Hi everyone,
I just got accepted to UMass’s nursing program. Can anyone share experiences in regards to the program? How well does this program compare to other higher tier programs nationwide?
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What are your choices? Have you been accepted to any other nursing schools?
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I’ll take a shot at this question without knowing the other options. UMass-Amherst is considered a top 100 nursing school which should only be getting better as it has just received a major $21 million dollar donation from one of its prominent alumna. Faculty are first rate and you get to spend 4 years in a great college town, made even livelier with the live music and restaurant scene in nearby Northampton.
My one complaint with the Elaine Marie’s College of Nursing is something it can’t do anything about - it’s location. Nursing is a practitioner’s degree, so some of your most important learning is going to occur in your clinicals, I.e. the hospital placements where you’ll learn best practices and experience the latest innovations in health care. With its rural locations, UMass isn’t near any major hospitals, so getting to clinicals in Springfield is inconvenient at best.
The best hospitals in Massachusetts and some of the best in the world are in Boston. So for my money, I’d rather train as a nurse at UMass-Boston even though it’s lower rated. (I don’t trust the ratings.) In Boston, nursing students have access to Mass General, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston Children’s, Brigham & Women’s, etc. Not only do students learn best practices, but they get the inside track on the best nursing jobs in the state after graduation.
UMass is certainly not unique in this respect. The same is true at UConn, Penn State, and many other flagship land grant universities. They tend to be located in rural areas, but cutting edge health care innovations are happening at hospitals in the big cities.
Academically, I’m sure that UMass provides excellent courses and that UMass nurses learn all of the nursing competencies. It’s just that there are certain skill sets that can only be learned in the field. I’d encourage you to ask a lot of questions about clinical placements and how students obtain transportation to the clinicals. Do you need a car? Does the university assist students with transportation in any way? Shuttles? Vans? Other? Better to find out now rather than when it’s too late.
A real plus for UMass-Amherst is that it is direct admit. That’s an advantage not to be taken lightly at a very competitive university. In neighboring Connecticut, for example, the UConn nursing school is not direct admit.
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@Bill_Marsh - My DD got admitted into UConn school of nursing directly from high school. I assumed this to be a direct admit BSN program. Am i wrong?
We are from MA. DD has acceptances from a number of flagship grant universities such as Penn State, UPitt, UConn, 3 UMass’s, UVM etc. Along with these, she is also considering Simmons University located in the Longwood medical area. In your opinion, is it better to opt for Simmons over these? Does academics not matter in nursing? How about if the students are interested in pursuing MSN or DNP in the future?
I’m an RN and generally it does not matter where you get your degree. Of course BSN is more favorable than ADN, and you want a school with a high NCLEX pass rate. If the student wants to pursue MSN or DNP later, then work experience matters, probably along with some involvement in various types of hospital nursing committees. For some students it might matter where they do their clinicals, so that could be a reason to choose one school over another. I think it’s good to have clinicals at a variety of hospitals so you can see how different hospitals can be. This might get you experience with different charting systems, etc.
ETA: I don’t trust nursing school ratings either.
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You are correct about UConn’s direct admit being to their BSN program. And congratulation on that acceptance! Being in Connecticut, I have known of cases where UConn students had to apply for nursing as an internal transfer after they had proven themselves with coursework and grades at the college level. UConn must consider your daughter very well qualified.
You raise a very interesting question about the importance of academics in nursing. My perspective is as the father of a daughter who is an intensive care nurse at a top research hospital in NYC, who also worked at a top research hospital in Boston, and who is currently in a graduate NP program.
I expect that academic standing does matter when applying to graduate programs although graduate programs fall into 2 different categories. An NP program, while on the graduate level, is still a practitioner’s degree. In contrast, a PhD is a research degree, so I expect that academic credentials would be more important for that kind of program than for a practitioner’s degree. In all cases, grad schools vary in their selectivity and what factors they consider just as undergraduate colleges do.
Many flagship universities were established as “land grant” colleges and were therefore located in rural locations because educating students for agriculture was a priority for land grant colleges. UConn, for example, was once referred to derisively around here as a “cow college”. While the universities have grown into academic powerhouses for many things other than agriculture, their locations haven’t changed. For this reason, UConn, UMass, and Penn State have their medical schools located elsewhere so they can have access to research hospitals. Unfortunately the nursing schools are still located in the rural locations making it very inconvenient for these students to get to any sort of hospital that meets the needs for their clinical training. Penn State nursing students who are at their main campus spend junior year at the med school campus in Hershey, as I recall, because that’s where they can get the necessary clinicals which aren’t available in State College.
The schools from your list which are in cities where research hospitals are right nearby are Pitt, UVM, and Simmons. Since the demise of the steel industry, Pittsburgh recreated itself with health care as one of its primary industries and employment centers. I would imagine that’s a great place to get trained as a nurse. Burlington is not Boston, but it is the biggest city in that part of New England & Upstate NY AND it is the location of UVM’s med school, so I would think there are reasonably good clinicals right there.
To respond directly to your question about Simmons, I would think that it has a dream location for a nursing student as long as you’re okay with everything else that goes along with being a student at Simmons. Those kids are literally across the street from the cluster of world class hospitals which form the training center for Harvard Medical School. My limited understanding is that Simmons has a very good reputation in nursing and that it would be reputable for application to grad school. There are certain things that Simmons does extremely well. Training teachers and nurses are 2 of them. To the extent that grad school is a concern, I suggest that you ask Admissions to arrange for you to speak with a nursing faculty rep or alum about their experience with grad school admissions if that’s a Hugh priority for your daughter.
Best of luck with the process.
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This is exactly what my daughter, who is a hospital intensive care nurse, has said when I asked her the same question. Almost word for word.
She went to Boston College and did a clinical at Boston Children’s. I think that this helped her get a job there so that was a benefit of that placement.
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Thank you for taking the time to put together a detailed response. This is very helpful and also interesting.
Thank you for sharing your perspective. This is very useful.
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You’re welcome. 
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Thank you!! I guess it would be better if I waited until I got all my decisions back to compare.