ISO Help Choosing BSN Program - New England to Mid Atlantic States

College Majors Nursing Majors
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1

Hi all,

D24 has been accepted to the following BSN programs and I’m interesting in hearing any pros/cons about the programs that others have come across or experienced first hand. Especially regarding:

  • clinical experiences (quality, distance),
  • required content mastery testing (HESI/ATI or similar - when taken),
  • quality of NCLEX preparation,
  • whether passing a predictor exam is required to graduate, and
  • ease of finding a job in their choice hospital

Thanks for the help!
Here’s the list of accepted:
University of Vermont
University of Mass Lowell
Shenandoah U
Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Widener U
Moravian U

Pending decisions on:
Sacred Heart U
UMASS Amherst
TCNJ
West Chester University
UDEL

2

Direct admission would be first hurdle to consider.

3

Costs- including transportation to and from clinicals…

Other than professional training, what is she looking for from her college experience?

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4

they’re all direct admission. that was the first criteria for a school then there had to be marching or pep band

5

marching or pep band, near skiing, ems university squad or town squad. all of these choices were based on those criteria. now we need to narrow them down so looking for info that isn’t found on the websites and handbooks

6

Not a nursing parent but I know but isn’t the test called the NCLEX?

I’d want to know whose students perform…and whose don’t.

For example - link below. Not sure if there’s a way for school’s to game or if they are legit.

Solomont School of Nursing | UMass Lowell (uml.edu)

Pass Rates - (su.edu)

7

It’s tough to find a comprehensive list of NCLEX pass rates by program (there are lists by state avg) but if you go school by school you can google them

TCNJ prides itself on high NCLEX pass rates which have been 100% for 2 of the last 5 years.

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8

All the basic ground work was researched prior to applications. Kid said they wanted marching band or pep band from Virginia to New England states. Campus EMS squad was a bonus. I’m a nurse my criteria was a reputable program with excellent NCLEX pass rates since 2018 (some schools had significant declines with COVID). The national averages also declined. Applications were only made to schools with pass rates above national averages. Another thing was that I talked them out of schools that were not direct entry. Direct entry means that you are admitted to the nursing program as a freshman. They can kick you out if you don’t meet progression standards, but at least you aren’t applying against a national pool of applicants for a spot in the nursing program at the end of sophomore year. If you don’t get in, you’re kind of screwed. Likely unable to finish any other degree within 4 years plus then will have to go to a Accelerated Second Degree program for the bachelor in nursing degree. Just too risk financially and time-wise.

Background on NCLEX: Yes, NCLEX is the national exam to obtain your license. Pass rates for programs is a valuable gauge of their quality. You can see national averages on the NCLEX website. Be aware that schools and nursing sites will give you “national averages” but if you go to the NCLEX site, you can see the report breaks it down to NCLEX-RN for diploma schools, associate degree programs, and Baccalaureate programs. If your kid is attending a 4 year program, it’s important to compare their pass rates to first-time takers of Baccalaureate programs.

TCNJ has excellent pass rates but not 100%. Of all the schools they applied to, TCNJ had the second best behind Sacred Heart. According to the NJBON, their pass rates for 2023 - 2018 (2023 listed first), is ('23) 100-96-94-98-97-93 ('18).

As I told the kid, there’s something to be said about “safety” schools with excellent pass rates. In theory, a “safety” school is admitting students of lower caliber than one’s matches or reaches. However, if those safety schools are producing stellar pass rates with “lower caliber” students, they must be very good programs. For instance, IUP was a safety school but has pass rates similar to UVM, which was a “reach” school. IUP ('23) ?-87-90-92-90-94 ('18) vs UVM ('23) 96-89-87-92-95-? ('18).

So bottom line is, all the schools on their list are good nursing programs and I’m looking for more nitty gritty information that speaks to the quality of the programs. The HESI and ATI tests are content mastery tests that schools will use with each or some nursing classes. Some schools will require a minimum score to progress with the program. On the most extreme, some will require a final “predictor” exam that mimics NCLEX to graduate. So if someone fails that exam, no degree. No degree, not eligible to take the NCLEX, no career. That’s insane. Most nursing students study for 1-3 months after graduation for the NCLEX before taking it.

By “quality of NCLEX preparation” I mean how do graduates feel that any specific built-in NCLEX prep (some programs have them) during their last semester prepared them. Or did they feel like they had to approach studying for the NCLEX differently after graduation.

Likely, answers to my questions would be used more to rule out programs based on extreme negatives to these questions.

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9

I don’t think this is accurate. There are still kids in America who don’t want to/can’t afford to go out of state or out of their region for college. So depending on where they live (which is not a decision that any 17 year old has made) the “local” college is their default first choice and those kids may be every bit as hard-working and ambitious as YOUR kid. You’d need a regression to filter out the kids by grades, scores (which presumably is what you meant by “lower caliber”) to see the geographic patterns of who lives where, who pays what, etc. to understand the student body at a granular level. And of course- you don’t have access to that data. Low income kids who commute to their local U for a nursing degree may be quite “high caliber”, but they didn’t have the luxury of kicking the tires on a wide range of colleges.

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10

good point, and well said. I think the students in any nursing program these days tend to be highly motivated kids no matter what their reasoning to choose a particular school. Often graduates of community college associate programs do exceptionally well in the workforce. My point to my kid was not to get hung up on going to a reach school when other schools have programs that are just as successful. I could have said it in a better way. Don’t think I can edit though.

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11

Agree that a so-called “reach” school may or may not have the right program (including the caliber of the peer group) vs. a “safety”. It’s great you’re encouraging your kid to look beyond the stats!!!

12

Your family has obviously been doing its research and it looks like your D has some great options.

Has your D met/interviewed with any professors in the departments? Talked to nursing students in the programs? Many colleges will help arrange these for prospective students, particularly those who’ve already been admitted.

Also, paging @2plustrio who might have some suggestions for you.

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13

@Mom24_26 Ok, wow, you definitely know what you are doing! I hope you will stick around and chime in during future application cycles. The parents here have been a great help to me already.

My question is this: Did you get historical data re: NCLEX pass rates from the individual school websites, or from some other source (i.e., NCLEX website)? Thanks

14

@aewlmom it’s definitely an overwhelming task to research nursing programs! I didn’t know there were over 900 BSN programs in the US. That includes schools that only offer Accelerated Second Degree programs. Thirty years ago, I chose UMD for my second degree program because I was in-state and the nursing school is in Baltimore with amazing hospitals. I didn’t know at the time that they would set up a partnership program with Hopkins for those interested in pediatrics. I was able to secure a clinical rotation there and had a job lined up before I graduated. That definitely jump started my career. When I told D that they needed to attend a reputable program, I had no idea what a rabbit hole it is trying to narrow it down. This was our process, although I can’t say if it was a good process : )

  1. looked at nursing school ranking sites to get an initial list within the states that D wanted. But be aware of their limitations.
    USNews & WR - “Best BSN Programs” - rankings are determined by surveys of deans and faculty of nursing schools or departments that they were familiar with. So take the ranking with a grain of salt when checking lesser known programs local to you. But it’s a good starting point for a list in each state because they must be nationally accredited to be on the list. National accreditation is voluntary but most state boards require your program to be nationally accredited for licensure.
    Other sites that I thought had a good methodology to their rankings and ability to search different ways (national, regional, state levels) - www.nursingprocess.org, www.nursingschoolsalmanac.com, and www.collegefactual.com. There are many others but I thought these were the most useful

  2. then narrowed the list to those with 4 year BSN programs (included both direct entry and not). D really wanted to try for Duke, but it does not have a 4 year BSN program - only the accelerated second degree option.

  3. Because the list was still way too large to research all schools, D had to come up with some other criteria. Unfortunately, they had no idea of what they really wanted in size but did choose to only look at schools with either marching band or pep band in the mid-atlantic and new england regions. This narrowed the list down greatly. Though PA has a million programs!

  4. then the tedious process of looking at NCLEX rates. Most schools only mention an average, or recent year’s rate. So you must google to each state’s NCLEX-RN pass rate. Most Boards of Nursing publish this as first-time test taker pass rates. You can compare a school’s to the NCLEX website pass rates @ NCLEX Pass Rates | NCSBN. Any school whose average pass rate for 2018-2022 was below the national average was removed from the list (of all first time test takers, not of baccalaureate only). Also, any school with a steady decline since 2018 was removed. The national average and almost all schools had a decline in '21 and '22 due to COVID (those were the two years that those graduates were in nursing classes); thus, if schools had a decline prior to '20, that was concerning for the quality of their program irrelevant to COVID. Using the averages meant that there were some schools that were below the national pass rate for 1 or 2 years but we figured those schools still warranted consideration if their overall 4-5 year average was over the national. I think the list was still > 50 schools from VA to NH!

  5. Next was to categorize the list into safety-reach-match based on collegeboard since the recommendations are to apply to mostly match schools. Then, the BSN program at each school was examined for traditional 4-year vs. 2/2 programs and whether they were direct entry or not.

  6. The final list came down to D choosing direct entry first then based on location, their other interests, and not-surprisingly, pictures. Was very surprised at a couple choices.

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15

@AustenNut only for UVM. They were thinking of applying ED there so we required a real tour and a meeting with faculty first. Otherwise, they wanted to wait to see which schools they were accepted to before visiting. So we have a bit of a list to start. Next step is for D to read all the nursing handbooks for each program to make sure there aren’t any policies that rule a school out before making a trip there. Then requesting a meeting or email contact for nursing administration to get answers to all the detailed program questions. Visits for admitted students should hopefully finalize the choice.

16

Thanks so much for sharing your methodology and resources! I am sure that your post will be useful to future families looking for nursing programs.

I suspect that your D could also have Zoom meetings with students/administrators to help narrow down the list before visits in-person. Also, has she done virtual tours and some of the other general college review of the schools she is interested in?

17

As kind of a general comment, I believe you have done well to uncover a variety of environments that would be excellent for nursing, with diverse inclusions such as the University of Delaware and Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

18

thank you

19

I’m not sure what they’ve done online. I know they narrowed down choices based on pictures and videos of campus but haven’t done any official virtual guided tours. That’s our next steps. I know some have virtual zoom tours with a student, those would be good if we can’t make it to campus. But I think we’ll be able to hit them all.

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20

With NCLEX changing, I think the pass rates are going to be a little “off” for a bit. Although it seems NextGen NCLEX has higher pass rates.

As for your question about securing jobs, this would require your child to know exactly where they want to work and what specialty and that can change. And many teens change their mind in nursing school! Research shows that most new grads change jobs within 1-2 years after leaving nursing school so where they start does not mean that it where they will end up.

Your child will find a job regardless of what school they graduate from. Participating in marching band will be very difficult after the first 1-2 years of school. Look at curriculum and what type of courses each program has.

I would try to do accepted to nursing school specific tours when possible. Asking where the top clinical sites are is a good question for the nursing school admissions team.

Thats my random thoughts at the moment.

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