Nursing School Suggestions

College Majors Nursing Majors
61

Udel, Miami of Ohio, Clemson all have direct admit nursing. Also they will all be significantly cheaper than many of those on your list.

My D21 applied almost exclusively to direct admit nursing schools including the 3 I mentioned. Picked Miami of Ohio and by October of her freshman year decided nursing wasn’t for her.

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62

Area dependent. The area I live in has about a dozen hospitals within 30 minutes but big city means lots of nursing schools as well.
Our nursing students may need to go to a hospital 30-45 minutes away once a week.

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63

Did she like Miami of Ohio even though she decided nursing wasn’t for her? Did she end up staying there the followng year after she switched her major?

64

Yes she loves Miami. Transferred out of nursing, then spent a semester as Mechanical engineer and then for the last year and a half is in data science and statistics. She wants to be an actuary as she really loves math.

Currently in Australia for a January Term program through Miami. Loving it. Miami is a beautiful campus, about 17K students, lots of OOS merit money. She is having the time of her life there.

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65

So it seems she’s looking to stay more on the East Coast? There’s a ton of great programs. I tried to get my kid to look at CWU but they wanted to stay Mid-Atlantic to New England states.
I posted this on a different thread.

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 & UNC CH, but Duke does not have a 4 year BSN program - only the accelerated second degree option and CH is not direct admit.
  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.

Kid applied by 11/1 for all programs. Still waiting on 3 decisions. Now that they have acceptances, we need to comb through the nursing program handbooks. Be aware that as you’ll see on other threads, “direct admit” is a loose term and some schools have stringent criteria or seat limits that could keep them from being able to start the nursing classes.

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66

Awesome summary with great advice, TY! My D is only in 10th grade but wants nursing so I am starting to research. What schools did your D end up applying to?

67

I think I have posted this before and it was an unpopular reply but am just going to be honest here as an RN/NP for the past 26 years - nursing program rankings do not really mean much to future employers. As long as the school is accredited, doesn’t go on probation, and has a good NCLEX pass rate, the ranking doesn’t matter, especially if they want to work for a hospital.

I have precepted many, many RN and NP students and honestly couldn’t tell the difference between those who went to whichever program (other than it being printed on their scrub tops or ID badge). There were some very good students and some not-so-good students and the school wasn’t the difference - it was the individual.

The clinical experiences are going to be very similar for the most part as the schools need to follow the blueprint determined by the accreditation organizations. It doesn’t matter if you’re doing clinicals at the big city trauma center or the smaller rural community hospital. Everyone has to do med/surg, peds, maternity, mental health and community health if in a BSN program. There also might be observation days in the OR, ICU, or ER if your program arranges it.

In order to land a hospital position most places will hold related experiences such as nursing asst, med asst, EMT, nurse extern, etc in high regard.

I promise you, your nursing student will be fine if they study hard and their school is accredited, isn’t on probation, and has a high NCLEX pass rate.

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68

Just curious - when my dad was in the hospital, his nurses were mainly Filipino - educated, not just their ethnicity.

Is that a shortage thing - we have enough jobs for everyone and then some that we bring folks in from other countries?

69

Substitute PT program for nursing program and I could have written this post. I think for most (all?) health care professions that require a test to be passed in order to obtain licensure, where the degree was obtained is irrelevant. Once I passed my PT boards and got my license, no one cared where I got my degree. (graduating from an accredited school is required in order to sit for the exam, so that is a given) Now that I have a daughter in nursing school, I tell her all the time to just worry about passing her boards when she graduates and not much else. Her GPA, where she went, etc doesn’t really matter to anyone.

70

Yes, URI has competitive admission to a critical prerequisite course NUR 203: https://web.uri.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1740/Nursing-6.5.12.pdf

Other nursing programs have academic progression requirements with weed-out college GPAs ranging from the low 2.something to the high 3.something.

71

In my part of the country- periodic nursing shortages. The pipeline is hard to widen because of the shortage of nursing instructors (plenty of wannabee students but nobody to teach them, so the schools cannot expand to meet demand). During and since Covid lots of experienced nurses leaving the profession. A nurse with decades of experience can get a “work from home” job doing case review for an HMO and not leave the kitchen or have patients vomit on your shoes- sometimes multiple times during a single shift.

The issue isn’t “we have enough jobs for everyone”. The issue is the mismatch between supply and demand. The unemployed auto worker cannot sub in for a surgical nurse; the unemployed programmer cannot get staffed in the NICU.

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72

I’ll add one thing about NCLEX passage. While the school should prepare students for that exam, it really is on the student and his/her individual effort after graduation. My daughter took a month off to study in between graduation and sitting for the exam. She didn’t go on vacation, she didn’t take a “break” - unless by a break you mean sitting at her apartment complex’s pool studying lol. I spent a bit of money on review packets and programs, and it was money well spent. At that time, there was a bit of strategy involved in answering the questions (I understand the exam has changed since then). I know at least one of her classmates took the NCLEX multiple times. She, thankfully, passed on the first go-round. So the NCLEX rates don’t tell the whole story, and some schools gatekeep who actually gets permission to test (but a woeful passage rate would be concerning).

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73

This is so very true. We are in CA also and my daughter doesn’t want to leave the state. So she’ll go the pre-nursing route at a Cal State unless she gets into SDSU or Cal State Fullerton which is unlikely with a 3.95 GPA. She is in for pre-nursing at Chico, SFSU, CSEB and Sac State and we’re still waiting on SJSU, Sonoma and Long Beach.

It appears that Chico has a relatively good rate of pre-nursing into actual nursing after the first 2 years so that’s a front-runner right now.

It’s sad that it’s so darn difficult in CA.

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74

This is great to know! Miami is on our short list (the great merit $ is part of the reason). I do worry my daughter may decide nursing is not for her and want to ensure wherever she goes has other good programs.

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From nursing spent a semester as Mechanical Engineer and then decided she wanted data science as she really loves math. With all the AP credits they accept no problem and going to graduate on time with BS in Data Science. Had a summer job in her major.

Can’t speak highly enough about Miami at least for my daughter. And the merit money and fixed tuition room and board is great.

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76

For those who have been through this process already, did any of your children find it useful to get a CNA during the summer before senior year as a good way to show interest in nursing? My daughter is thinking of doing a course this summer.

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I don’t think it can hurt but … Has your daughter done any work or volunteering in a healthcare setting? I personally think that shows interest/aptitude more than getting an STNA/CNA license on its own. My daughter volunteered at a memory care facility and was a hospital candy striper, along with shadowing a local nurse through her honors career mentorship. I’ve known other students who got paying jobs at the local hospital handing out food trays. Taking that course, however, would help her figure out if nursing is right for her so I don’t think it’s a waste. Plus she can work senior year if she’d like.

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78

Yes, she has both volunteered and shadowed - just looking for another way to “demonstrate” interest!

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79

UAB has a fantastic nursing program (ranked 7th for BSN), and has fantastic merit scholarships.

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80

As a teacher who has said the same thing about teaching programs…Thank you.

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