Class of 2023 Nursing Admissions

College Majors Nursing Major
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Looking for some advice on the deposit question that was discussed on the forum this year and last. Was the advice to put down a deposit early to reserve a nursing spot specific to Stockton? It sounds like Stockton has a fixed number of openings and waitlists anyone accepting after the class is full. From what I understand, Binghamton has 100 clinical spots available, of which half are filled with students accepted as freshmen and the rest with external/internal transfers. So they can tweak the number of transfers if the freshmen class is bigger than expected. UNH has a target class of 60, with 50 for freshmen applicants and 10 for internal transfers. Again, they reduce the spots for internal transfers if they get more than 50 incoming freshmen accepting and continuing with the program after first year.

Is there a reason to be concerned and lock down a spot in a program before we have completed the decision process? Thanks in advance.

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@azparent18 Every applicant’s situation will be different. In my case, my ex-wife has an EFC of about 10k, while we are full-pay on a combined basis even with 2 kids in college. However, there is no way that we could pay full price living outside of NYC, maintaining two households and with 5 kids in the mix. We targeted colleges (1) where my daughter is in the top 25% and would receive competitive merit and no aid; (2) that meet at least 60% of need based only on my ex-wife’s income (FAFSA-only or CSS Profile without NCP); or (3) were likely to offer both merit and need-based aid.

The schools that ended up being mostly merit plays were: Binghamton (27k net direct cost after federal loans), Delaware (25 w/ grant of 3), Fairfield (35) and Quinnipiac (35). The schools that ended up being a mix of merit and financial aid were: UNH (20), Scranton (23), UVM (26), Salve Regina (19), Duquesne (22), Seton Hall (25), Rutgers (<20), TCNJ (<20), UCONN (30). Pitt was need only as my D fell just below their 1480 SAT cutoff for merit. Those with * based on NPC often with known merit.

We have been successful so far in our financial aid strategies. D went instate to our flagship for 12k after sizable merit and has money left over for graduate school. S goes to a top-50 LAC with a 70k sticker for <19. D will likely end up at highly-regarded nursing college costing < 25k. Our HS junior has stellar stats and could be in the range for full-tuition rides.

Here is my advice to other parents for what it’s worth. Work with your child to understand the parameters of the search (e.g. desired major, size, distance from home and atmosphere). Search far and wide for colleges that meet these criteria and where the student is in the top 25% of applicants. Run the net price calculators to eliminate colleges that have no chance of being affordable. Keep the child fully involved and schedule visits to better understand preferences and narrow the list. Emphasize that there are lots of colleges where they would be happy and that will set them up for success in life. Be firm on colleges that don’t meet your budget and are off the table. Be prepared for your child to come back with opinions of a school’s perceived “status” based on lunch table conversations. In our case, my first two kids were accepted to their dream schools (Tulane and Holy Cross, respectively) but they were full price and eliminated. We have friends who put the process entirely on their child’s shoulders and ended up with 1 affordable and 5 unaffordable choices.

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@bearcatfan. How does your daughter like U of Cincy College of Nursing? My daughter was recently accepted and is strongly considering it. Any advice you could give would be appreciated (any dorms that are best for nursing, how hard are the freshman classes and maintaining the 3.0 needed to move on, etc). Thanks!

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@EngTchrMom my D is a freshman nursing student at SDSU. During her campus visits she discovered she liked the size of SDSU over smaller schools including APU. She never had a top choice going in to the process but made her list of pros/cons after the campus visit. And she used that information in the end to make a final selection.

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@R12665 Whoo-hoo a possible future Bearcat!

I don’t have much to compare it too, but at least freshman year the nursing students are under the wing of an advisor. I liken it to a mother hen and her chicks, lol. They are in a learning community where by and large they have the same classes at the same time (within a larger lecture hall), and meet once a week in LC to talk over any issues or get extra help. The toughest class is definitely anatomy, a two-semester class with a guy who’s amazing but takes no excuses. There are many extra review sessions for this class, and my daughter attends at least one a week.

She had a 3.79 at the end of her first semester. We hope it’s a trend that continues! The class that took/takes the most effort was/is anatomy, and that might be the case everywhere. You’ll have to look at the schema online, but unless you have college/AP credits that UC will accept, you have some gen ed requirements that are sprinkled through the four years (not frontloaded into freshman year). My daughter was thrilled that her fine arts credit could be filled by a ballet class at CCM, since she’s had 15 years of classical training.

In terms of dorms, the first year it doesn’t matter much in terms of location. You only have one class in Proctor (the nursing school) so if you are close to there you are further away from the main campus classes and vice versa. I think it matters more into sophomore year and above. My daughter lives on main campus as a freshman and says it’s a 20 minute walk to Proctor - not bad, really. It’s balanced by being closer to everything else, including the “college area” on Calhoun Street.

If you decide to attend, please feel free to PM with me other questions.

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@bearcatfan Thanks so much. This is great info! I’m glad you daughter is having success in her first yr.

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@bearcatfan I will definitely PM you with some additional questions if that is ok.

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@jdcollegedad - I don’t have enough posts to PM you, but I’d love to learn more about how you determined which colleges were FAFSA only. I have a complicated financial aid situation, and those schools might end up being the best for my dd to target!

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One of the most affordable direct entry BSN programs is York College of PA. It is between Harrisburg and Baltimore off of I-83. They also provide substantial merit aid, and have a very large hospital right across the street, and a second large hospital 3 miles away whose construction is about to be completed.

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@2020Nurse it’s very simple. Just visit the financial aid page of the college’s website and see whether CSS PROFILE is required.

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You must have money to burn and that’s fine if you feel you can afford it.

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@2020Nurse Take the list of direct entry nursing programs on College Confidential. Visit the CollegeBoard site for a list of colleges that require the CSS Profile that you can eliminate from the first list. There are lots more than we applied to: Thomas Jefferson, Misercordia, U Maine, Becker, Cedar Crest, Endicott, Farleigh Dickinson, Hartwick, Holy Name, Le Moyne, St John Fisher, Nazareth, Niagara, SUNY Buffalo, Ohio State, Molloy, Messiah, Monmouth, Moravian, Wagner, Widener, Pace, Ramapo, UNC (except CH), St Francis, Shenandoah, Siena (has some sort of affiliation w a nursing program), Marywood, Simmons. Stevenson, UMass, URI, Miami of Ohio, York, etc. The small privates may not have brand recognition, but often have good exam pass rates. Apply by Nov. 1st.

Most of the publics that are FAFSA only aren’t generous on need-based aid for OOS but offer merit for strong scores. UDel, UVM and UNH have a high number of OOS and offer need-based aid and merit for OOS. Many of the small privates give great aid. Seton Hall came out with its package on Friday with a cost of 21k after merit, grants and Federal loans.

There are some Profile schools that don’t require non-custodial info (e.g. UNC CH).

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@njdadjets which post were you replying to?

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Update: D was accepted to APU nursing, Spring cohort and a May 2023 graduation date, 3.5 yr program. This is odd since everything I see on APU’s website says the BSN program is either 4 or 4.5 years. Maybe her AP credit is shortening the finish date? What do Spring cohort kids do in the Fall, attend APU and take GE classes?

Daughter
SAT: 1380
ACT: 31
GPA: 4.0 / 4.36 (UC)
Rank: 9 of 350
State Residency: CA
Ethnicity: White
Gender: F
Other: Volunteering at local hospital, bi-lingual English/Spanish, 7 AP classes and lots of Honors classes, several club leadership positions, athletics and piano

Accepted:
Point Loma - pre nursing, ($15K merit)
Azusa Pacific - Direct, ($19K merit), 3.5 yr program?

Applied:
UCLA - Direct
UC Irvine - Direct
San Diego State - Direct
CSU Fullerton - Direct
USF - Direct
San Jose State - pre nursing
Sonoma State - pre nursing
CSU Long Beach - pre nursing

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Congrats @Bonchien for your daughter’s acceptance!, At some schools spring cohorts come in to school for Spring. No idea about APU though.That will make the program go quick. Keep us posted. Those CA publics sure make the kids wait. Good luck on the rest of her schools

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Son
1370 SAT
30 ACT
4.2 GPA
PA
HS doesn’t rank
AP/Honors classes
Lots of EC’s
Varsity captain
Volunteer at hospital

Accepted:
Seton Hall (scholarship)
Duquesne (scholarship & honors college)
Xavier (scholarship)
CWRU (scholarship)

Applied but withdrew application:
UMass Amherst

Rejected:
Boston College
Villanova

Visited but did not apply:
Rutgers (did not like campus as much and too large of a school for him)
WVU (liked campus but not enough hospitals and not close enough to large city)
Pitt (did not like campus, felt like just a number, but thought the nursing program was good)
Boston University (loves the city but not the campus as much)
Northeastern (didn’t really feel like there was a campus)
Transylvania (just because we were visiting relatives that live down the street) interesting school.

He has selected CWRU. He liked the nursing program the best and was very impressed with the amount of clinical hours as well as the new facility being constructed next to Cleveland Clinic. He would like to pursue NP or CRNA. He’s very grateful that he was accepted and felt that the faculty and admissions during our tour were interested in him just as much as he was the school and nursing program.

It was definitely a learning experience for me as a parent guiding their kid through the college application process. Even though kids stats can be identical, one can get rejected and the other admitted to the same school/program. My advice is to visit as many as you can (it makes a difference), apply to a range of schools and be open minded. After each tour I asked my son if this was his only option could he see himself going to school there.
Good luck everyone!

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@Pgh1mom Congratulations on your son’s choice of attending CWRU for nursing!!! That is a great choice and we are glad you are done decision making and now can enjoy the rest of his senior year

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Update:
Daughter
SAT: 1240
GPA: 3.5 (but school has odd GPA scale - her GPA is 3.7 on most schools’ scales, which admissions at one school confirmed since they recalculated)
Rank: HS doesn’t rank
State Residency: MA
Ethnicity: White
Gender: F
AP/Honors classes
Several EC’s and leadership positions that were supported with strong letters of rec and essays
Job shadowing at hospital

Accepted for Nursing (all direct-entry except for URI):
UMass-Lowell
Sacred Heart Univ (with $20k/year merit scholarship)
Quinnipiac (with $20k/year merit scholarship)
Univ of New England (with $18k/year merit scholarship)
Salve Regina Univ (with $18k/year merit scholarship and honors college invitation)
Endicott College (with $12k/year merit scholarship)
Regis College (with $17k/year merit scholarship)
Univ of Rhode Island (with $7.5k/year merit scholarship)
Worcester State Univ
Fitchburg State Univ

Accepted for College of Health & Human Services:
Univ of New Hampshire (offer mentioned potential option to transfer into Nursing, although this seems unlikely since there are only ~50 slots)

Deferred to Regular Decision:
Fairfield Univ.

Waitlisted:
Saint Anselm College

Overall, this was quite an experience. The statistics for number of applicants, offers, and average GPA/SAT/ACT numbers for nursing schools can be daunting, especially for candidates with <4.0 GPA and <1400 SAT (which often feels like the extreme minority on CC). Obviously she applied to too many schools because of this uncertainty. :slight_smile:

Interviewing at several schools also seemed to help (even if interviews were not advertised). I’d agree with the overall nursing college search advice given by @jdcollegedad earlier. For those seeking “chance me” odds, I used a combination of sources, and it was remarkably accurate for my D. The main sources were general admissions data (EA, yield, 75th percentile values for SAT math/R&W, % freshmen w/GPA >3.75, etc. from Common Data Set) for a general sense of her match, then I also used Niche (Rank better than xx% of accepted Nursing students, Population size for Nursing response), Naviance, and College Confidential (just anecdotal matches with her stats). There are several other “chance me” sites (College Data, etc.) but they didn’t end up being very helpful or accurate. In the end, the best data and (most importantly) her sense of fit came from visiting the schools in person and asking very specific questions of the admissions and nursing staff (EA applications/offers/yield, attrition/retention rates in each year, HESI exit exam req’ts, primary clinical locations, post-graduate assistance/placements outside of the college’s region, flexibility of curriculum for study abroad/minor/etc., student support via mentoring, tutoring, and living learning communities). Of course, there are the other general “to do’s” like going inside actual dorms, eating in the cafeteria, talking with actual students about life during weekends and extracurriculars, etc. My D wants to visit a couple of schools for the Accepted Students Days, but she already feels like she’s got a great fit with her top choice. Good luck to everyone else on this crazy journey!

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@MAPAone Congrats on your daughter’s many acceptances and merit! What is your daughter’s top choice? Did I miss it? Hope she has fun on accepted student days and she solidifies her choice. The nursing journey is a wild one

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@readthetealeaves Over the last year, she’s gone back and forth between Quinnipiac, UMass-Lowell, and SHU (UNE was also a dark horse). She loved the visit to SHU in November and was this close to changing from EA to ED. In the intervening time, UMass-Lowell (early Dec) and Quinnipiac (mid-Dec) got back to her, have been interacting, and she’s already attended an Admitted EA Students’ Day at UML (#1 right now due to great NCLEX, no exit exam, Boston-area clinicals, <5 yr old nursing building and dorm for nurses both on same campus, living learning community for each nursing year, flexibility in curriculum for study abroad and a minor, and proximity to home). It’s been so interesting to watch how those 2 months of silence from SHU opened the door for the other schools. She’ll give Quinnipiac and SHU the same 2nd look and then make the final decision.