Where have you been accepted and are you still waiting to hear from some colleges?
Where do you want to go?
It seems like their are not many nursing majors on this board but we sure know how difficult it is to get into a nursing program so many apply to the various programs!
Would love to hear some responses to this question too!
My daughter graduates high school in June and hopes to study nursing in college next year. It’s been an incredibly stressful application process due to the competitiveness of these programs. She’s applied to both Direct Entry and Pre-Nursing programs. She’s been accepted to UNH, University of Portland (both direct) and University of Arizona, University of Nebraska and University of Utah (pre-nursing). Still waiting to hear from SDSU, UCLA, UCI, UCONN, and Utah’s guaranteed assurance admission into nursing.
Daughter accepted to UMass Amherst Commonwealth Honors College, University of New Hampshire Honors College, Fairfield University Magis Scholar, Quinnipiac with invitation to apply to honors, and UMass Lowell honors college. All are direct entry. She was deferred to regular decision at Boston College and Northeastern and should hear by mid March.
We are attending accepted students day at UMass Amherst tomorrow, and this is where she will most likely attend. She is very excited about their program and the opportunities the honors college offers.
All of the schools she applied to have excellent nursing programs and she liked different things about all of them.
My daughter is deciding between University of San Francisco,University of Portland, Seattle University and waiting on 3 others.
They are all just a bit different and would love any addtional insight it the above programs.
I personally am so ready for this process to be over.
@Pinkflower5 I am with you!! This process has been an emotional roller coaster and I want to get off 
My daughter is now deciding between UNH Honors Program, UCONN or University of Portland. She was wait listed at SDSU which was disappointing since it was in state. Good luck to your daughter!
@Pinkflower5 and @negirl508 - Good luck to both your daughters deciding and congrats to all on their acceptances!! My D is a HS freshman so we just started looking and I am already stressed with how competitive the nursing programs are!
Hi All, I think I’ve seen a few of you around at different threads :). CC has been vital to my daughter and I for providing feedback on the college process, especially regarding direct entry nursing. There is little to no information anywhere on direct entry nursing except for this website. @kchamp - you have a lot of time before you need to do anything, my daughter wanted to be a vet when she was in 9th grade and here we are going to admitted student days in nursing, so take a little breathing room, expose her to possible volunteer experiences to make sure she continues the nursing path. Teenagers have a really good history of changing their minds. In looking at my twin daughters beginning in 9th grade and now the spring of their senior year, it equates to almost ten years of an adult life regarding all the psychological changes and emotional/physical growth.
My daughter ended up getting accepted to some pre-nursing programs (Alabama, UofArizona, Birmingham Southern, College of St. Benedict’s, Ole Miss) very early in the process. I think we felt that if she didn’t score well on the ACT tests, she’d have some back up schools to attend. She was a high level gymnast and didn’t really prepare for the ACT until summer before her senior year. If we could change anything in this process, that would be it. We would have begun taking ACT prep end of sophomore year, just to see where she was at. NOW her direct entry acceptances include Penn State U, U of Portland, Quinnipiac, Uof Delaware, UMass Lowell, Fairfield U. She is awaiting four more RD schools, but out of these the only one that is crossed off the list is UMASS. We visited Fairfield for Magis weekend, she loved it. We visited Penn State last week, we loved it. Over spring break will visit Quinn, UP and UD. Hopefully she will make a decision by May 1st! Would love to hear anyone’s feedback on these schools. Congrats to all those acceptances above, some very talented prospective nursing students!
@kchamp don’t worry like @netter11 said you have time and I agree with that volunteer experiences are very helpful. My daughter was thinking about PT until she did an internship and decided it wasn’t for her and volunteering at our local hospital confirmed that nursing was the path she wanted to pursue. She was accepted to U of Portland as well but we have not yet seen it. Portland is a great city, just not sure about the school being small. From what I hear though it’s a lovely campus and the students are very nice. My daughter just heard that she was accepted to University of Utah’s Nursing Early Assurance Program (NEAP) and I was wondering if anyone had any feedback on that school. She really hadn’t researched it but was desperate for another direct entry program in the west. Congrats to your daughter @netter11. Seems like she’s got some great options
Your daughter seems to have great options as well @negirl508 ! It appears we are both from Cali. Did your daughter apply to Seattle U or UCI or U of San Fran? Those are all direct entry on this coast. I know nothing about University of Utah. UConn and UNH were on my daughter’s list as well, and she was admitted to both, but as a Kinesiology major which is strange because she didn’t remember putting that down for either school, but when looking back at the common app, sure enough, her second choice major for UConn was Kinesiology. So we have crossed out both of those schools. UNH has a very small program, only admits about 42 students per semester to their nursing program, so we didn’t expect to get in and now that she’s accepted to nursing schools with larger programs (approx 100 or more per school), I thinks she likes that amount - bigger selection of people in the program to get to know, etc. If you hear about U of Portland, let us know? And it’s very nice to hear everyone’s process. We can all learn from each other. Hope others will join in on our conversation!
Thanks @netter11. My daughter decided not to apply to Seattle U and U of San Fran. She didn’t really want to be right in the middle of a city. She did apply to UCI but they traditionally accept on 3-4% so we know it’s an extreme reach for her. I will certainly share any news about U of Portland. Please do the same It’s so helpful hearing from other’s experiences!
Just to chime in- we did visit U of Portland and it is lovely. My daughter wanted a small school but it just felt too small to us. Lovely people and campus tho. I also wasn’t sure how she would handle so much rain and not seeing sun as often as she is used to. I was a little concerned about the NCLEX pass rate at Uni of Port- I wish it was a bit higher. I also think my daughter wants to come back to Cali so if she could go to school and get her internships here her chances of getting a job would be higher as this program at USF is more recognized to hospitals around the Bay Area. I do wonder if a smaller nursing program is better but looking at USF- gorgeous campus and it is right in the middle of SF- certainly a new experience for my daughter it is just looking more appealing. I also got a sense that it is a more international campus than UP- so maybe more of a diversified community.
The last thing I will say about UP is we got more of a religious sense at UP. It just felt a bit awkward for my daughter- needless to say she still has not decided- waiting on some UC’s- although we know her chances are slim she would still like to know!
Thanks @Lovemyjob! That’s helpful. I think my daughter needs to definitely visit to get a feel. I think it may be too small. Good luck to your daughter. USF is a great school. Mine is waiting as well on UCI and UCLA nursing, although we know it would be a long shot.
Thanks for the heads up @Lovemyjob about UP. Those are two big issues for my daughter, not wanting too much of a religious vibe and not too small. The Jesuit schools are a bit less religious so I was wondering about that. I also heard that the rain can be depressing for kids that are used to sunshine. What is the NCLEX pass rate btw? Fairfield U had a great method of testing the kids after each nursing class to see what they might need to work on in order to pass the NCLEX and then focus on those weaker areas. My daughter was so impressed by the school’s ability to really hone in on specific problem areas. Penn State also talked about utilizing a practice test along the way as well. Funny thing is on the plane going to Fairfield, we met the person who was responsible for implementing the practice testing for all the nursing schools in the US regarding the NCLEX. He talked about how profitable it was for him and how they change the test every three years. We are lucky that our children will be taking it on year two of three. It’s always hardest year one. Please check back and let us know what your daughters decide!
Daughter is also an upcoming Nursing major, we are in California with it’s notoriously impacted programs. She was accepted into three direct entry schools Gonzaga, SDSU and Univ of Utah NEAP and waitlisted at University of Portland. She intended to apply to Seattle U but forgot and it wasn’t on my radar during the application period, too many schools! I’m very proud but a little worried about her ability to make a decision soon. Just heard from Utah this week and they require a decision by April 1st! Her choices were so far flung we weren’t able to visit all before applying. And with the concern about competitiveness for nursing we focused on visits to safeties last summer i.e non direct-entry Cal States and non-nursing major UCs, now there is a bit of a scramble before May.
What I know about Utah is that Salt Lake City has a very vibrant arts and urban culture as well as close proximity to mountains for skiing, hiking etc. The College of Nursing looks to have incredible resources due to the proximity of the medical school. Their sim center is a virtual hospital on campus and they offer opportunities for undergrad research. We will probably go visit soon, very soon! The downside is out of state tuition - she missed the deadline for EA for OOS merit due to a website glitch with her application. (I appealed but no go…) In state tuition is likely after one year, but she would need to attend summer school after her freshman year to complete the residency requirement. She wasn’t happy about that possibility.
On a side note - I e-mailed College Confidential to ask why University of Utah doesn’t have it’s own forum in the Colleges and Universities section? It’s a state flagship research level university with very well respected programs in musical theater, dance, nursing, engineering and computer science.
Gonzaga was her first acceptance with considerable merit. It has a significant liberal arts requirement including religion and philosophy. It’s her first choice, she researched it on her own and has joined an admitted students online group. It has a very high overall retention rate for students and what seems like a positive school culture. But with the SDSU acceptance she is reconsidering.
SDSU was a happy surprise, it really seemed like a long shot. I do have real concerns about the campus culture (party school etc). With the rigor of nursing I worry about the social distractions. But it would be a lot closer to home, we are in-state, and it’s affordable. She didn’t look into it that closely since it seemed so impossible. The international experience requirement is very interesting. They require nursing students to participate in a health related program abroad prior to graduating.
Still waiting for UC Irvine, she refused to apply to UCLA. With the fiercely competitive acceptance rate I don’t expect an admittance. But we’re happy to have three choices so far, direct-entry nursing is possible!
In response to a comment above, it seems more nursing programs are using programs from vendors to test students each semester to identify potential weaknesses in the knowledge they need for the certification test. My daughter’s school added a fee to cover this program (which I think is from Kaplan). My daughter also bought a phone app for $40 that is supposed to help study.
The certification test was changed a couple years ago, and many schools saw a drop in their pass rate that year. The schools then needed to quickly adjust their training to make sure their students would pass the new version of the test.
Accepted into CSULB Pre-Nursing…waiting on UCI, UCLA, and CSUF
@2launched SDSU was very tough to get into- You should be very proud! My dd got into UP but denied at SDSU
It is all so crazy! We are also waiting on UCI and UCLA but the chances IMO are slim to none- my dd really would like to stay in state. That being said USF is so expensive!! She got merit but not enough to really make it affordable but we may have to bite the bullet.
SDSU would be amazing- it is a big school but it seems that the nursing program may be a very small one- they do have a very high NCLEX pass rate so they must be doing something right We we’re going to visit if she got in- but we won’t now.
The lesson to be learned from this discussion is that California residents should definitely be applying to some out of state nursing programs to increase their odds of admission.
So far I have been accepted to CSU Fullerton and Seattle U (Direct Entry), CSU Channel Islands (Pre-Nursing) and i have been wait-listed at SDSU (Direct Entry) I accepted the wait-list since it is my number 1, due to financial reasons. I am still waiting on UCLA,UCI,Gonzaga, Portland, U of SF, NYU, UPenn, and Georgetown.