My Daughter was accepted to Georgetown, Boston College and Villanova Nursing. She is an exceptional high school student, cost is the same for all and we are in the process of visiting on accepted students days, but each school seems to have its pro’s and con’s. Any advice from families that have been in the same situation or been through one of these schools?
Congrats on 3 great choices.
As of a few years ago, Boston College made it very hard to use AP credits. It may have changed since then. AP credits can make a nursing curriculum much less stressful, especially if you can take one less class during the most demanding semesters.
I haven’t been on Villanova’s campus for a few years, but it had a reputation of a vanilla student body. When I was there, I was surprised there were so few Asian, Latino and African-American students compared to most universities. The cliche was that most of the African-American students were varsity athletes.
As of a few years ago, Villanova had an on-campus housing shortage. Most freshmen lived in triples. I don’t know how many new beds have been built, and how it may have changed things.
Off-campus housing will be very expensive at all 3 colleges, so look into how much on-campus housing is available.
Boston college offers four-year on campus housing for nursing students. They put that in their acceptance letter. All other students still have to go off campus for one year, usually junior year where a lot of students go abroad.
Villanova built new dorms so there is not tripling freshmen and no shortage any more.
Both colleges have a core curriculum and several classes from the core can not be substituted by AP. So it is true that there is no flexibility on taking some classes and some semesters are “heavy” because of that. However, APs with 4 and 5 are accepted as elective credits and/or substitutes for other classes. For example AP stats and AP psych can be used at Villanova as substitutes of the corresponding classes but you still need to take philosophy and theology and their Augustinian classes. Also there are some quirks with Boston College as they accept AP euro but not APUSH. In general a student applying at those two schools has to like to take the core and enjoy taking some humanities classes, writing essays etc. My D considered those schools and she liked the idea of the Liberal arts curriculum and the core. For a student that wants more flexibility though and does not like taking those classes obviously not a good choice.
Because of the core and the chem sequence first year at BC is challenging and a gpa killer. However there is no gpa minimum to stay in the program (I guess above being on probation…). Villanova has similar curriculum but the chemistry sequence is taken within the nursing school and it is not as cut throat.
Although all in or near big cities, BC is unusual in that Boston is hard to beat for teaching hospitals. I imagine the opportunities exist for BC students to do clinical work in / around the city and land jobs after graduation. Hard to beat that environment post grad.
We live near-ish Villanova and my neighbor 's son is a nursing student there. It is a very safe area, but being on the Main Line it has easy access to Philly. They have great school spirit which was probably a factor in his choice. His mom is a physical therapist and seems very happy with V’s nursing program.
@mommajudz Not sure if you still check this site but I wanted to say congrats on those phenomenal acceptances! May I ask where she decided to go? And about her stats? Those three schools are on my daughter’s list too…