<p>My daughter will be graduating in 4 weeks with her BSN from UDEL. We are from New Jersey. The Nursing Program only enrolls a little more than 130 students per year (with about half of the slots apparently being alloted to students coming from Delaware) so if you were accepted you were very lucky. She has done extremely well academically (GPA 3.6) and is looking forward to graduate school in the future. She lived in Rodney Hall her freshman year, a sororiety house her sophomore year, and has been living in an apartment on Main Street her last two years. She was able to land several nursing externship positions at Christiana Hospital and E.I Neumours/Dupont Childrens Hospital. I am very pleased by the education she received at Delaware. If anyone has any questions about the nursing program at UDEL I would be happy to try and answer them.</p>
<p>Is she going for her masters right away? If so where? If not where will she work? When she takes the NCLEX what state will she put as her preference?</p>
<p>Most Nursing Graduate Programs require you to work for a year post graduation before they will accept you into their program. Penn offered to waive this requirement because of my daughters extensive externship involvement but she decided to work for a year before applying. She has had some positive discussions with Nurse Recruiters at NYU and Columbia/Presbyterian hospitals in NYC and she hopes to get a position at one of them once she completes the NCLEX exam (listing New York as her initial state for licensure). Positions at high quality academic hospitals are difficult to obtain but she is hoping for the best. She will be taking the Kaplan Review course the first 1 1/2 weeks in June and will then take the next available NCLEX exam. Delaware does not graduate until 5/29/10.</p>
<p>You point out that admission to the nursing school is quite selective. Do you know the minumum or average SAT/ACT scores for kids that get admitted. Is it different for in state vs OOS (we are OOS)? I keep hearing that nursing school is very demanding. Did you daughter find that to be the case as Delaware? It is possible to be a nursing major and do a semester of study abroad?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>I do not know the average SAT/ACT scores for the students admitted to the Nursing Program (I do not think this specific information is available). My guess would be that the average scores for OOS students would be higher than in state students. While these scores are important I believe Delaware gives a lot of weight to other things such as class rank and high school courses taken. A lot of Honors and AP classses need to be taken, they like to see HS gpa’s rise (at least not fall) over the 4 years, and they like students to take a full curriculim of college prep courses during both semesters of their Sr. year. My daughters friend, who had higher SAT scores than my daughter, was not accepted into the Nursing Program (Delaware told her this) because she cut back on her course load her Sr. year (luckily they did accept her into another major at Delaware - education). The Nursing curriculum is one of the toughest majors at Delaware. Many research papers need to be written in a specialized (APA) format that most HS students are not familiar with. The Nursing Honors courses my daughter took required even more papers. As a physician myself I often could not believe the depth of the information they were expected to learn. With all this being said it is critically important that a student develop excellent study skills during HS. Luckily my daughter did this and was able to budget her time appropriately. She was even able to join a sorority, which also requires a lot of time. Delaware has one of the largest study abroad programs in the country. Delaware has a 4-1-4 semester organization. Most students take study abroad during the Winter session which runs for 5 weeks from early Jan thru early Feb. There are nursing courses (usually “required” elective courses) which can be taken abroad during this semester but students can also take courses abroad in other disciplines. My daughter was not able to do study abroad because the courses she was interested in were filled up in the few countries she was interested in visiting. You need to apply as early as possible to get the better courses and locations. Hope this information is helpful.</p>
<p>@Mwallenmd Thanks for starting this thread.
I just noticed UD’s nursing program. Do you mind share or do you still remember the major HS courses your daughter took and SAT scores etc? So, I can possibily see the chance. Thanks!</p>
<p>It has been 4 years since my daughter was in HS so I do not recall exactly the number of honors/AP courses she took. I do recall generally that she did take honors/AP classes in at least biology, chemistry, physics, calculus, history, and Spanish. Academically she was in the top 5% of her Senior Class. I hesitate to list SAT/ACT scores because I do not want to discourage anyone from applying (nor do I wish to give anyone a false sense of overconfidence) because I feel that Delaware gives a lot more weight to the other areas I listed in my previous post as compared to many colleges. In Delaware’s Admission web site it list’s SAT score ranges of 1770 -1980 (for all 3 SAT components combined) for the middle 50% of students accepted for admission (I believe it was 28 for the ACT). It certainly would be good when applying to have SAT/ACT scores within these ranges but I would still apply if scores were below this if a student did well in the other areas Delaware looks at when evaluating a student for admission. One area I neglected to mention in my prior post was the admission essay. Considering the small number of OOS students they accept into the Nursing Program I firmly believe that it was my daughters essay that was a deciding factor in getting her accepted into the Program. Unfortunately many students now actually hire a professional writer to write their admission essays for them. I really would not recommend this. Having been on an Admissions Committee at a Medical School myself I can tell you that it usually is relatively easy to spot these “professionally” written essays and this generally is not helpful to the applicant. I would suggest that the essay (if applying for the Nursing Program) should include (at least in part) a focus on addressing how a person’s past life experiences have led them to make a decision to choose nursing as a career. Hope this info is helpful.</p>
<p>My daughter (OOS) was accepted into the nursing program for 2010. Her stats were 27 ACT/ 1850 SAT with about a 3.8 uw. I think what helped her get in was the fact that she volunteered in our local hospital for the past three years. Her essay was not about that, however. It discussed her varsity sport with an emphasis on teamwork.</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing the info!
Do you know what the weighted GPA means for UD?
I am from California. UC systems stated clearly which courses in which schools can get extra point. Our high school does not provided weighted GPA at all. So what does UD look at to determine weighted or unweighted coursed?</p>
<p>Is Nursing Program in UD a honor program or non-honor program?</p>
<p>There is no restriction on major for the Honors program.</p>
<p>High School Seniors have to also apply specifically for the Honors Program as part of their Udel appplication for admission. It requires a second essay and you have to list all the Honors/AP courses taken in HS. Only about 500-600 students are accepted into the Honors Program yearly. Requirements to get into the Honors program are higher than for other applicants. According to the Delaware website (for the class of 2013) the middle 50% of SAT scores were 2000-2160 with ACT score of 31 for students accepted into the Honors Program. They also like to see many honors/AP classes in HS. A student would still be considered for regular admission even if they are not accepted into the Honors Program (you don’t have to apply separately for regular admission). If not initially admitted to the Honors Program as a freshman a student has the opportunity to apply later in their college years if they have a high enough GPA, take and do well grade wise in two honors classes, and get a recommendation from a professor from one of the Honors courses they took. Students with GPA’s of at least 3.0 make apply to take honors courses at Udel but are only allowed into them if spaces at not all taken up by Honors Program students. I do believe, but don’t quote me, that students accepted into the Honors Program tend to get higher merit scholarship award amounts. I’m sorry I can’t answer your question about weighted verses non-weigted GPA in HS. My daughter never spoke to me about this topic.</p>
<p>Thanks, Mwallenmd.
Do you know UD will look at all 9th - 11th grade GPA or 10th-11th GPA?</p>
<p>It is my understanding that they look at an applicant’s overall GPA from the 9th grade on. As I noted in a previous post above they also look at the rigor of courses taken throughout HS and also at the trend of an applicant’s GPA. This can be helpful if an applicant did not do so well in 9th grade but did progressively better in subsequent years. They also will request that they be sent grades from an applicants Sr. year, with the first semester grades obviously being the most important. I know I said this before but I can not stress it enough, that in an applicants Sr. year of HS Delaware really wants to see a full course load (5) both semesters (with as many honors/AP, etc. courses as possible in major subject areas). “Senioritis” can be fatal when trying to get into highly competitive colleges. This is especially important when applying for majors, like Nursing, where only a relatively small number of applicants are accepted.</p>
<p>A nursing degree from UD can be a ticket to a successful nursing career. As noted from a previous post my daughter graduated from UD in 5/10 with her BSN. This past weekend she passed her Nursing Boards (NCLEX) with only the minimum number of questions (75) required. As a result of her nursing education and achievements at UD (we/she did not have any “conections”) she was offered and has accepted a coveted nursing position at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Cornell University Medical Center in NYC on Cornell’s Neurological Intensive Care Unit. I can only conclude from this that a degree in nursing from UD is looked on very favorably by at least one very highly prestigious (Ivy League) Academic Medical Center (especially considering that many new nursing graduates are having a very hard time finding a position). She now is considering persuing her Master’s Degree as an NP at Columbia in NYC. Any more nursing questions? Please feel free to ask.</p>
<p>Congratulations! I spent a lot of time at New York Presbyterian (back before it merged with Columbia Presbyterian and was just plain New York Hospital) during my mother’s many illnesses. It’s a superb teaching hospital, and your D will get a great deal of experience. Do they provide any sort of housing, or will she have to find that on her own?</p>
<p>Congratulations!!
Please check this list often. I will definitely have more questions…</p>
<p>Congatulations to you and your daughter. Mine will just be getting started in the nursing program one month from today!! She knows that she’s in for lots of work and challenges, but in the end it will pay off, as you have just shown.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone</p>
<p>Booklady: Yes, the hospital has housing available (studios, 1&2 bedroom apartments) which can be rented on a monthly basis by nurses, doctors, medical students, etc., working at the Medical Center. The cost is actually significantly less than private apartments in the area (it is not cheap to live in the upper east side of Manhatten) and you can easily walk to the hospital. </p>
<p>lovingbird: I check this site regularly so fire away when you have any questions.</p>
<p>admiralamber: Best of luck to your daughter. I am sure she will get a good nursing education at UD which will prepare her for any area of nursing/graduate school she might be interested in in the future. Without a doubt your D made a wise decision in selecting UD for nursing.</p>
<p>It’s not cheap to live anywhere in Manhattan any more, so it’s great that your D will have subsidized housing.</p>