I am having the hardest time deciding between direct entry nursing programs for Purdue University, UMass Amherst, UVM, and SUNY Binghampton. I am an out of state for student for all of these schools so out of state tuition isn’t a factor. Does anyone have any inside information about these schools?
Are you holding admissions for all four? Did you get merit money for any of them? Is the net cost going to be the same for all of them?
One of the things that you might want to consider - do any of them have hospitals nearby? I can tell you that UMass Amherst doesn’t have any hospitals near campus, so you’d probably need a car, unless the only hospital that they have you go to is the one in Northampton, which is serviced by the 5-college consortium bus. If they have you going to Springfield for hospitals, it’s about a half hour drive.
UVM has a hospital on campus, which is a plus. It is an attractive campus in a nice small city. I do not know anything about the nursing program.
Your training is going to be highly dependent on your exposure to best practices in your clinical placements. UVM Medical Center is a teaching and research hospital right on campus. None of the other 3 have anything comparable nearby for clinical placements. UVM is the top choice. If everything else works out that you can go there, I wouldn’t consider any of the other three.
Thank you so much!!! The thing i am mostly worried about UVM is it’s reputation for having a lot of drugs. Would you say that stereotype is true?
There are some drugs on campus at almost any university. I am sure that there are drugs on campus at UVM. However, you can avoid them as long as you want to (which you should want to do – university is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and you do not want to waste it).
One thing that is a bit ironic is that Burlington VT is probably the strictest place in North America that I have been with regard to carding for alcohol. Three of the last four times that I was carded were in Burlington (and I was older than the parents of the people who were carding me). I do not think that Salt Lake City was as strict in this regard.