Duquesne, Gannon, Waynesburg, Pitt at Greensburg, or Carlow For Direct Entry RN Program

College Majors Nursing Major
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My D is ready to start Senior year at Point Loma High School in San Diego, CA where he has a 3.9 weighted GPA which includes 10 AP semesters. ACT was 26 with 27 in both math and science. He will be taking again in hopes of getting higher score. Has a part time job at a restaurant. He has lots of “volunteer hours” where he helped me in my physical therapy clinic (not sure if that helps any or not, but we will try).

Nursing schools out here are ridiculously difficult to get into. Very few direct entry programs. I am originally from Western PA and discovered there are a ton of direct admit schools in the area.

Out of Duquesne, Gannon, Waynesburg, Pitt at Greensburg, and Carlow which would he have the best chance of getting in? Any info regarding quality of campus life for a 18 year old? Looking for a smaller University where there might be a fewer “distractions” but also have opportunities for fun, go out, parties on the weekends.

Any idea if merit scholarships are typical with my son’s stats, and if so, how much to expect?

Does my being a Pitt graduate carry any weight for Pitt at Greensburg?

Thank you.

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Sorry, meant to write “my son”…

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My daughter didn’t apply to any of those colleges, but she did apply to some similar ones in PA. She had a ACT of 28 and a similar GPA, but not as many AP classes. She was accepted to them all for nursing, and was offered 50% off of tuition for the private colleges. (The one place she didn’t get into was U. Del’s nursing program out of state. She was accepted as a bio major). She also was accepted to Penn State’s main campus nursing program.

The city of Pittsburgh has become a very popular place for college students. Most of the outlying towns are not nearly as interesting. I’ve never been to Erie, but it is not a place that most people make an effort to see. The one plus is that it is 1.5 hours from Buffalo, which is a much more interesting city.

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With his grades and scores, I think he has a good chance of getting into the nursing programs at all of the schools you mentioned. Westminster (new program), Robert Morris, IUP, Chatham, and Edinboro are other possibilities in Western PA. My S15 was accepted to IUP’s nursing program with significantly lower GPA and scores. Since Pitt Greensburg’s nursing program is new this year, it is hard to determine how it will compare with the one at main campus, though they will probably follow the same course and clinical sequence.

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I will be checking out Robert Morris also. Thanks for the heads up on that on! The Pittsburgh schools all sound good since he has a cousin who plans on going to Duquesne and that cousin’s brother already in a pre-med track at Duquesne as well. So the ideal would be to have the three of them live together to help mitigate some cost. I forgot to mention Westminster in my post. I have already communicated with the admissions director there and she said he has an outstanding probability of getting into The first year of their program. But she did tell me that it is one of those one +3 programs. That after the first year he would need to apply again to the professional part of the program. But that they were definitely going to give priority to students who took the first year course work at Westminster. And because it is going to be the first and second years of the program that he would be in great position. The admissions director even mentioned that she was from the very small town in western Pennsylvania that I’m from. Less than 1000 population. So hopefully that gives us a little edge too. Chatham has a very interesting program where you apply for direct admission into a three-year program at Butler community college. After the third year you take the national board test. If you pass that test they guarantee you admission for the last year which is online where you take coursework for one year through Chatham’s online system. And at the end of that year you get a bachelors degree. during that last year you also are working full-time as a nurse.

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@sanluisdavid If you and your son end up being seriously interested in Robert Morris, let me know via PM if you’d like to speak with a nursing school faculty member. My adult daughter’s husband teaches there - mostly nursing doctoral students, but he knows a lot about their BSN program.

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Re merit at Duquesne: My son with 27 ACT but much lower GPA was awarded merit there that brought the total for tuition, room, board and fees to about $30,500. However, he was planning to major in Business, which (I think) is easier to get into than nursing. So while your S would likely be accepted, his merit amount may depend on how high the stats of the other incoming nursing students are.

The downtown location means easy access to events in the city as well as on campus, so he would not be bored there.

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Thank you. We may take you up on that. I’m going to show my son some good YouTube videos I found of the campus and the Nursing program itself to see if he is interested. It looks great to me.

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That is good information to consider, that the merit money might not be as much if he is being stacked up against more qualified incoming Freshmen in the Nursing program. Thank you.

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The Pittsburgh area has very reasonable housing costs, so I wouldn’t let the living together issue be that much of a deciding factor. In any case, it will be nice to have some relatives nearby.

Among the PA. public universities, Edinboro does not have the greatest reputation, and has been experiencing a big decline in total enrollment. It also has a cold and isolated location that will probably be a hard transition for someone from San Diego.

http://www.post-gazette.com/news/education/2017/02/26/Struggling-Edinboro-University-plans-to-be-more-selective/stories/201702260125

A couple years ago, Edinboro literally accepted 99% of students who applied.

http://www.post-gazette.com/image/2017/02/26/ApplicationsLarge

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Each college may be different, but for the colleges with automatic merit aid programs, the nursing students are not competing with other nursing students for merit aid.

Most nursing students do better on the ACT than the SAT, because the ACT is more science and less math oriented. However, it still makes sense to try the SAT. Colleges will base their merit aid on whichever score is higher.

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My son and I were filling out the application for Duquesne today and it was the only one so far that charged money to apply. But they waive the $50 fee if you apply before December. But when you get towards the end of the application it has a boldly printed statement that if you are applying to any other schools then do not proceed and submit the application. They only want people who have Duquesne as their only choice. I was tempted to go ahead and submit it anyway but I did not want to have any bad karma from doing so.

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Could he possibly have checked off the “Applying ED?” box by accident? That’s the only explanation I can come up with, as my son applied last November and the app fee was automatically waived.

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@LuckyCharms913 I’m going to check into that. Thanks for the heads up!

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Search online and you may find some way to get a free application for a less selective college. (The selective colleges also often waive application fees for lower income students).

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@sanluisdavid I am probably late to this discussion, but wanted to hop in since my son and I have visited several of these colleges/nursing facilities and applied to most.

Pitt Oakland Campus (Accepted) - Son’s top choice based on him falling in love with Pittsburgh and the campus. I didn’t love the size, OOS price (especially because I really doubt he will get any academic merit here), and dorms. Nursing building was being renovated so the official nursing tour didn’t visit labs but I wouldn’t doubt it is top notch.

Pitt Greensburg (Didn’t apply since in the Pitt system you have to order your picks) - Admissions department was probably the nicest I’ve run into…seriously so nice and informative. Campus is really tiny and rural, but during the tour every faculty member we ran into stopped and talked to our student tour guide. I came away feeling like the faculty really cares about the students here. Dorms were suite/apartment style which I love (son doesn’t care either way which floors me). From what I recall about nursing specifically, this past year they started with about 10 students and were hoping to double that next year. Right now, there is no nursing specific area on campus as they are temporarily setting up shop in the science building. The plan is to build an extension to that building and put nursing department there but no ground broken as of this summer. Son didn’t love the remote location, and I didn’t love the uncertainty of there not really being a permanent home for the nursing department yet. Scholarship situation different from Oakland, so I think son could have come away with some decent money here.

Duquesne (Applied/Waiting for decision) - Son’s 2nd choice. Probably 1st choice for campus feel…so unique and gorgeous! Nursing department was really nice, but have since heard about the HESI exam controversy so will have to really take that into consideration.

Waynesburg (Accepted today actually) - This was one where son applied based on NCLEX but hasn’t visited yet, but will definitely need to do so now. $18,000 scholarship offer in admission acceptance email, which takes tuition down to $5,000 which is REALLY hard to beat. Not sure that my son will love the size since it is the same as his large, suburban high school or what I imagine is a remote area in PA (and I’m from PA although my kids have grown up in Northern VA). Need to go visit to get a feel for it, but the price point can’t be beat.

Carlow (Visited but did not apply) - Oh, Carlow…well all I can say is if your son applies and is accepted PLEASE don’t commit until you visit the campus. We just pulled our car onto the grounds and knew immediately it wasn’t a good fit as it is really outdated (felt like we were in a time warp outdated). K-8 school and retirement home for nuns in middle of campus and you literally could sprint from one end to the other in less than a minute it was so tiny. Nursing lab was so cramped it felt like we were in a closet. Not sure how a class (since there was only 3 of us and we were stepping on each other) could fit in there. % of males was so low that they only added males to the dorms in recent years, like just a few years ago if I recall correctly, and they are only on one floor. Anyhow…visit if you are seriously considering Carlow.

Gannon (Applied/Waiting) - Did not visit yet, but son was intrigued with the look of the pics online of the college and the town of Erie.

York (Accepted - admissions counselor told son yesterday at college fair at his HS but we are waiting for official letter) - Another top choice for my son which is a surprise since York, PA isn’t known for being a very nice area, but it wasn’t what I was expecting. Campus had a nice feel…smaller but not too small. Many dorms had no air conditioning (but so did a few of Pitt’s). Nursing building a short walk from the main campus through a small residential area. Really large, numerous sim labs (I was shocked during the tour because it went forever long with all the nursing labs). Great sports complex (my son is a rower which won’t happen here, but I seem to recall York having a large rock wall inside the complex). Expecting good academic scholarship here.

IUP (Accepted) - Need to visit. My husband is totally confused by the name and keeps thinking my son applied to a school in the state of Indiana.

Son applied to quite a few others in PA and a few in VA, although most VA colleges don’t offer direct entry other than University of Virginia (Applied/Waiting…long shot), Longwood (Applied/Waiting), Shenandoah (Applied/Waiting), and Marymount (Applied/Waiting). Colleges in PA are kind of like Starbucks in a city…one on every corner! Good luck…

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Wildfelix - Thanks for posting. My daughter graduated from York this year and is working at the large local hospital. She really liked the nursing and the science classes and the clinical opportunities. Some of the other classes were not great - but she spent most of her time on the nursing and science classes by far.

More of the upper class housing st York is air conditioned than the freshman dorms (which is common at some other colleges). My daughter played a varsity sport and traveled to many other colleges and said that York had the best gym/pool complex for a college of its size. York’s academic scholarships are automatic based upon certain scores. The size is good for getting to know other students, but it is not so small that it is stifling.

IUP has a reputation of being a party school for too many students.

Erie is rather isolated from most of the world. I’d also check out the weather. I saw one recent list that showed Erie, Buffalo, Syracuse and Boston as having the most snow per year among major US cities. That can get REAALLY old by February and March.

Most people love going to college in Pittsburgh.

Duquesne had a bad experience because the college required way too high a score in order to be allowed to take the RN test. After bad press, they lowered their standard to a more reasonable level.

Many colleges require a student to take an extra class or do additional test prep if the student does not do well on the prep tests.

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@Charliesch Do you mind if I ask about the “other classes were not great” at York? Is that based on selection, how hard they were, etc? York is near top of list for my son. I recall during the nursing tour that we were told their top students tended to be student athletes. The staff giving that tour was pretty no-nonsense and was pretty clear that they lose quite a few students to grades. We were really impressed with the labs as they were pretty equivalent to Penn State main campus in size/scope (son did not like State). But I have to say I didn’t get warm fuzzies from the nursing staff who gave part of tour, although the lab director(?) was SO nice! How did your daughter feel about her support system from nursing faculty?

Just read the nursing handbook (2013-14) for Waynesburg last night, and it appears (would need to confirm) that Freshman are admitted as “prenursing” and need to end the year with a 3.3 GPA to move into the nursing program Sophomore year. Not sure how I feel about that…

Ultimately, we are at the point of trying to decide whether it is worth paying top dollar for Pitt…yikes…or going with a smaller, but still respectable nursing program with less debt when the end goal for my son is a graduate degree in nursing. Son is married to the idea of Pitt, but I am more concerned with money. I feel like I am consumed with worrying about making the right choice for his future! Ugh…sorry to highjack thread as I originally was just posting my current thoughts on the schools listed in the topic.

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Does Slippery Rock have nursing? It is a nice school in the western part of the state.

Also Seton Hill, but I think merit/application deadline is coming up soon!

In Ohio, you could look into Cleveland State and Youngstown State, their net price calculator gives a merit estimate I believe.

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Slippery Rock doesn’t have a pre-licensure BSN program, only online RN to BSN.