<p>I have a question. My D, a current senior, has been accepted into several Nursing Programs.
She has ruled out Pitt as she is leery about the city aspect of it even though we know it has an excellent program. Of the others she has heard from, PSU is the leader. She is waiting to hear from UDel. How would anyone compare the programs? The one thing that has me uneasy about UDel is the fact that they don's start Clinical's until Senior year. I understand their philosophy of not "practicing on real patients" until you know what you're doing, but I wonder if one year of actual hands-on experience is enough. Any thoughts? For whatever it is worth, we are PA residents and are not counting of any type of financial help.</p>
<p>When my daughter was exploring nursing programs I remember we ruled out PSU because the program requires at one year (or was it two?) be spent at the Hershey campus. This was not appealing to her. She is a freshman at Pitt and enjoying it, but then she is a city gal.</p>
<p>All three programs you mentioned have excellent Nursing Programs. You can get an excellent nursing education at any of them if you apply yourself. I can provide you some input on the Program at Delaware(UD).</p>
<p>Actually at UD students begin to have progressive involvement at clinical sites (pimarily at community settings-where most nursing services are provided) beginning in their sophomore year. In their Junior year each student is required to spend time at a clinical setting both semesters. If you go to UD’s Nursing website under the Traditional Program site you will be able to read a research paper entitled “Clinical Immersion: A Residency Model for Nursing Education Perspectives” which describes in detail the program’s format and the rationale for it. I would encourage you to read it. In addition to a state-of-the-art nursing simulation lab UD also now has a Nurse Managed Healthcare Clinic on site which provides various outpatient medical/nursing services. Nursing students are now becoming involved with this on-site clinic. The Nursing Program also has an Honors Program (hopefuly you applied to this) which can provide additional individual attention and exposure to even more clinical settings (but more research papers-based upon my D’s experience). </p>
<p>My D graduated with her BSN from UD in 2010. She was able to land a highly competitive (nearly a thousand applications for only about 10 positions) entry level nursing position in NYC at New York Presbyterian/Cornell Medical Center on one of Cornell’s Neurological ICU units. Other graduates hired along with her included nursing grads from Penn, NYU, BC, and UConn. She found the clinical education she received at UD to be equal to, and in some areas even exceded, the education received by nursing graduates from these other highly rated Nursing Programs. She has even been promoted to Charge Nurse and is now supervising nurses from these programs. This should give you some idea of the quality of the educational program available at UD. </p>
<p>You really can’t go wrong attending any of these programs. Hope this info about UD is useful to you. Obviously it would be cheaper for your D to attend PSU. Best wishes to your D in making her decision.</p>
<p>I hope your daughter visited Pitt before she decided against it. Although it is in a city, it is right next to parks, historic buildings, other colleges and museums. Many students love Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is also not a huge city - it is one-third the size of Philadelphia.</p>
<p>Yes, Penn State students spend their junior or senior year at Hershey. While that means a year away from non-nursing friends in State College, it allows experience at a huge very modern complex, including a new children’s hospital. I would imagine many Penn State grads end up working there after college.</p>
<p>I feel Pitt is better then PSU just for several reasons(though you may disagree), i like the fact it is in a city,the nearby medical institutions are top notch, you don’t need to relocate to do your clinicals…this coming from a parent whose D1 chose decided on Villanova…</p>
<p>Villanova had all the qualities of a program we were looking for and more…proximity to a major medical facilities,location to a big city,great campus and newer facilities,…downside is rack rate at a pricey institution…however,don’t regret it one iota</p>