I am hoping for some recommendations for colleges for me that have a BSN, direct admit is a bonus but I am open to others. I’ll try to remember to list everything here.
I attend a pretty large suburban high school in PA, top 50 in the state.
Currently have a 3.98 UW GPA, and 4.2 Weighted
I took the ACT once (26 ugh) and am taking again in June. Definitely need to bring it up or apply test optional. Would love opinions about going test optional too!!
I took AP Bio and AP Psych this year but not taking the exams
Senior year I will have AP Gov and AP Calc AB
Everything else basically is honors.
I would like a larger school probably over 10K with good sports, greek life and good clinical experiences pretty much anywhere on the east coast. I am capped at about 50k each year for tuition.
Activities
I swim year round (club and HS) and made States as a freshman and sophomore on our relay team.
School Clubs: Coalition for Social Justice Lead, Link Crew Leader, NHS, Special Needs peer mentor, Minithon Head
Out of School: Girls on the Run Jr coach, Special Olympics swim coach
Experience: Job shadow at a PT clinic
Work: Summers lifeguarding
I feel like I keep hearing mixed messages about test optional. I think my record without scores is pretty good but with scores is not so hot. Isn’t it better to omit them if I can?
I would love recommendations for schools to consider and thoughts on test optional applications if anyone is willing to share, thanks!!
You may or may not have test optional. A 26 isn’t bad - and who knows it might go up. If it doesn’t, you’ll know whether to submit it by the fact it’s either higher or lower than the school average. You’d be amazed - test optional schools still collect test data after admitting… U of Chicago accepted someone with a 20 (who applied without score).
You don’t say if you have geographic preferences - so you might look at:
Arizona State, Binghamton, Bradley, Temple, Cincy, UCONN and Delaware. I don’t know if it’s direct admit, but look at Arizona, Alabama, and Arkansas for great merit. Also, Miami Ohio.
Many on the CC point out that some schools, you have to go far for your clinical experience so you may want to find a school with nearby hospital.
I know several students currently in direct entry programs- BC, Villanova,Iowa, Purdue, univ of Cincinnati, Marquette, st Louis University and Miami Ohio. I think direct entry is the way to go and location to clinicals- depending on where they’re located you may need reliable transportation- just something to consider.
I’ll speak first from direct experience because my daughter is a nurse and will in the process reiterate some points already made.
The quality of a nursing program is heavily dependent on the quality of the clinical experiences it has access to. This means that the best nursing schools are typically found in big cities because that’s where the best hospitals are.
Part of your training is going to occur off campus at those clinical, so it’s important to find out where those are in relation to the campus and what assistance the college provides in getting to and from the clinical. For this reason, I would not recommend the University of Connecticut where I live because the campus is just too far from the hospitals. It’s a good program and it is direct admit, but a car is a must and the hassles just don’t seem to be worth it to me. Can it be done at a school like this? Sure. Nursing students do it every year. So, you decide, but be informed when you make that decision.
My daughter went to Boston College, which checks all the boxes. She has never had a problem getting a job even when jobs were scarce and she was easily admitted to a nurse practitioner program. She currently works at an Ivy League research hospital in pediatric intensive care. Like you, she was a top student (#3 in her class) at a suburban high school but with so-so SATs. The SARS didn’t prevent her from getting into BC. Grades matter.
BC checks all the boxes - top school, 4 years of on campus housing guaranteed, help with transportation to/from clinical, clinical sat the world class hospitals which open doors to good jobs upon graduation & often at those same hospitals. I’d look for a school like that.
Here are some direct admit programs in or near cities in the East:
Boston College
Drexel
Duquesne
Georgetown
MCPHS (Boston) - not sure if direct admit
Marymount (VA)
UMass Boston - not sure if direct admit
College of New Jersey
NYU
Northeastern
Quinnipiac
Penn
Pitt
Rutgers (Newark)
Seton Hall
Simmons
Temple
Vermont
Villanova
Virginia Commonwealth
Thank you so much this is really helpful. I think I have scared myself away from a lot of schools because of my test scores but I guess it doesn’t hurt to try!
It doesn’t hurt at all to try. Nurses are professionals who need to pay attention to detail - or patients die. And patient care is a lot of hard work. Nursing schools understand this. I think they put a high priority on applicants who have demonstrated by their high school grades that they work hard and attend to detail. In their shoes, wouldn’t you? Test scores need to show that a student can do the work, and yours are above average so they already show that. Georgetown might be the exception.
You’re doing the smart thing to take the ACT again, hoping to bump it up closer to 30. But right now you have nothing to apologize for and are a strong candidate anywhere. Just prepare a well balanced list of schools to apply to, and you’ll get in to a good nursing school. And I’m sure, you’ll be a very fine nurse. There’s more than one path to becoming that nurse, and that’s really the ultimate goal. Where you go to college is just the means to get there.
Penn would be an obvious choice as would Penn State (UP and Altoona).
PA has lots of direct admit nursing programs. I can look them up if you wish.
Off the top of my head, I know that UScranton has a program with a great reputation and first clinical contacts in your second year.
PITT has direct admit with an Honors BSN and URMP in nursing.
Villanova is not direct admit but it allows you to combine nursing and honors program. You can easily minor in Spanish or Global public health, of spend your sophomore year studying nursing in Manchester, England (a Russell group university, ie., high research, highly selective). First year is general, second year is introductory nursing, third and 4th year full nursing.
Duquesne, Bloomsburg, Chatham, West Chester, York are worth looking into although they’d be real safeties outside of nursing.
MYOS1634, unless you know something I don’t, Villanova Nursing is direct admit. This is what it says on their College of Nursing website: “You apply directly to the college.”
With regard to Penn State Nursing, which of the 6 direct admit campuses are we talking about? That’s important because application is made separately to each campus. Some have clinical placements as much as 50 miles away, so a prospective student needs to know the logistics and quality of clinical sat each campus. Nursing students on the main campus spend a year away from campus in Hershey. I’m sure that this is a great experience because this is where the Medical School is with its research hospital, but is that what a student wants to buy into when going to college? She needs to know that choosing Penn State at State College means choosing a year away with the accompanying disruptions to college life. I just thought that some explanation needs to accompany this recommendation.
OP will need to check - I thought there was a secondary threshold. Anyway stats indicate 90% retention from freshman to sophomore year so if there is it’s definitely not drastic, unlike at some universities where 2/3 are eliminated after the 1st or 2nd year (the PA v.Ohio difference is very stark).
For Penn State, students choose 2 campuses on their application, but considering OP’s stats s/he’d be applying to UP and Altoona, in either order. UP offers the “traditional ‘We are/Penn State’ experience”, it definitely has the most accomplished student body, nursing students can be part of the Schreyer community, etc. One year indeed is spent at a hospital complex near Harrisburg, which is a bit like study away with prestigious internship, not sure it’s a downside and it’s clearly explained AFAIK.
Altoona is a small campus (about 4,000 students), partly residential partly commuter but does feel like a real college compared to the other branches (minus Behrend and Harrisburg),albeit with fewer activities; it’s more nurturing than UP, there’s a greater age diversity, and if the student doesn’t want to spend a year in Hershey then they can stay in Altoona all 4 years. (There’s Schreyer too but let’s be real, it’s totally different from Schreyer at UP).
At most PA universities, nursing students are expected to have a vehicle and drivers’s license.
Thanks. I am not sure about applying to Penn State. I would only be interested in UP but I don’t want to have to live in Hershey for a year for clinicals so idk what I will end up doing with that. I think Penn is out of reach for me but I am going to look at Temple so maybe its worth checking out. And Scranton its funny cus the swim coach just reached out to me but its really small so not sure its a good fit but i may look there too. Thanks for all the feedback, its really helpful.
Might want to take a peak at U of Akron. Now a Direct Admit BSN program with over 90% NCLEX first time pass rate. Located in downtown Akron near major hospitals for clinicals. Fits the bill for D1 sports, over 10K undergrad population, greek life and great merit. I mean great merit for out of state. My daughter will be attending in Fall 2021 for a total cost less than our SUNYS and your grades were much better. They went through a reorganization last year with budget issues and shrinking student population. However, that was necessary due to demographic changes and focusing now on more applicable majors. She picked over York of PA (another good nursing program) because she wanted bigger and more urban.
You will have many choices with your grades. Many Direct Admit in PA alone.
as would Penn State (UP and Altoona).