Hello, again. I’ve been toying around with the idea of doing a couple of college tours this year with my D26 who’s interested in BSN programs, and thought it would be fun to hear about everyone’s favorite (or least favorite) tours. One of my favorite CC threads is the giant “Colleges your child crossed off the list…” tour thread. I’d love to hear some nursing specific tour info. Not only which ones you loved/didn’t like – but also what we should be looking and listening for when we tour.
And, yes, I know it’s a bit early (we didn’t start touring with our older two kids until late junior year) but I suspect her college list will be longer given the competitiveness of direct admit BSN programs. Plus, she’s the last kid left at home so we have more time and flexibility to explore.
We are in the midwest – and would obviously start by touring schools close to home to get a sense of different types of campuses and programs. But, for purposes of this thread, feel free to include schools from all over. D says she’s interested in getting out of the midwest for college like her older brothers, so we may eventually be looking farther afield.
Can’t give you nursing specific. The best were Oklahoma - 1:1 1/2 day including an academic session with prof and College of Charleston - group session but Hillel set up a lunch 1:1. Florida Tech’s was very good too and had great food.
I liked Elon (group of five for info session and 1:1 tour but that was covid. )
Worst was GW - but we left mid tour but that was more dislike of campus. My daughter loved American’s full day experience except the bad lunch.
In general - info sessions are all similar - yea, we all have a quidditch club and study abroad. I’d focus on those at schools where demonstrated interest matters. Usually you have to do them to tour but they just get boring and repetitive so try and space them out.
Some schools offer ‘major’ sessions but if they don’t, reach out to nursing and ask if you can meet a prof, advisor and have someone take you around. Those are the best - the one offs that you request.
If your student is interested in the quintessential small rural New England college experience, Colby-Sawyer would be a good place to visit. You could do it in the fall when the leaves are turning color --gorgeous! For rotations, they have a relationship with Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center which is about half an hour away, so you could swing by there too.
Oooooh, a New England schools trip could be fun! We could fly into Boston (there several direct admit schools there, I believe) and then drive up to Colby-Sawyer. Any others in that general area worth a look?
Good idea about focusing on schools that consider “demonstrated interest” – I’m gonna have to go back through the direct admit schools list and check their common data sets for that!
I hadn’t given any thought to Elon, but my mom lives in Greensboro NC (only about 20 miles away) – so that would be an easy visit to add when we’re visiting her.
Unrelated to nursing, your DC school experience was similar to ours. My S22 is a current sophomore (international studies major) at American University and happy there. Classes and professors have been great, food not as much. He really did not like GW when we toured and wouldn’t even apply.
If you fly into Boston, would be fun to check out Simmons (women’s school in Boston.) Maybe also UMass Lowell, UNH, St. Anselm. I don’t know much about those schools personally, though. Anybody else care to weigh in?
A school you don’t like to me is a good tour. But I think and you did some - all the sessions added together just become hard. So I’d rather self tour or set an appt with a dept vs necessarily taking the school tour unless it can be separated from admission. The tours are good. Info session not (imho).
AU is known for bad food but at their full day thing is where my daughter fell in love with the SIS. The dept head likely hates me but I was like - don’t you recommend a second major, etc. she finally acknowledged - yea kids in here don’t always get good jobs but.
Funny it’s my daughters major though but since AU gave her only $15k it came off the list. We needed $25k to consider. But their day was good and very much helped direct my kid to her current path. She’s in DC for the semester, living at Capitol Hill and interning in DuPont Circle but studies at Charleston. Gw was too urban. C of C, smaller in scale, was better for her. She liked AU - I thought a bit from the action with the 15 min walk to train.
Glad your son is having a great experience. In the end, that’s what matters.
We visited 25+ schools so it likely impacted our info session thoughts. But maybe did 6 or 8 total including all 3 DC schools - well the main 3. Gtown helped - I learned some schools don’t give merit. So sometimes helpful for the parents if not the kids.
But yes the point is - if you have schools wanting DI (unlikely the publics), those are most important although DI can be online too. But Id think since nursing requires off campus rotations, etc having department meetings to dig deep and see facilities might be most important because having to go off campus will impact the four years. Some might be more convenient than others and it’d be good to know.
25+ tours is impressive. We did about 8-9 tours with each of our boys, and I felt like that was a lot! We were cramming them in by the end, which is one of the reasons I’d like to start early this time around (third times a charm, and all that).
We went everywhere and everywhere. A lot was during covid. Self tours. 11 in 4 days. NC and VA. Elon was the only info session on that one. It was well done. Beautiful school but when we left daughter said not applying here. That’s why all tours were good. By name and what she heard it was a contender. Too isolated for her in the immediate surrounds. Many schools have self tours and you can still register interest. U of Denver was one. It talked based on where you were and it captured your name etc.
Have fun. In the end if you find the right school do what’s needed but I think nursing is a bit Difft due to clinicals etc hence I suggested the dept meetings.
Pay attention to the weed-out criteria to be allowed to continue in the program. These may be buried in the nursing major handbook from the schools nursing major web site. Grade and GPA requirements to avoid being weeded out can range from merely getting at least a C in each major course to needing to get a 3.5 GPA in each of the first several semesters.
My daughter is in her 2nd year in the BSN program at UMaine. Loves it!!
As others have said, do your homework… direct-entry without unrealistic weed-out criteria is the ONLY way to go. Read every morsel of the fine print for every direct entry BSN program and ask questions here on this board as well as at the schools themselves!
Most general tours aren’t likely to include tours of simulation labs or nursing facilities, so would be great to reach out ahead and try to schedule time to do that also. We are east coast, so my D22 toured Temple, Villanova, Pitt, Delaware, Penn State, Clemson, USC, U of Scranton, Fairfield, JMU, Duquesne.
For her, the biggest focus was access to clinicals, when clinicals began, size of cohort, NCLEX pass rate specific to nursing. Also weed out GPA as mentioned above. She also wanted school spirit, diversity, some greek life, lots to do. Pitt was the clear winner for her, although her favorite campus was JMU…decided not worth risking a non DA program and the high ranking of Pitts program.