Most realistic Direct Entry BSN programs East Coast [NY resident, 93.39 GPA]

Applying to College
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Your daughter will probably make an excellent nurse. Her academic record qualifies her to become a nurse, predicts success in nursing school, predicts ability to pass the nursing NCLEX exam. If she wants it, she will get it.

Probably the easiest, cheapest way through is the CUNY/SUNY schools, especially if she can live at home. She could even do the community college RN to 4 yr college RN to BSN route. It really doesn’t matter which nursing school you went to, which path you took to get to your level of certification. All the hospitals care about is that you have the degree, pass the exams, and have a good work record.

There are literally hundreds of schools in the Northeast where she can get a BSN. Sure, there are high bar acceptance schools like Penn and Duke, but there are SO many 3rd tier schools with BSN programs. Even if they’re direct entry, one still needs to maintain decent grades to stay in the program, so I don’t know if direct entry vs pre-req and then entry makes that much difference.

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Pitt would be highly unlikely. It’s a pretty easy application and worth a shot, but it’s the most competitive school at Pitt for freshman admissions. The undergraduate program is typically ranked in the top 10-15 in the country.

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thank you so much for these positive words!

I guess we are just trying to figure out 2 things:
her best options for acceptance
and then also her best options that have a large beautiful campus, student life, sports type of deal.

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This is giving me hope.

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I’m on Temple’s website. Why is it so hard to find clear info for direct entry with so many of these schools. It’s like they don’t want you to apply lol. BTW reading up on temple now andI’m finding a lot of crime?

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Okay, it sounds as if you want for her both nursing school and the traditional bucolic campus college experience. That is narrowing things down. Another thing - nursing practicals are of course taught in hospitals, so she’d need a car to get to them, unless there is transportation provided, or the school is in a city. How far away are you willing to let her go?

What can you afford to pay, annually, for college? Do you expect that she would qualify for financial aid?

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I know. It’s not easy to figure out. I can say for sure that Temple is direct entry since my daughter is there. She applied to 7 or 8 schools all for nursing all of which were direct entry. Another 1 high on her list was Duquesne. They gave a lot of merit, so don’t be scared off by the tuition amount. Good Luck to your daughter (and you!) through this process.

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I have to start learning about financial aid. Im open to a 2 hr plane ride from NY/NJ. Maybe 50k a year?

Yes good point -also needing to narrow down schools that have the most convenient clinicals

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The campus is definitely a city campus. There is crime in the surrounding area. It is definitely something to take into account when looking at this school.

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any thoughts on pace? is it direct entry?

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Once you’re dealing with an airport, it almost doesn’t matter how long the flight is in the US, especially if you’re in the NYC area, with its three major airports - there’s a nonstop from NYC to almost anywhere. But really, she doesn’t have to go that far to get a nursing school that she can get into, on a college campus.

SUNY 4 yr nursing programs: Albany, Binghamton, Brockport, Buffalo, Plattsburgh, Farmingdale. Alfred, Canton, and Delhi allow earning an RN on way to a BSN. If she is willing to go the community college RN to 4 yr college BSN route, add on Stony Brook to which she can transfer, plus there are a number of online RN to BSN programs.

There are literally hundreds of nursing programs at colleges near you, mostly not all that selective (and your daughter has a great GPA), and most of the private ones will give her “merit” money just to fill the seat; even the public ones are likely to give her some merit since she’s OOS tuition. Examples are St Joe’s in West Hartford, U Hartford on the West Hartford/Hartford border, Quinnipiac, Western, Southern, and Central CT colleges, and I am sure there are many, many others within a 4 hour drive of you.

Every direct admit nursing program is going to require that she maintain a certain GPA to continue, so in a way, it doesn’t matter so much if she’s in a pre-nursing program fulfilling the pre-reqs along the required pathway, or in a direct admit. Nursing school is not that hard, and either way, if she cannot make the grades, she won’t be able to continue. But a girl who can get an A average overall, and a B in math, will be fine in nursing school.

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Yes, Pace is direct entry.

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thank you for that info. seriously appreciate it. I do think it matters to get into direct entry instead of pre-nursing I see time and time again as I search many kids having big issues getting accepted after their soph year and I dont want her to have that pressure. Direct entry is the goal. She will apply pre-nursing to a few as back up.

One of her issues is that she really wants to be either on a beautiful large campus with all the frills. Shes open to a city type atmosphere if the program looks good.

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SUNY Plattsburgh, Brockport, Albany

UB and Binghamton can be included but I would consider them to be a reach. The branch campuses of Penn State are also options.

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Students in Penn State’s nursing program spend a full year at Penn State Hershey Medical Center and are required to live in Hershey for that year.

It’s a little under two hours between State College and Hershey, so close enough that she could go to campus for football games or weekend parties, but far enough that (I’m guessing) nursing students won’t feel like part of regular campus life for that year.

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Penn State main campus’s nursing program is extremely competitive for admission. I think it is much more likely that the OP’s daughter would be accepted to one of the branch campuses that offer nursing, of which Altoona and Behrend (Erie) are the largest and most residential. Altoona would be close enough to travel to main campus on weekends for football games.

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Does anyone know if Colby Sawyer in NH would work for this student? I realize it’s not a big football school, but they have (or at least they used to have) an excellent nursing program.

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It can matter. Direct admit programs usually weed out by a stated college GPA requirement, but the GPA varies across different nursing programs, from as low as 2.25 to as high as 3.5.

Non-direct admit programs which have a guaranteed secondary admission GPA are basically equivalent to direct admit programs with the same GPA as the weed-out GPA. However, most non-direct admit programs are competitive admission, so the student does not know beforehand what GPA they need to achieve in order to progress, and may face additional uncertainty if there are subjective criteria for secondary admission. In some cases, the (competitively determined) GPA threshold for secondary admission may be as high as 3.9.

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If shes open to basketball or a bit more west than “east coast”, perhaps Xavier. Or University of Iowa.

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A good friend’s daughter went to Eastern for nursing, and I met a lot of Widener nurses when my mom was hospitalized. I know those schools are an easier admit than Penn State etc. You should definitely look at the costs however.

Bloomsburg also has a good nursing program - it’s more in the middle of the state, so not sure how easy it would be to get to for you