Help deciding [for Nursing] re: Elmira, LeMoyne and Niagara

[richf771]

Hi. This sort of piggy backs off the prior post regarding probationary and new programs. I have been thinking about posting, but most on CC seems to be written for students destined for T30 schools. That was my daughter 3 years ago. My son, who will be starting college in the fall is a different story. In many ways his is an equally, if not more compelling story.

He was adopted at 6 years of age from an orphanage in an Eastern European country, suffering from malnutrition and spinal dysgenesis at T10-11 with myelopathy. He had been in a facility mostly for profoundly mentally ill adults, but that also housed a small number of children deemed to be unadoptable. Luckily around the age of 5 a child advocate found him, realized how sharp and smart he was, and had him transferred to a much progressive orphanage. He spoke very little, and what he did was in Russian. Fast forward to now. With great effort on the part of my wife and my son, he has overcome incredible obstacles and is finishing at his Christian Brothers School with a solid 89 average. Every year has been better than the prior. Written language and test taking can be a challenge due to language, but with effort he does well. Two years ago he was out of school for 6 months after 12 hour spine surgery at Boston Childrens. He was hospitalized for one month there and fell in love with the nurses and what they did. His desire to be a nurse is real and deep. He also very much likes the applied nature of nursing

All of this is to say he is a great guy, real out of the box thinker, super empathetic who continues to do best on projects, less well on tests. He will make a great nurse. We all decided that applying to direct entry would be best. He applied to 18 schools with DI and was accepted to all, but not all nursing.

We are down to the wire with decision making and wondering if anyone has any constructive advice.

His top three schools are (all the same price roughly):

Elmira College

pros: beautiful campus, uber support services, very involved seemingly loving campus, very involved nursing faculty with stability and NCLEX of 90% last year and stability over time, most kids live on campus, strong esports team

cons: Small, 650 students, they say they are making smart choices and enrollment is increasing to their target of 1100, but who knows? My son was not quite as in tune with the vibe, but I am not sure he is being fair.

LeMoyne College

Pros: most selective of schools he is considering for what that is worth, Jesuit ethic, strong president, strong enrollment. NCLEX 80 last year, but was 90 prior

Cons: 4+2+1 program where students go to St. Josephs College of Nursing associated with St. Josephs Health. A bit of a black box, in that you are dealing with 2 different faculties, but may be a bit easier to navigate given a bit of gait d/o, no real esports, significant commuter population

Niagara University

Pros: 30 mins from home, closer to sailing, which is his activity, he liked his sleep over, liked the vibe of the school and students the most. They state that they have a philosophy of not weeding out, so less worry of a tough class ending career.

Cons: 30 mins from home (neg according to mom. He already told his mom that she will be his student success coach is he goes to Niagara), younger program (restarted several years ago), new dean could be plus, NCLEX had been in the 70s but feel to 55% last year. Significant commuter population, but he sees as a plus as he is close to home too.

Other schools admitted to for nursing include: University of Detroit Mercy, Colby-Sawyer, Keuka, Utica, Gannon, Baldwin Wallace, Iona and John Carroll (new program starts 2023). Waitlisted at St. Anselm

I think he would like Niagara the most, but we are worried about the NCLEX rate. I’m sure they will say it was Covid related, but U/Buffalo, using same clinical sites maintained 96% pass rate.

I think my wife and I were most impressed with Elmira for the support and success but concerned with the size.

We want to make sure he succeeds and passes the NCLEX, becoming a nurse, but we also want to make sure adequate support, rather than weeding out to increase NCLEX scores is present.

[AustenNut]

Congratulations to your son on his many acceptances! His story does sound very compelling; I’m sure his patients will love him!

I don’t know much about nursing, so I can’t give any advice with respect to that. @LionsTigersAndBears recently shared a really helpful website that lets people do a deep dive on a school, including on enrollment and financial trends: College Tables. Here’s the page for Elmira: Elmira College

Two of the tables that I find useful when looking at a school’s viability are the number of undergrads and the revenue minus expenses. Here are snips from Elmira’s page with that information.

As much as it pains me to say this about a school that seems to be offering awesome supports for students, it does seem as though there may be some reasonable basis for concerns about the school’s sustainability. Perhaps someone else with more insight on colleges like @dfbdfb might have a different interpretation, however.

[happy1]

First off congrats to you and your son. He sounds like an amazing and determined young man who has already, with your love and support, accomplished so much.

I can’t speak to the schools you mentioned or their nursing programs but wanted to chime in about your feeling that Niagara is “too close” to home.

My S looked at colleges up and down the east coast and when decisions came in his favorite (and the highest merit award) was a college 20 minutes from home. We sat down to discuss it before he accepted the offer there. We (parents) agreed to never pop by even if we were close and he (student) agreed to not use being close to home as a crutch (no coming by for dinner, laundry etc.). We agreed to expect him home only during school breaks. Basically we all agreed to act as if he was hours rather than 20 minutes away. We all kept our end of the deal and it worked out great. He lived on campus all four years, only came home for school vacations, and had a full and wonderful college experience. And a few times being close was helpful (ex. when his laptop broke I could drive over with his old one to use, he made it home for a break during a snowstorm (and even brought friends who couldn’t get home that day)).

Anyway it is a personal decision but wanted to share our experience.

My two cents is that from your thread it sounds like Niagara is a nice option although the NCLEX pass rate is concerning (and could the low pass rate lead to a problem with the program’s accreditation?). I would listen to your son if he doesn’t feel the vibe at Elmira is right (especially at such a small school I think fit is critical). The Leymoyne program couldbe a good option but it does not sound to me as straightforward of a path although I may have misread (ex. will he need to meet certain cutoffs to get into the next part of the program, extra years to complete).

Congrats on his great options and more importantly congrats on becoming a parent to a boy who had such an incredibly difficult start in life and raising a wonderful and caring youg man. I think he will do great things wherever he ends up.

[dfbdfb]

I agree with @AustenNut’s financial concerns about Elmira (especially since their endowment is only about $38M), which really seems a shame, because it looks otherwise excellent—but the upheaval if a kid’s college disappears before they’re done can be very unpleasant.

Niagara looks good but for the NCLEX pass rate. Is there anything in particular (other than covid) that could have caused that? Like, was there an experiment they tried that didn’t pan out, and they’ve recognized what it is? If they’ve identified a problem and taken steps to fix it, I’m less worried.

LeMoyne looks interesting, and the Jesuit approach to education might work very well with someone like your son. I will say that I philosophically like 4+x programs more than 3+x programs—the added year at the first institution allows for more stability and a better connection to the cohort a student enters with, and the next phase is basically just going on to grad school.

So I don’t know that I’m much help in this, except to say: CC definitely has a lot of showboating, but it isn’t all T30 applicants. My kids have gone/are going to Mississippi State, Muhlenberg, and North Texas, because those were the best colleges for them, not because there was some level of “prestige” they needed to hit. It sounds like you’ve helped your kid find the best possibilities for him, and that is to be stated proudly—the only way the stranglehold of self-important name-dropping in the college application process will end is if enough people stop feeling like they need to be ashamed of their choices.

</soapbox>

[ucbalumnus]

Seems like the criteria for choosing frosh-entry BSN programs includes these important factors:

• Net price.
• Direct admit or secondary admit.
  • If direct admit, what progression requirements (including grades/GPA) are there to stay in the program?
  • If direct admit, can the program be “overbooked” so that some students meeting the progression requirements cannot continue (at least immediately)?
  • If secondary admit, how competitive is the secondary admission process?
  • Note that secondary admit that automatically admits at a certain GPA is equivalent to direct admit that weeds out below that same GPA.
• NCLEX pass rate.

[am9799]

I am not familiar with those schools so I can not comment. However, I would like to say that for passing NCLEX students are also responsible for the work they put in. There is quite a lot of help online for free and/or moderate pay (200$) that preps you for the test. Some schools also buy software that you can use for free. The curriculum of BSN goes above and beyond nclex and it is not just test prep. My daughter and her friends put at least a few weeks of prep after finals and before the test.

[chmcnm]

Did you visit Gannon?

Might be worth a look. Decent nursing program. Close to Presque Isle.

[richf771]

Thanks for the replies. We did visit Gannon. It is close, has a sailing team, but my son did not really care for the campus or the vibe, so not one of his finalists. Austennut, thanks for the links and graphs, extremely interesting. No doubt that smaller colleges are a greater risk, and as you say unfortunate given the personal support that is given. Elmira has been given approval by NYS to borrow from their endowment to make strategic changes. Hopefully this keeps them going. I suspect they will be around at least 4 years. While I would not want to see my son’s college close at any time, my biggest goal is that he be successful in completion, which may be greatest at Elmira.

We spoke with a graduate of LeMoyne a few days ago and he said that he really liked the 1+2+1 aspect of the program with the associates sandwiched between time at Lemoyne. He felt that since St. Joseph’s college of nursing is on the campus of St. Joes medical center, the experience of really be immersed in the atmosphere, the quality of the clinicals, the ability to work as a student nurse and then as a nurse, gave him a big leg up in getting his first job at a highly ranked medical center in NYC. Also, looks like they have a really high quality DEU or capstone experience, 9 credits, compared with 6 or 3 at the other two colleges. The nurses where I work suggest that the experience in clinicals can be highly variable, depending upon site, instructor, etc, but that the capstone DEU working with 1 nurse the entire semester is where you really gain your confidence, so more seems better in that regard.

Also, we as analyzed the programs, the LeMoyne/St. Joes program has 60 nursing credits, compared with 36 at Niagara and 45 at Elmira. Not a small difference.

One last thing that came out was that at LeMoyne/St. Joes they used to have a grading system where to pass a nursing class, you needed a passing grade overall AND a passing grade on tests. They did away with that this year, indicating that you would need to meet with an advisor, but would pass.

That procedure of passing both course and test is still in play at Niagara, not sure at Elmira. My son is not the world’s greatest test taker, so not sure that putting another obstacle in his way is the best answer.

Thanks all.