Guaranteed Admission

Hi, in Redding there is Shasta College, which guarantees admission, but they only have a waitlist - which is currently about 250 people and 30-40 people are admitted each semester. I know in the sacramento area there is American river college and sac city college - both are lotteries, yuba city - not sure their policy

2 years ago I was in the same boat you are in as far as trying to find a school with no waitlist. But most public schools have a waiting list so I decided to go the private school route and found the perfect one. Mills College (all girls school/Oakland), St. Mary's College (in Moraga), and Holy Names University (in Oakland) have a 2+2 partnership program with Samuel Merritt University in Oakland. After you complete your prerequisites (Anatomy, physiology, microbiology, chemistry, psychology, nutrition, etc) at any of the 3 schools you are GUARANTEED ADMISSION (meaning no wait list!) into Samuel Merritt to begin your clinicals and get your BSN (4 semesters). I went through Holy Names and I finished my pre-reqs earlier this month (it took me 3 semesters) so I'll be starting SMU this Fall. The requirements to get into Holy Names are very basic- have @ least a decent GPA, write a 1-page essay of why you want to be a nurse, etc).

I know that the Bay Area isn't Redding or Mt Shasta or the Sierras but there aren't a lot of things that beat guaranteed admission to a nursing school. I know some people that are willing to move to another state just to get into a school so I was very fortunate to find one in the Bay

How much are you paying for your tuition at Samuel merritt? Do you get Fin aid?

Samuel Meritt costs about $19,000/semester and they have PLENTY of scholarships and free money to give away. They haven't sent us our financial aid packet yet so I dont know how much money I'll be getting off the top and which scholarships I qualify for but I doubt I'll be paying much (if any) out of pocket.

Applying directly to SMU (instead of through the 3 partnership schools) is alot harder to get into. They only let around 20 people in each sem and they get hundreds of applicants so unless you have all the pre-reqs completed, I would recommend going through any of the 3 schools

Give the state a few more months and all of the so-called "free" money for schools won't exist. Cal Grants are going to be eliminated without a doubt and I can see alot of state free money won't exist in the near future. Scholarships will be a bit harder to get because all of those who thought they could exist on free money will start to go after the scholarships. The qualifying for these will have to go up because of the lack of money. Good luck though.

Ya - I dont think most nursing students can afford 40,000-60,000 for nursing school - lol. At least I know i cant

Samuel Merritt is a private university so its students dont depend much on state money to get em through the 4 semesters. State money does help but theres plenty of $$$$$ in private scholarships. As far as the money getting more competitive, I highly doubt it since there's a strict limit on how many students are admitted each semester. There are only 80 students admitted each sem so there's plenty money to go around. In fact a nurse was telling us the school has had to give some scholarships back because not enough students are applying for them

I am finishing up school this month, but back when I was starting to look at nursing school options, Napa Valley College and Solano College (both community colleges) both admitted from a waiting list. I don't know if they have changed their policies in the last year or two, but the waitlists were both approaching 3-4 years when I was looking.

Just a little plug for SMU... I know the tuition is A LOT and having that much debt is scary, but if you can get in there two or so years before you would get in off a wait list somewhere else, you'll not only finish earlier, but probably pay off most of your debt by the time you would have graduated from the other school.

Anyway, some other advice: do look into schools long before you plan to apply, do well in your prerequisites the FIRST time you take them (some schools penalize applicants for retaking classes), research prereq's and take the one's that count for as many schools as possible (ie: don't take the 4 unit physio class only to find out that the school of your dreams only accepts a 5 unit course...), and get ORGANIZED! You'd think the community college system would have figured out a centralized application process for all this nonsense by now, but alas, they all have different rules, so pay attention. Oh, and good luck! Getting into a school is the hardest part!