I have only limited connections to any of these schools. A cousin went to Fairfield Nursing and has had a fine career, advancing to Head Nurse in a big LI hospital and another friend’s daughter has just been accepted to Sacred Heart and is planning to attend there. I have another friend who’s daughter went to CUA and she had a good experience there.
One of my daughter’s obtained her nursing degree at Boston College, so I’ll comment from that perspective. I don’t think that there are big differences in the quality of instruction at any of the nursing schools. It is a practitioner’s degree and not as dependent on whether one has the most learned professors. Curriculum is pretty standard from one school to another.
In my daughter’s experience, 2 things did matter a lot. The first was the quality of the clinicals. This is where nurses learn best practices. For my daughter, being in Boston gave her placements at some of the best hospitals in the world. In general, the bigger the city, the more likely to have opportunities at major research hospitals. I suggest that you definitely ask for a list of probable placements for clinicals and check out their quality.
A second benefit of clinicals at top hospitals is that they can lead to job offers. My daughter received a job offer at Boston Children’s Hospital, the best children’s hospital in the country, upon passing her nursing boards. This was directly related to the fact that she had worked there. Not only was thus a great job, but it opened doors to other top jobs when she left the Boston area.
The second thing that mattered a lot for my daughter was transportation to clinicals. BC provided van transport for nursing students for many clinicals, the fact that there is a medical area in Boston with a cluster of major hospitals made this easy to do. The fact that Boston has excellent light rail service with a stop right by the college was another plus when van service was not available or an alternative was preferred. I would definitely ask the colleges about transportation to clinicals.
From a location POV, I would be concerned about Salve. I know that Fairfield does some if it’s clinicals in Stamford. Traffic between the college and those hospitals is horrible. Although there is commuter rail, I don’t know how it’s access is to the hospitals. I don’t know where SHU does it’s clinicals. The best hospital in that region is Yale, so I’d ask both FU and SHU if they have any placements there.
I’m guessing that CUA has the best access to top hospitals of any of your choices and there is good public transit in DC. That would be at the top of my list.
I don’t know as much about your Midwest options, but they’re all in big cities where there are good hospitals, so ask the right questions to find out how good the hospitals are at what access those nursing schools have to them.
Best of luck.