<p>Hi, I'm looking for a college to major in nursing, but I'm sort of picky with it! It definetely NEEDS to be a 4 year Bachelors program (RN) for me (coming straight from high school). Also:</p>
<ul>
<li>In either: New york, connecticut, massachusetts, rhode island, new jersey, pennsylvania... even delaware but I'd rather any of the other states I listed.</li>
</ul>
<p>-Medium sized (more than 2,000 but less than say 10,000)
-Small class size (no lecture halls, or at least not many)
-Good technology (SIM labs)
-Plenty of clinical opportunities (affiliated with many hospitals!)
-Not too expensive! Including tuition, room & board, and meal plan.... NO more than about $40,000, give or take)
-good reviews :)</p>
<p>Also depends on where you live and what your stats are. Does your state school have a good program? That may be less than $40K. </p>
<p>Do not be turned off by sticker price alone. If you have good stats, you may be offered merit money even if you don’t qualify for financial aid.</p>
<p>thanks I live in NY so most of the SUNY and CUNY (state university of ny, city university of new york) are really big, with huge class sizes. so even those are very low in cost, they aren’t my first choice.</p>
<p>I did check in to Quinnipiac University, it is a little over 40,000 but my sister applied there and got the cost down to a do-able amount, and has just about the same grades as me with not as many extracurricular activities. Does anyone know about Quinnipiac? it sounds like a good college to me</p>
<p>I think Quinnipiac easily meets your criteria. We live in New England, and it has a very good reputation for the nursing program. We visited the school twice (after D was accepted), and it has an amazing new SIM facility and nursing building. The nursing building is at an off-site office park, a few miles from the main campus. My D looked closely at Quinnipaic, but they didn’t offer any merit money, and she felt like her choice was a better overall fit.</p>
<p>She was offered very good money from Seton Hall. They seem to have a good program, but she thought it seemed like a lot of kids didn’t stay on campus, and we were not sure about how one would get to clinical. They offered A LOT of money.</p>
<p>Another (safety) school in NH that offered A LOT of merit money was Colby Sawyer. It was very remote location, but apparently they offer some clinical experiences at Dartmouth Mary Hitchcock, and other small local hospitals. The school seemed too small and too remote for her.</p>
<p>You may have read some of my others posts. D is currently a freshman at University of Scranton. It may be another school you take a look at. It meets all of the criteria you identified. Again, the merit money helped it become more affordable and a great option for her.</p>
<p>Except for the money, Fairfield was very attractive and meets most of your other criteria.</p>
<p>URI and UVM seem to have larger introductory classes and campus size may exceed your desired size.</p>
<p>You may want to check out U Maine. We were pleasantly surprised by the campus and program.</p>
<p>Thanks! I’m really interested in Quinnipiac. Also, you said that your D went to University of Scranton. How is it there? I was also very interested in that school, because it seemed very good, but someone said that the town around the University is very dull, almost like a “ghost town” so I was unsure. </p>
<p>Of course, I will be visiting these colleges in the next few months, but I’m trying to limit my list! Thanks for any help!</p>
<p>Q is a good school,no question…BUT,lol, Take a hard look at Pitt,i think one of the best Nursing Programs around the NY/NJ/PA/CT area…Size may be bigger then you’d like however…Visited U Scranton and can confirm your concerns, not much to “love” about Scranton…But, that shouldn’t be your deciding factor, as i’ll bet those that actually attend U Scranton will say otherwise ;)</p>
<p>My D didn’t get into Pitt,and being a PA resident,the cost would have been a significant savings…She was accepted at fairfield/U Mass/Dusquense/Northeastern/Drexel(which has the BEST co-op program in my opinion,and a very underrated school),Penn State(though not Main for 1st year) and Villanova, where she currently is a freshman(loves it)…</p>
<p>I have posted on the Scranton thread about my Daughter’s experience so far. So far, she seems very happy with what the school, nursing program, and Scranton have to offer. </p>
<p>We thought Scranton (location) might be dull, until we really researched what it has to offer. Lots of cultural events, music, arts, etc. Also has enough other recreational and sporting event type things to do in the surrounding area. Scranton itself has malls, movies, restaurants, and cafes. It also has an interesting historical past, and lots of interesting historical / architectural buildings. Our impression is that the school really makes an effort to offer non-alcoholic activities for the kids who don’t drink on Friday nights and weekends. They also offer enough other clubs (academic, intramural, and community service) that keeps them motivated and busy during the week. She has joined the concert band and frequents the gym as a stress reliever.</p>
<p>There are a lot of students from NY, NJ, and PA there.</p>
<p>D just called because she was excited about volunteering at a hospital that is .5 miles from her dorm in a nursing field that she hopes to pursue. Community service is required for first year nursing students.</p>
<p>I would really recommend that you do yourself a favor and at least visit the University of Delaware located in Newark, De. It is located about 45 minutes south of Philly right off of Interstate 95. UD has one of the most beautiful college campuses in the US. Total student enrollment is about 18,000 but it feels much smaller. Each years nursing class totals about 130 students. It has a state-of-the-art nursing simulation lab. OOS tuition and fees is about $25,000. Although it is a state (Delaware) supported university it is privately governed and the majority of students are from OOS (NJ,PA,NY,MD). Newark is an excellant college town and Main Street runs right thru the campus. NYC, Philly, Baltimore, and DC are easy to get to. Graduates from the program who perform well have gotten jobs at top rated university hospital systems (i.e. UPenn hospital, New York Presbyterian/Cornell and Columbia Medical Centers). UD is a hidden gem for Nursing so I would again recommend that you should add it to your list. Check out their website at UDEL.edu. Best of luck to you in your college search.</p>
<p>^^
Where do the UDel nursing students do their clinicals and how far do they have to travel to get to them? How many total clinical hours do they have at graduation? Thanks.</p>
<p>The above comment about many of the clinicals being in Philly is inaccurate. Most of the clinicals are held at the Christiana Hospital System (Hospitals in Newark and Wilmington), Nemours/A.I. Dupont Childrens Hospital in Wilmington, VA Medical Center in Wilmington, and several other hospitals in Delaware. My daughter just graduated from UD in May. Except for some Psych Clinicals held in PA she rarely had to travel more than 30 minutes to a clinical site, most of the time it was 10-20 minutes. This is a common misperception about nursing clinicals at UD. Nursing Externship Positions (paid) are also available at Chrisitiana Hospital in Newark (10 minutes from UD) and at Nemours/A.I. Dupont Childrens Hospital in Wilmington (20-25 minutes) for nursing students who want additional clinical exposure. The number of clinical hours is similar to other high quality BSN nursing programs.</p>
<p>^^^, funny, as we asked this exact question during our “private” visit, and was told that clinicals can be anywhere, including the Philly market…We pressed further, and was told many students take the train to Philly,but since you have 1st hand knowledge about this, maybe they were covering their “bases”,so as not to surprise anyone if they did indeed have to go to Philly, which would be a major pain</p>
Just so the OP has a point of reference for comparison:
How many total clinical hours do UD BSN students receive?
How many hours do most other high quality BSN programs provide.
Thanks.</p>
<p>Quality nursing programs should provide at least 25-30 clinical hours per course credit hour. At UD students in their Sr. year spend 3 days per week in clinical settings for a total of well over 500 hours clinical time in their Sr. year. In addition 80-160 hours are required in their Jr. year in a clinical work setting along with several hundred hours in the nursing simulation lab. Many other hours are spent in field trips during the 2nd and 3rd yesr.</p>
<p>One needs to be very cautious about trying to use clinical hours as the sole measure of the quality of a nursing BSN program. Quantity does not always equate to quality. At UD the ratio of clinical staff to students in a clinical rotation is 1:8, which allows for a good level of educational involvement between clinical staff and students. A number of programs tend to boast about the high number of clinical hours they provide students, but often the staff to student ratio is 1:15 or worse, offering a much less then ideal learning experience.</p>
<p>BSN Nursing education has been undergoing a dynamic evolution over the last 5 years with a much more clinical/diagnostic focus involving the development of clinical problem solving skills, understanding/utilizating/identifying nursing care best practices, and the development of leadership skills as compared to the past technical focus of just following physician orders. Research is also a major focus as it ties in to all of these things. Programs at UD tend to emphasize these areas along with providing good basic nursing skills training.</p>
<p>I do not doubt that there are a number of quality BSN programs out there. I am just trying to express my opinion, based on my D’s experiences at UD, that UD is certainly one of them and should be considered by potential nursing applicants. While it may not be a perfect measure of the quality of a nursing program, the passage rate on the NCLEX exam has often been cited as at least one measure of the quality of a nursing program. At UD the pass rate is 92% on the first attempt with a 100% pass rate overall subsequently (from UD’s web site). Best of luck to all you future nurses.</p>
If I’ve added up your numbers correctly it appears that UD offers somewhere between 700-900 clinical hours to BSN students. Is that correct?
How many hours do other high quality BSN nursing programs offer?
What is the academic accrediting agency requirement for instructor-to-student ratios during clinical hours?
Which accredited BSN programs do you know of that have a 1:15 (or worse) instructor-to-student ratio during clinical hours?
Thanks for all the information.</p>
<p>I’m in a unique program that is an articulation between a 4 year LAC and a 2 year college of nursing…so right now, I’m in my second year of college, but my first year of nursing school.</p>
<p>I will have completed 720 clinical hours by May 2012 in an associates degree program…and by May 2013 when I graduate with my BSN, it’ll be about 900, maybe closer to 1000.</p>
<p>Your totals for UD are about right-more towards the upper end if not even a little higher overall for 4 years. As I noted in my prior post high quality BSN programs should provide 25-30 hours per clinical course credit hour. I obtained this number from a nationally known nurse educator who is a colleague of mine. High quality BSN programs in the Northeast (i.e. Penn, Pitt, Villanova, Rutgers, UConn, Catholic U., Penn State, Drexel, NYU, UD, and a number of others) all meet or exceed this number.</p>
<p>The NLNAC and the CCNE are the two primary accreditation agencies for Nursing Programs. You could probably check their web sites and see if information is available to the public regarding their requirements as they pertain to faculty/student ratios for clinical rotations. I do not personally know the specific requirement. I do know, however, having been a medical educator for over 25 years, that any time a clinical training group exceeds 7-8 students that the level of quality training rapidly diminishes due to the inability to provide sufficient individual attention. Many clinical educators would probably even feel this number is too high. I am not at liberty to specifically name any individual BSN Progams that have less than ideal ratios. I do not wish to offend anyone individuallly, any institution, or any student in a specific training program. What prospective nursing students need to do is to ask any program they are interested in applying to what their ratio is for their respective clinical programs. This, of course, is only one measure you would look at to evaluate the quality of a program.</p>
<p>SingDanceRunLIfe:</p>
<p>Yor program certainly sounds very unique. Are you saying that you are able to obtain a BSN in a total of 3 years, or am I just misreading what you are saying?</p>
<p>^ No. It’ll be 4 years once I have my BSN…but I’ll have my ASN and sit for the NCLEX after 3.</p>
<p>Year 1: Full time at the LAC doing nursing prereqs and gened courses
Year 2: Full time at the college of nursing and 1 gened course/semester at the LAC
Year 3: Full time at the CON, 1 gened course/semester at the LAC, graduate with an ASN, sit for the NCLEX
Year 4: Full time at the LAC finishing up BSN and gened requirements, graduate with a BSN</p>
I live in NY so most of the SUNY and CUNY (state university of ny, city university of new york) are really big, with huge class sizes. so even those are very low in cost, they aren’t my first choice.</p>