I think we’ll end up with about 8. As a hopeful
Nursing major there really are few to no safety schools. We need to investigate those a bit more for certain so that could expand by 1-2. @RichInPitt if you have any suggestions I am all ears!
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What about Scranton?
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I think @burghdad is also a nursing program expert?
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I don’t know about being an expert but just completed a cycle with D21 who was admitted to some direct admit nursing programs as well as some pre-nursing programs.
From reading past posts by @tumamom she is from PA and looks like she plans to visit among others Pitt and Temple which have great nursing programs and will be relatively cost effective with in state tuition.
My PA daughter refused to apply to instate schools. She applied and was admitted to direct admit nursing programs at Miami University, University of Delaware, and Clemson. She was also admitted at Alabama and Wisconsin to programs that would require application into the BSN nursing program after first two years. There are some other top programs like USC and Michigan among others that require application after completing pre-nursing classes after your sophomore year. Also keep in mind your daughter could complete pre-nursing classes at any college and apply to these 2 year BSN programs.
My daughter ultimately chose Miami as we were chasing merit and they gave her the most merit money. Her sister is a student at Clemson and she wanted to chart her own course so that eliminated Clemson. She definitely could have seen herself at Delaware is the merit money had been better. You should definitely give Delaware a look. Very pretty campus and a good nursing program. Great location close to Philly, DC etc.
As you mentioned the direct admit schools tend to be very competitive. I know at Miami they got 1600 applications for 80 spots.
As @songbirdmama and @richinpitt mentioned there are some smaller schools that have nursing programs that might be easier to get into but may not have the big time sports school spirit stuff. In Pa alone there is West Chester, Scranton, Duquesne, Chatham, Carlow, York, IUP, Waynesburg…etc…
Although it sounds like your daughter is looking for a traditional college experience hospitals such as UPMC have their own programs that can be a very cost effective was to get a nursing degree.
Another thing to consider in all of this is whether you daughter is going to want to go graduate school and become a NP. That can be an expensive 2 extra years. That is why my daughter was focused on maximizing merit money. Her ultimate goal is to be a nurse practitioner.
I hope this was a little bit helpful. Good luck
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Just a heads up about nurse practioners. Starting with the class of 2025, new NPs will have to earn a DNP. .
You have Analyzed It and Lived It, which qualifies as a CC expert in my book! Thanks for that detail, I find it interesting.
By the way, when will you be splitting your icon logo and giving Miami some airtime, Homerdog style? 
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Thanks so much! Udel is on the list for sure as my husband and I are both alum. She loves JMU which I feel like is probably a safety but is not DA which is risky. We are excited to see how the next few months of visits and planning go.
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I think he will apply to a total of 11 schools, but that number may drop to 8 depending on when he applies and hears back from his top choices. His list is finalized but we haven’t done the calendar yet.
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When we went through the process with our first (S16) he applied to 13 colleges. After all his acceptances I thought that for D22 the number would be closer to 8. However, after COVID and what I’m seeing on the class of 21 threads I think she may need to apply to more.
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I’m very interested to see how many schools S22 applies to, because his list has only gotten smaller lately. After our trip to New York this past week, he remains interested in NYU and Pratt but has eliminated Cooper Union. While Pratt should be just about a safety for him given his stats, he’s likely to come up with some other schools. I don’t think it’ll be a long list, but more than two.
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S22 has about 15 colleges on his preliminary list, which is still fluid. After some additional research and a few visits this summer, I suspect he’ll apply to about ten. 4-5 which will either be reaches or where he will need to get a very competitive scholarship, 3-4 where we are reasonably sure he will be admitted and that we can afford, and 2 safeties that give large NMF scholarships.
Despite my joking about it here, his college counselor session was actually helpful. She had a good grasp on what he was looking for, and had some additional recommendations of schools for him to check out. She was especially helpful with teacher recommendations, as she had inside info as to which teachers wrote great rec letters, which limited the number of rec letters they would do, etc…
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My S22 will be applying to six universities. His GC wants him to apply to reach school or two, but since he is not interested in any of those schools, we are not asking him to do so. We have a pretty stable list at this point:
Texas A&M
Auburn University
Colorado School of Mines
Iowa State
University of Alabama
Arizona State or University of Utah (still have to figure this one out, though I am not sure it really matters).
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Does anyone have experience on when ACT scores come out? ACT website says anywhere from tomorrow through June 11th for the April 17th test. Hoping for sooner than later!
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Both of mine came within 2 weeks of the test, but my school-sponsored ACT took about 2.5 weeks
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D22 took it on April 17 and got her scores this morning! Super quick.
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That’s great! We did 4/17 as well, but no scores yet. Hopefully they release them all soon!
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D got her scores today!
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ACT scores were pretty fast for us. She did it at school and signed up on the portal and got them the next week I believe. This was in March.
This is my first one going to college. Not sure how many schools she will apply to. She is stressing about everything now and not wanting to talk about it so I’m trying to back off until school is out for the summer and hopefully things are less stressful. I would guess she’ll apply to maybe 5 schools in the US. She is also interested (still, I think) in UK schools, so would apply to 5 there too (that is their limit).
Somewhere online there’s a ‘brag sheet’ that can be downloaded and filled out for the teacher so that the teacher knows what all the student has been involved with over the years, just to help fill in the gaps in the teacher’s knowledge of the student. Good for the student as well, to help remind themselves of things they might want to mention in their applications.
Any links for this? It might help dd22 not be so stressed if she could remind herself of what she’s got to offer.
I had forwarded the following website to D for her to look at (although she may have just followed the Common App version of it). You can find many examples if you do an online search.
She’s my first (and only) going to college too. Such a different world from the experience that my husband and I had!
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Thanks so much. I hope this will be helpful for DD22.
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