New York State Nursing

Looking for suggestions (NY only at this point, but please suggest Northeast as well) and Yes/No on schools. My D17 is just starting to look. She wants to be a Nurse Practitioner, so BS in nursing comes first. We are waiting to hear on her application to the New Visions Allied Health program for her HS senior year. She would be taking 4 college classes while interning at different medical facilities in the county if she gets accepted.

So far, we have visited Utica College and SUNY Brockport.

On the list:
SUNY Binghamton
St. John Fisher
Nazareth
Daemon
Russell Sage

SUNY Binghamton-small nursing program-rural health focus. state school. Less expensive. In the middle of nowhere for clinicals. Nice campus. Good reputation.
St. John Fischer - beautiful campus. small school. actual nursing classes don’t start until junior year.

Daemen- is a BSN, but the nursing part is in conjunction with local community colleges. It is called a 1-2-1 program, I think. 1 year at Daemen, 2 at the comm college, 1 back at Daemen. We did not like that.
SUNY Brockport- not direct entry, so if your GPA is not high enough and they take 40-50 students, it’s possible to have good grades and not get into their nursing program. On our visit, Brockport was one of the worst college tours we ever had and they could have cared less about us and that was from both the general college part and the nursing program. We left there thinking, this place is not very welcoming, nor personal. And it is in the middle of nowhere. Where do you live in New York State?

@marybee333 - we live in Oswego County. Thanks for that part about Daemen, Lemoyne is like that too, except for the middle two years are at St. Joseph’s Hospital and D17 did not like that. I think she has to give Lemoyne a chance and talk to people there.

D17 also got that impression from our tour at Brockport. Not personal whatsoever.

I’d broaden your search to some of the many direct entry nursing programs in eastern Pennsylvania.

@Charliesch - do you have some names of schools she should consider? There are a lot on Long Island too, but we really do not want the 6-8 hour drive from central NY.

Alright, we are registered to visit St. John Fisher, LeMoyne and SUNY Binghamton in June.

We did not like LeMoyne either. And there is nothing to do there. We passed on a HUGE scholarship there because my student attended accepted student visit overnight and all the tour guides/student ambassadors did is talk about drinking and showing off their hidden alcohol bars in their rooms and they said there’s nothing going on in Syracuse. We did not even bother attending the rest of the visit, because the students were just not a great fit, for my serious student. And BTW, the students bragging on all their alcohol stashes were nursing students. Kind of revolting.

Since you are in Oswego, check out SUNY Plattsburgh and UVM. We liked both of those nursing programs and got terrific scholarship money at both. We ended up in Pittsburgh, because both of those locations were a farther drive in the snowy winters of the Adirondacks and Green Mountains. There is no easy drive to get to either place. Both are in gorgeous parts of NYS/Western Vermont, if you don’t mind rural settings. Burlington is just about the most beautiful place on Lake Champlain and has more to do than Plattsburgh. The air even smells like the mountains there. It is a small city with only one hospital, which is another reason we opted for a larger city with more medical facilities. I have researched and toured more than 20 nursing programs. Niagara University also has a terrific nursing program in WNY. Look at Hartwick College, University of Scranton, University of Buffalo (not direct entry), Duquesne University, Xavier, and University of Pittsburgh.

http://www.upstate.edu/con/

We did not tour here, but it is well respected and close to you.

Thank you so much for all of your input. I have suggested Plattsburgh to D17, it is not easy to get to, that is for sure!

Which school in Pittsburgh? I have suggested a few to her and she gets so caught up in the money part that she does not even look.

Hartwick is on our list as well as Niagara. Busy summer visiting since she participates in Field band and that is every Saturday during September/October, when most fall open houses are.

My student chose Duquesne. They award good merit scholarship $$$ and were cheaper than Pitt which is very expensive for OOS students. Both have great programs, but may be farther than your student wants to travel. I would seriously check out Upstate Medical University in Syracuse.

Upstate is a 2+2 program. We live about 20 minutes north of Syracuse. She would have to go to a community college and apply at the same time to Upstate. It is on her list…I have always “pushed” this a little because it is very low for tuition and has the NP program that she could go right into.

If you expect to be eligible for substantial college grants from your state, you should check to see whether those state grants can be used at an out of state college.

Some direct entry nursing programs in eastern PA. include West Chester U., Bloomsburg U., York College of PA, DeSales University, University of Scranton, Misericordia U., Alvernia U., and Wilkes U. Many of the private colleges provide merit aid equal to half of the tuition for top students. A couple of the public universities in northern PA. also provide tuition discounts to New York State residents - I believe Mansfield and Edinboro do that.

There also are some hospital based nursing programs, including at Reading Hospital, PA. College of Health Sciences (Lancaster General), St. Luke’s Hospital in Fountain Hill, and Thomas Jefferson U. in Phila.

Penn State main campus and Penn State Altoona also have direct entry nursing programs.

mac51996, does quality of the associated hospital and medical school matter? If so, I’d suggest looking carefully at Upstate before making a decision. The medical school was on probation in 2012 after a very negative accreditation review. it was taken off in 2013. So it has been off probation for 3 years. But it is a SUNY so you might want to check to ensure that the changes made were genuine rather than just loads of effort to change appearance rather than to improve the actual conditions.