daughter has been extremely fortunate and has been accepted to the direct admit nursing programs at Villanova, SLU, Loyola Chicago, Marquette and Gonzaga. She is having a difficult time deciding which one to attend. Does anyone know if freshman cohort size or distance to clinicals really makes a big difference? What criteria would you use to decide?
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First, cost :)! then distance to clinicals - less than 45â ideally - counting in weather/traffic. Ease to travel to/from home (direct/convenient flights - take the travel costs and ease into account). Weather is subjective, but for example my DD is not going to visit Marquette and did not apply to Loyola Chicago because of the weather - but we are from San Diego, your may be ok with cold winters already. What cohort size they have? (For me that would be the least important factor).
Would u prefer a small or large cohort? Or is this personal preference? Deciding btwn two Direct entry BSNs. One with 200, one with 70. Both large public universities.
Same here 
fingers and everything crossed! Only SDSU and UCI direct admit left for us (didnât apply to UCLA nursing).
Personal preference, I donât think it makes a big difference. Iâd have a slight preference for larger cohort, but maybe there are disadvantages that I canât think about?
We are contemplating the very same alternate path as we got rejected in nursing at CSU San Marcos (admitted for biochem), and Fullerton (considered for alternate major). My DD was very much into premed until end of Junior year so she applied to UCs for bio or something similar. She has several very good offers for OOS direct admit nursing programs, but she wants to stay in CA. Waiting to hear from UCI (unlikely, but perhaps as alternate major) and SDSU (a bit more likely, since we are local to SDSU). She only applied and got accepted into 2 pre-nursing programs - CSULB and U of Arizona. I think each pre-nursing program is different. We visited U of A and a nursing student said the overall admission rate into nursing is almost 20%.
We just visited Marquette last week. My daughter didnât really like the campus, but they have a new nursing school building and their clinicals are relatively close by. Their cohort is 225. Loyola Chicago has a larger cohort in the 300âs and their clinicals could be farther away.
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I donât remember, does SDSU consider you for alternate major if you are not accepted in the direct BSN?
With the clinicals further away , and in Chicago, she may need a car in junior year, unless they have shuttles or good public transit? But she has to be used to drive in that kind of traffic/weather. Oh, when they start clinicals at each of those? The earlier the better. I heard only good things about the Marquette nursing. How was the weather in Milwaukee? 2-300 are similar enough, i.e. large cohorts. Iâd imagine that they are split into smaller groups in clinicals. You could ask the nursing program admission person or director, how do they ensure the students get enough attention/exposure hands on experience.
SDSU doesnât consider any alternative majors unfortunately.
I agree with you. The cost and distance to clinical are important. I also consider the quality of the program, diversity, progression requirements, and Nclex passing rate. Safety is important too since students usually go to clinical in early morning. I remember once I watched a YouTube vlog about a female nursing student talking about feeling unsafe walking 20 minutes to her clinical on a dark cold winter morning. There are just so many things to consider when sending kids away to college.
All very good points. it is only so much you can control about the safety - especially since you wonât know ahead of time all the clinicals locations. I did not mention the NCLEX pass rate, but once they are above 90, and I would assume those mentioned are (since I heard all of them are good) it is more up to the student.
Wow, I thought it was like the other CSUs - San Marcos, FullertonâŠwhich they consider you for alternate major. Only recently I heard that SDSU may not be like that. It was quite a blow as we live in San Diego and going to SDSU and live at home would be really nice - and inexpensive.
Just another general reply from a D22 at Pitt nursing as a but of follow up to some of the questions regarding deciding between programs.
Distance to clinicals is a big one. Also when do they begin clinical? She started with 4 hours one day/week first semester soph year. She now has 7am-2:30pm two days per week in her second semester soph year and two classes after each. If she had a 45 min commute on top of this, I think it might drown her. After first year, at least at Pitt, nursing classes have to be later in the day to accommodate for clinicals in the morning Tues-Fri. Thats one thing we didnât really think of. Her cohort is split where half do clinical T/W and half do Th/Fr. Their rotations vary each semester and each year but all are walkable.
I think cohort size isnât super important honestly. Their schedules are pretty firmly mapped out and most are in the NSA.
Lots of awesome acceptances on this thread, congrats to all!!
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In terms of the size of the cohort ⊠students really do get to know everyone in the cohort, generally, no matter the size. You definitely get to know everyoneâs reputation, both socially and academically. Itâs a small world whether itâs 70 or 200, which has pluses and minuses.
The best thing to do is try to make some friends outside of nursing. You will get sick of those people, and there will be some competitiveness and nastiness at even the smallest direct admit program. The non-nursing people might not fully understand your schedule, but they can be a nice respite from nursing as well. Itâs really an odd thing to watch from the outside, and I heard plenty from my daughter from the inside.
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You might be pleasantly surprised. It was 63° in Minneapolis on Monday. A lot of the Midwest has had a very warm winter this year.
Re: Loyola Chicago â If clinicals are in the city of Chicago, then you wouldnât need (or frankly want) a car. Parking is super expensive. Traffic is lousy. And public transportation is available. Even taking a cab or Uber one way (if it is late at night, for example) would be cheaper than paying for parking. Now, if clinicals are in the suburbs, then maybe a car would be handy.
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Iâve been following these Direct Admit nursing threads for a couple of years now; invaluable source of information. Thanks to all of you for posting. My DD has applied to a number of schools and sharing stats below.
SoCal resident of OC
GPA UW 3.98
GPA W 4.3
SAT submitted
In order of proximity to us:
UCI - waiting decision
Corcordia U (not DA) - accepted with $22k merit
CSUF - denied
SDSU - waiting decision
USF - waiting decision
ASU - accepted with $16.5k merit
Univ Portland - accepted with $32k meritj
Seattle U - accepted with $26k merit
PLU - accepted with $28k merit
Creighton - accepted with $30k merit; received full tuition scholarship (tuition exchange) in Feb
SLU - accepted with $37k merit
Loyola Chicago - accepted with $30k merit
DePaul - accepted with $29k merit
Any thoughts on Creighton? I didnât think that my DD had a shot at TE with nursing being so competitive - I was pleasantly surprised when we got the news.l
Thanks again to everyone for contributing over the years!
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I would say TCU (or any school) is NOT worth it at that price, unless you are rich and money is of no concern. You generally want the most affordable BSN you can get (within reason).