Generally speaking, is it the case in folks’ experience that BSN students tend to form a strong community within the larger school setting? I’m not sure my son is a perfect fit for a large state school, but if being in a BSN program “shrinks” campus, perhaps this alleviates the concern.
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I would say yes, this can be very true! This has certainly been my daughter’s experience.
Some large state schools have fairly small BSN programs, >100 students per graduating class, and are often very nurturing, with special dorm floors to create living-learning communities, etc…
Plus these numbers dwindle, because not everyone makes it through nursing school, for various reasons.
Of course some of these flagships graduate 300++ nurses per year, and those may be less personal/ small-community-feeling. I think the size of the program itself in ratio to the size of the university would be one measure of this.
Large or small, private or public, there really are no “bad” truly direct-entry BSN programs- it is a pretty exclusive club!
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I would say, yes. I attended nursing school at The University of Michigan and we were an extremely close bunch in my cohort, which made a large school feel small.
As I go through this process with my daughter, I have found that this is the same feedback we receive from the students at the schools we have visited. For example, Purdue, where my daughter is planning to attend next year, has a nursing Living Learning Community that came highly recommended from the students. They also shared that they are very close in their clinical groups and most join nursing specific organizations.
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100%, speaking as a relatively new RN who graduated with a BSN from a Cal State.
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D committed to Creighton today. It’s been a long two years after I found these CC threads; didn’t realize direct admit was a thing. Glad my daughter’s journey has come to a conclusion.
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Any idea how where to find out how many graduate from Marquette or ASU in a given year? I was able to find stats on the other programs we’re looking at, but not those (was shocked to see Loyola Chicago graduates almost 500 per year!)…
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I am often shocked to find out how huge some Schools of Nursing can be!
There are a few ways to find out… Check each school’s School of Nursing page… or each school’s Common Data Set. Also- NCLEX results for each school is public info (usually on a State’s website…) and you can clearly see how many sat for the exam and how many passed.
Anyone else know the best way to find this out? 
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Not sure about the number of graduates, but at our recent Marquette nurse dept. tour I was told the program had increased the number of incoming freshman this year from 150 to 250 – with a goal of 220 per class going forward. (This enrollment increase was apparently in the works for years as they increased the number of instructors, clinical spots, and built a new nursing bldg.) So past numbers might not reflect the current plan
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Most nursing schools have BSN accelerated programs and RN to BSN programs. When they say how many BSNs they graduate every year or how many nursing students they have they might include all of them.
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Late feedback but we finished our admitted student tours with a stop at Marquette. I don’t think we could have asked for better weather for the weekend. My daughter really liked Milwaukee (as did I). The fact that the clinicals would be so close to the university was a big plus. She was glad they were opening a new building this coming fall as she said their current facilities did not look up to par of the other schools she looked at (but the new facilities sounded great). If she wasn’t so certain she wanted a school in warmer weather - I think it may have been a top 3 contender.
With that said - she has made her decision. She has decided that University of South Carolina was the school that was the closest to having everything she wanted. She likes the Honors College and it’s benefits including direct admit to the upper division of Nursing, a focus on research in nursing, a small cohort within the larger nursing cohort that meant 30 students in the intro nursing courses with professors that have great reviews. She also will get the big SEC sports ‘Ra Ra’ environment that she wanted.
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Congratulations! Did you happen to run over to the Lexington Medical Center where the upperclassmen will take their BSN courses?
New LMC clinical education building completed in July 2024, with junior/senior BSN, MEPN and associated faculty and staff moved and ready to start for Fall 2024.
No - but we saw the video of what it will look like. When we attended the Admitted Students day at USC they were telling us that the biggest concern was whether there would be a Starbucks in the building (they were kidding a little but I hear nursing students live on caffeine).
Sorry, I haven’t been on CC for a long time… After my DD got into UCs of her choice - UCLA, Berkeley, UCI, Davis - she changed her mind about nursing and decided to go pre-med in a biological science. Strongly leaning towards UCLA - Physiological Sciences major. She was having doubts before and then when we looked at the science curriculum for our top direct admit nursing programs - they were not what we expected. They were very targeted for nursing . We expected the same as what would any pre-med student would have. We wanted a broader foundation in sciences - also better if she changed her mind in the second year - to fulfill medical school -or other biological/chemical major requirements . In that aspect, a non-direct admit nursing program would have been better for a strong academic student who is not completely sure about nursing.
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Have you visited CWRU yet? How did you like it?
Did your son make it to visit UCI? We did Bruin’s Day the weekend before and since we toured UCI campus before my DD did not want any more admit days 
We liked UCI campus, but liked UCLA better. (No, we did not get into nursing in UCI but in biology…)
Great choice…i am very happy for her and many congrats on all the acceptances 
My son didn’t make it to UCI on the admitted student day, but we have been there many times and he really likes UCI, only if he had been accepted to nursing:) He is going to Case Western this Monday, and has to make a decision by May 1. Case did not push back the SIR date.
Thank you! CWRU is a fantastic school and loved the one door admittance policy, and so many clinical opportunities literally next door.
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We did not get into nursing at either CSU Fullerton or CSU San Marcos (CSUSM). Got in with the 2nd major - biochem I believe.
My DD got into nursing in all the OOS schools (we are in CA) with top merit except Pitt where she only got 5k/yr. She got full tuition scholarship at Duquesne. Creighton, Xavier, Gonzaga, Seton Hall offered very recently 3-5k more in additional scholarships. In CA she only got into direct admit nursing at SDSU (San Diego State University). She applied and got into 2 non-direct admit (pre)nursing programs - U of A (University of Arizona) and CSU Long Beach. She got only into alternate majors for UCI, CSU Fullerton, San Marcos. It was a major waste of time and money applying to so many nursing programs, to end up not going for nursing after all.
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She has wonderful choices…UCLA is a dream school if that’s where her heart is at 