Cold Feet for NYU Accel. BSN

Okay, you need to think about what the next couple of years of your life entails. Are you planning to do anything life changing like having a child or getting married? If so, then the money (debt) may be more of an issue, that if you were not facing these things. If you have nothing else going on, go for it, you can always pay it off. The money aspect is scary, and its not going to go away soon. Anywhere you go your going to have debt, you just have to figure out how much your willing to pay. Good luck with whatever you decide!

I am not sure if you knew this before, but in this program you:
1- will be sitting in with about 150+ other students (maybe even more than 200?) in each lecture class which are power-point led.
2- will be mixed with traditional students, in which case you will obviously be at a disadvantage because you will have less hours of sleep and more work to do (because you are taking 5 classes, as opposed to 4 or less). This might affect your GPA (for obvious reasons), so be prepared to put in a lot of hours in school work.
3- I heard it is difficult to switch to other nursing programs, so do your research and decide.

I do not know much about how their MSN program, so I cannot advise you there.

Hunter (and BMCC) are supposed to have pretty good programs, but it is extremely competitive (cheap and good, how can you beat that?) because they only have a limited number of seats (hunter has less than 80 seats, I think) and they require that you take one or two semesters there before you apply to their nursing program, so if you did not do that, you can forget about them. They also have a high GPA requirement that changes based on the applicants for that semester you are applying, but my guess is that it should range from 3.5 to 4.0. Well, at least this was the case about 3 years ago. I tried to enter Hunter and BMCC, but my GPA was not high enough to meet these requirements, and I did not take any classes in Hunter before trying to their nursing program because the classes I needed (pre-requisites for nursing) were always full.

About the debt after school, I guess it might depend on the hospital and when you apply. I have not heard of any hospital in NYC doing this, so I am not sure if that even exists here, but for those who do, I think you might have to apply before graduation. Given the current market conditions (recession??) and the many existing nursing programs in NYC from which students are graduating, the job market for nurses is starting to get saturated with new grads, and New York is becoming a very competitive market place for NEW nurses. If you are planning to get work in more needy states, their hospitals might be able to offer you assistance repaying your loans.

As for the money, this is something that can be taken care by federal and private loans, unless you think you might enter into financial difficulty during your nursing program and have to drop off from the program in which case you might be able to work it out with the lender. You can always try to apply for scholarships to lessen your tuition costs.

Hope this helps. These comments are based on my own experience, but maybe others might have something different to say.

Good luck in your studies!!

Bluskies,

I am interested to hear what you have decided about NYU?? I am also looking into that accelerated program myself (applications due in March for fall start), and I would love to hear anything you have to say about the application process! How long did it take for you to hear if you were accepted? Did you have any problems with prerequisite courses being accepted?

I had a 3.1 GPA from undergrad ('04 graduate) but my 6 most recent prerequisite classes have boosted that considerably. Did you apply with any sort of experience in the nursing/healthcare field? I don't have any experience (have been working in a microbiology food safety lab) and am worried that will hurt my chances.

Sorry for all the questions! I hope you were able to make the best decision for you about this program, g'luck!!

-Scouter

NYU is a reaaaaaaalllllllllyyyyyyy good choice and some hospitals do pay loans.

good luck!

Dont worry

Thanks NYCbs! Did you or do you currently go to NYU for the nursing program?? I am starting there this fall, and have orientation in 2 days! Very excited, but very nervous about the accelerated aspect. I've heard stories that the past two years have had some considerable "issues" with administration, etc?

Thanks for any info! =)
-Scouter

Scouter,

I'm also starting in the Fall and attending the orientation, although I'm finishing up pre-reqs in the fall and won't start the nursing part until spring. I have a friend who started the program this spring and she's very happy with it, but does say it's very time consuming.

as long as you are not a transfer student, it may work for you, in the huge size classroom, it seems like you just study by your own, but if like this, why you pay that amount of $$$$???