Actually Chegirl, the info Allison1225 provided you is incorrect.
Penn State does have a nursing program at its University Park (main campus), as well as some of its branch campuses such as Altoona and Mount Alto, both of which have on-campus housing. Other Penn State branch campuses that have nursing, such as Fayette, do not have on-campus housing. The problem with Penn State’s nursing program is this: wherever you start, you have to finish. In other words, you can’t start their nursing program at the Altoona branch campus and try and transfer to the main campus. They changed their policy. What Allison1225 may have been referring to is that under Penn State’s main campus program, you will spend your last year at the Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, PA. We visited the main campus and took a tour - that was one thing we were unaware of. Finally, since their program fills up quickly, they have an early application deadline for their Nursing program. I believe it is some time in November, maybe as early as Nov 1st. My suggestion - get yourself a calendar, hang it on the wall, and start filling in important dates (like that one).
The other thing about Penn State is this: up until about a year ago (maybe a little more), their branch campuses only had 2-year associates degree programs for nursing. The N-CLEX pass rate scores at these branch campuses were around 78% in 2013-14 (not very good); main campus was @ 95% (92.59% in 5 years; ranked #17 on our charts - see below). Since they got rid of the AD programs, Penn State is no longer required to report separate scores; they will now be reporting just one N-CLEX pass rate score for the entire University. The good & bad? Good for Penn State - students won’t be able to “measure” the branch campus scores vs. University Park vs. other schools. Bad for Penn State - the branch campus scores will most assuredly bring down the University Park score. My advice to our daughter was this when it came to Penn State - you don’t get in at the main campus, there are better options than Penn State’s branch campus.
Our daughter decided to pursue nursing as a profession. She’s going to Waynesburg. How did she decided on Waynesburg? The one thing all these schools have in common: they all have pass rates for their N-CLEX scores. (BTW - In terms of finding these on-line, Pennsylvania has spreadsheets for multiple years; other states? You have to do some math.) What the folks in Waynesburg’s nursing program told us was to look at a school’s N-CLEX pass rate scores, not for the past year, but for the past 5 years. We developed a spreadsheet of over 80 colleges and nursing schools in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Maryland (sorry,…we didn’t look at NJ due to the distance). We visited over 15 colleges and nursing schools (including those run by hospitals); of all the ones we visited, we ranked Waynesburg as the #1 nursing school based on its near perfect N-CLEX scores over the past 5 years.
As for Pitt, don’t believe the hype about their nursing program at least on the main campus. Pitt’s main campus is in Oakland, an urban Pittsburgh neighborhood. There is no real “campus” feel to the place; imagine a bunch of school buildings in a city. They may have direct access to UPMC’s facilities, but truth be told their 5-year N-CLEX pass rate between 2010-2014 was 87.87%. Their branch campus in Titusville (a 2-year program) was 86.59%. If you want to consider Pitt, consider their branch campus in Bradford, PA. It’s a 2-yr program, but their 5-year N-CLEX pass rate score was 96.36%; ranked 5th out of the 87 schools we looked at.
Since you are out east and appear to be looking at schools mainly in the east, here are some other suggestions based on the data we’ve put together. I’ve included our ranking of them (out of the 87 we looked at) based on their N-CLEX 5-year pass rates from 2010-2014, and their % pass rate during that time period:
2 - Drexel - 97.62%
3 - Lewistown Hospital School of Nursing (SON) - 97.16%
4 - Bloomsburg U (PA) - 97.12%
8 - Indiana University of PA - 94.74%
9 - Conemaugh Valley SON - 94.72%
13 - Roxborough Memorial Hospital SON (near Philadelphia) - 93.29%
14 - St. Francis U of PA - 92.96%
18 - Salisbury U of Maryland - 92.29%
22 - Neumann U (PA) - 91.82%
23 - St. Luke's Hospital SON - 91.60%
24 - U of Scranton (PA) - 91.60%
25 - U f Maryland - 91.52%.
Those are schools relatively close to you that were in our top 25. One word of advice we rec’d from Waynesburg - to become a registered nurse, you have to pass the N-CLEX. If you are going to pay a lot of $ for college, go to a nursing school that has a high passing rate. That is your ultimate goal.
Best of luck.
