Hello all. I’m relatively new here. Been reading most of the thread here and have had a few comments. We live in CT and I have a D21 and an S23. I have found a lot of what is talked about here very helpful. Although I haven’t seen much lately on how all the Fall 2020 Nursing hopefuls did with their admits. My D is planing on going into nursing. She does not want any schools in New England, wants a mid to big school, prefers college town or city, wants that “real college atmosphere”. We would like for her to get some Merit money. She is looking at Direct Admit programs and knows they are very competitive. She has a strong GPA, EC’s, many honors and APs, as well as a part-time job. No SAT or ACT yet as they have been cancelled due to COVID. Scheduled to take them for the first time in August and September. Just trying to get an idea for how she stacks up and what others have learned. If you got into any of these for the fall and would like to share your STATs that would be extremely helpful. Any input/info is greatly appreciated!
Direct
Clemson
West Virginia University
University of Tennessee
University of Pittsburgh
Penn State
Temple
University of Delaware
University of Virginia (this is her reach)
University of Rhode Island (it is New England so she’s not really wanting to apply)
Non Direct
University of Florida
Florida State
University of South Carolina
Thank you for any inside info you can share. Open to other suggestions as well. Trying to create a list to apply to (how many should this be?).
The stats of direct admit nursing students are generally higher than a given school’s average stats, and acceptance rates generally lower than averages (due to limited class size)…it’s not unlike CS in that regard. What that means is that even for strong students, many schools that might look like a match or safety at first blush, could really be a reach.
For example, Clemson only has around 175 direct admit spots and while I don’t know the admissions profile or acceptance rate, I expect that is a reach for most students. Definitely apply early, and also apply for the honors college.
Have your D contact the nursing program head, or admissions officer, to ask about the programs, stats of accepted students, and such. It is a good way to not only gather information so that one can properly categorize schools, but also demonstrate interest where that is considered in the application process.
Other schools to consider (bigger, with college town and traditional college experience):
U Iowa
Georgetown
TCU
U Cincinnati
U Mass Amherst (especially if it’s your home state)
U Miami
Villanova
Purdue
U Michigan
U Mississippi
Run the net price calculators at all your schools to see if they would be affordable. Some of the publics will give good merit (Iowa, Miss), while others won’t (UVA, U Mich), and others might give some (Pitt, Clemson, Cincy, Purdue).
In the past few years SAT/ACT scores were a good guide for admission chances. At least it was helpful in gauging nursing acceptances/merit. Now with limited tests and a lot of colleges going test optional it is very interesting to see how things will shake up. With a great gpa I would hope you stand a good chance.
Even though the university may be TO, some direct admit programs, including nursing may not be TO…so that is something OP has to check on each school’s website or by contacting AOs.
My daughter initially wanted a big school but we ended up finding that the smaller Jesuit schools offered a better fit . She’s going to Creighton, Omaha which is last school she applied to! Although it has only about 4000 undergrads it has a strong postgrad population too and the city turns out to support its basketball games so they fill a 13000 stadium .
Things to consider:
ease of getting there - direct flight, access to airport etc.
how many out of state students attend ( she doesn’t want to go to a school where everyone else disappears home at the weekend)
Does she want to be at a college with a stand alone nursing school or for the nursing to be taught within an integrated health sciences dept ?
In this Covid time I would also look at how colleges are responding to this issue - looking after students and faculty and if you are comfortable with how they are handling things.
I would see if it’s possible for your daughter to get some nursing related ECs . Difficult I know right now but nursing schools do look at this.
Also I found the net price calculators to be very helpful and accurate. If your daughter will be relying on merit aid only ( rather than needs based financial aid) she will get more generous aid if she is towards the top 25 percent of their class profile .
My daughter applied to way too many schools ( 15 I think) but if you have the time now to contact admissions offices and find out their nursing class profile and see if she is a good fit, I would apply to far less!
Best of luck.
I know this thread is kind of old but I always appreciated stat/acceptance updates when we were in this process last year so here goes! Last year D20 was accepted to the following
Direct-
Clemson - Honors
UTK
Non-Direct
U of SC
Auburn
App State - Honors
Stats -
3.9uw, 4.9w
30 ACT
45/550 rank
Lots of activities, leadership, sports, volunteering, and pt job.
She decided on Clemson and it’s been a great fit for her and she’s loving it despite the unusual year due to covid! She also really liked UTK and U of SC probably would have been in the running if she had gotten into honors as it is direct admit then.
I’m sure test optional and covid is throwing everything off this year but I hope you all will be hearing back from schools with good news soon!
Thanks for sharing your info! My daughter applied to Clemson last week. She has a 4.5 weighted, lots of extracurriculars and mostly AP/Honors/Dual Enrollment classes. (#37 out of 680)
Fingers crossed!! We are out of state though, so we’d need some merit/scholarship help…do you have any insight on that?
@mebmama Thanks for sharing. My d is just about done submitting her apps for nursing. Her top 2 choices are Clemson and UtK. Her weighted GPA is 4.67. Many EC’s, part time job, community service, some leadership rolls. 9/255 in her class.
Her list of directs she has applied:
UTK
Clemson
WVU
Temple
ASU
U Delaware
U Maine
U Pitt (going in by the end of the week)
We too are OOS (CT) so hoping for some merit. Guess it’s just the waiting game now. Fingers crossed she gets the acceptances she’s looking for.
We are in SC so price was definitely a factor in picking Clemson over UTK.
From our experience and also from what I’ve heard anecdotally, Clemson does not do auto merit and doesn’t give a lot of merit in general ( instate or oos) unless you are a tippy top candidate. In contrast UTK gave D20 really good auto merit that almost brought the price down to our Clemson in state rate but was still more once our SC state lottery scholarships kicked in.
The nursing programs and how they do their cohorts and clinicals were quite different at the schools we looked at so be sure you are talking to and visiting the nursing schools not just the schools in general so you can make good comparisons.
Also be sure to look into the additional nursing program costs at each place. Some tack on bigger amounts in the JR and Sr years only (UTK and U of SC were like this) while Clemson does a $1K per semester charge (x8) plus some one off charges in JR/Sr years. For most it ended up being around $10k total in extra nursing related charges. It was about the same for all of them - the payments were just spread out/charged differently.