Ohio University RN-to-BSN Program

Nursing Students Ohio University

Updated:   Published

Since it seems that there's quite a bit of interest, I'm attempting to start a new thread devoted exclusively to the OU on-line RN-BSN program that will hopefully build on the comments on assorted previous threads.

I'd like to ask nevergonnagiveup, mtsteelhorse and babynurse73 - all of whom (I think) are either already in the program or have applied for admission - to post about their experiences. I just sent in my application and plan to post periodically about relevant issues. If we can populate the thread with good material, it could become a very useful resource for both those considering the OU program and students already in it. Once that happens, I'd hope we could prevail upon the forum moderators to make it a sticky thread.

As indicated, I've only recently applied to the program. So far, I'm happy with the support and information I've gotten. I've been contacted by an OU "enrollment specialist" who was somewhat helpful (I suspect that they have dual roles, one being to provide basic information to prospective students and the other to follow-up with the prospects and help to fill the roster for the program). This person e-mailed me, followed up with a phone call and was able to provide some useful, if basic, information about the program. I also sent a lengthy e-mail to OU with quite a number of specific, detailed questions. This too resulted in both an e-mail and telephone response, this time from an academic advisor in the OU School of Nursing. Again I received some useful and quite helpful information. All in all, my early experience has been pretty positive.

As indicated above, I plan to post about relevant issues that come up as I work my way through the admission and evaluation process. I'd very much like to hear from others about their experience with OU and I'm sure that there will be a lot of interest by others in our collective experience with the program.

Gold2010 said:
can any one tell me one have to pass boards before going to RN TO BSN program or can start before. plz share your views . can international students appply for it. thanks

Though some schools will admit students who have completed the requirements to sit for the NCLEX (and are in the process of scheduling their test), most require that you are an RN prior to being admitted to the program. I personally would not want to be working, taking a nursing class and studying for the boards all at the the same time, so passing the NCLEX before starting an RN-BSN program seems like the way you want to go. YMMV though.

I'm not aware of any RN-BSN program - online or traditional classroom - that would not be open to international students.

Though some schools will admit students who have completed the requirements to sit for the NCLEX (and are in the process of scheduling their test), most require that you are an RN prior to being admitted to the program. I personally would not want to be working, taking a nursing class and studying for the boards all at the the same time, so passing the NCLEX before starting an RN-BSN program seems like the way you want to go. YMMV though.

I'm not aware of any RN-BSN program - online or traditional classroom - that would not be open to international students.

Thanks for your time and reply. i appriciate it. any more information would be welcome.

thanks

Talked to Nina today at OU...looks like I'm going to apply sometime this week to start in June. I had a bad experience with Kent State recently while taking classes, that I just dropped out. I told Nina about my experience and she said it should not be the same at OU so crossing fingers.

Gold2010 said:
can any one tell me one have to pass boards before going to RN TO BSN program or can start before. plz share your views . can international students appply for it. thanks

You can apply before you pass the boards.

Specializes in Correctional Nursing; MSN student.

I am STILL waiting to hear from OU!!! Anyone else in the hurry up and wait mode??? It has been quite a while since I started this process...

Specializes in Cardiac Nursing.

I just contacted them to get some basic information. i did find out if I want to apply, the next start date is June 20th and that I have until April 15th to get all paperwork/transcripts in. I also have a financial aid question out that may or may not be answered. I am eligible for state grants and I need to find out if state grants can be used in an out of state school.

Specializes in Cardiac Nursing.

Well, I finally got to see how many classes I'd have to take at Ohio University. 12 nursing classes, plus several gen ed courses I don't already have. Even though they don't have a clinical component 12 nursing classes....bleh. Judging from the classes I already have I have at least 4 extra courses, that is if everything transfers from all the schools I've been too. The only way I'll know for sure is to apply and get a transcript evaluation.

Question: why do different school have different number of RN coursework?

WildcatFanRN said:
Well, I finally got to see how many classes I'd have to take at Ohio University. 12 nursing classes, plus several gen ed courses I don't already have. Even though they don't have a clinical component 12 nursing classes....bleh. Judging from the classes I already have I have at least 4 extra courses, that is if everything transfers from all the schools I've been too. The only way I'll know for sure is to apply and get a transcript evaluation.

Question: why do different school have different number of RN coursework?

The total number of nursing credits needed for the BSN at OU is 90, of which 40 are considered Lower Division and already satisfied by virtue of your RN. The 12 nursing classes representing 50 credits are the Core RN-BSN program classes and are the minimum number of classes that any transfer student needs to take. Though there appear to more than with some other programs, each class is only 5 weeks long. Assuming you've gotten all of the other pre-reqs out of the way, even taking one course at a time should allow you to complete the program in just over a year.

Obviously then, the issue boils down to the non-nursing courses. OU has tiered general education requirements and some of the Tier 2 requirements are quite ambiguously labeled (e. g., Writing and Rhetoric, Quantitative Skills and Cross-Cultural Perspectives). I was able to speak directly with an academic advisor in the nursing school at OU and asked for some clarification but did not really get an answer as to what qualifies. Writing and Rhetoric would seem to be satisfied by most any higher-level English, speech or journalism courses with a writing component. The sense I got was that the Quant requirement would be satisfied by math, science and/or stat course (there is also a specific stat requirement). Cross-Cultural Perspectives could be courses in non-western religion or history and social sciences such as anthro or soc. The bottom line is that there's really no way to get a definitive answer before applying and submitting your credentials for evaluation.

As to the issue of why different schools require different courses, the answer is probably because each school is different and each state's BON has slightly different requirements.

While OU remains my first choice, I'm a bit apprehensive about them. I submitted my application nearly 3 weeks ago and can't even get confirmation that they've received it (since the check for the application fee has apparently not even been deposited yet, you can see why I'm apprehensive). So even though it's going to cost me at least another $100, I'm going to hedge my bets and send an application to UT-A.

I am trying to decide between Ohio University and Penn State for my online RN-BSN program.

I just found this document outling the OU course schedule and which courses you'd take when based on program start date and whether you attend full or part time:

http://bsn.online.ohio.edu/documents/NursingCourseSchedule.pdf

Apparently, they make you take the first course and the last course by themselves, so you can't take two nursing classes at once during your first and last 5-week session (but you could take other core classes during that time).

I looked at their general education requirements and compared them againsy my transcript and it looks like I have everything except 3 core courses (the junior level writing class, the nutrition course, and child psychology). I don't think the core classes are offered in 5-week sessions like the nursing classes are, so I would either need to take those concurrently and just finish them on the regular quarter schedule or find another school that teaches ones that will transfer. At any rate, assuming that I was able to squeeze in those 3 core classes over the course of the year that the nursing program runs, my schedule would look like this if I began with the session that starts July 25th:

07/25/2011: Nursing 300

09/05/2011: Nursing 445, Nursing 414

10/17/2011: Nursing 310, Nursing 325

01/02/2012: Nursing 335, Nursing 330

02/13/2012: Nursing 410, Nursing 405

03/26/2012: Nursing 341, Nursing 416

05/17/2012: Nursing 455

So, starting this July and attending full time, assuming I also got the 3 core classes done in this time, I would finish at the end of June 2012. About 11 months total. Really doesn't save much time vs. a traditional semester based program. If I attended a semester-based program that you could finish in 3 semesters (core classes inclusive) I'd start in late August-early September and finish in August at the end of summer semester the next year. So, the OU program doesn't even save 2 months. As far as the pace goes, there probably isn't much difference between taking 2 courses at a time that last 5 weeks and taking 4-5 courses at a time that last 15 weeks. Probably works out to be about the same workload.

Cost of the program: The 12 nursing courses account for 50 credit hours at 155 dollars per credit hour: 155 x 50 = 7750. Then there are those 3 core classes at 3 credits each for 9 additional hours. I wonder if the 155 per credit hour is the price for their regular quarter based distance learning classes or if it is a special price for the nursing courses. If it's 155 then that comes to 155 x 9 = 1395.

So, yeah $9145 (7750+1395) minimum for tuition. Assuming books, course materials, and miscellaneous fees will add another 1000 to this, it comes to about $10145.00 for the total cost of the program.

I did a similar annalysis for Penn State, a traditional 15-week semester-based program, and figured that I would need to take 5 clases in the fall, 5 classes in the Spring, and 2 classes in the Summer to finish, and that includes the core classes I would need fitting nicely into that plan without having to take them separately on a different schedule to try to make it match up with the nursing class timeline. The total cost of that program would be somewhere around $17500.00

So, when everything is said and done with, the Ohio University program would save me $7355.00 and 1.5 months, assuming I find and finish the 3 core classes I need in time.

At this point, it's going to come down to intangibles and student reviews of the programs. What is the mode of evaluation? Are the classes more exam oriented or paper-writing oriented? Are the classes designed with the assumption that the people taking them are full time working RNs and are they accordingly flexible? What are the instructors like? How smooth is the communication with the home office? Things like that that you can't get from reading a brochure are what will ultimately help me make my decision.

UGADawgs said:

I looked at their general education requirements and compared them againsy my transcript and it looks like I have everything except 3 core courses (the junior level writing class, the nutrition course, and child psychology). . .

One of the few clear answers I got from my phone conversation with the nursing advisor at OU was about the Child Psych requirement: I was told that OU will accept Developmental Psych for this.

As far as cost is concerned, the top 2 schools are OU and UT-A. As I indicated in an earlier post, I am going to apply to both programs and the selection of which to attend will come down to the evaluation. My analysis leads me to believe that in the course of getting 3 college degrees, I've managed to cover all the OU pre-reqs and may only need the 12 nursing classes. If true, OU comes in at a total tuition cost of $7,750.

It's not quite the same for UT-A. There's at least one non-nursing course that I (and pretty much everyone not from Texas) will need: Texas State Govt. UT-A also requires 2 semesters of American History and I only have one, so that adds another course. I may or may not have to take Federal Government - it's possible that my Poli Sci course in American Constitutional Law may work to satisfy this requirement or maybe my Business Law class (or possibly the combination of the 2). Assuming I need all 3 however puts the total for UT-A at $7,800 ($6,450 for the nursing classes and $1,350 for the other 3). So cost-wise, it's a wash but time-wise, OU gets the nod. All of this is speculation until the official evaluation is done though.

UGADawgs said:
I don't think the core classes are offered in 5-week sessions like the nursing classes are ...

I think that's true - which makes the UT-A program longer than OU - at least for me.

UGADawgs said:
At this point, it's going to come down to intangibles and student reviews of the programs. What is the mode of evaluation? Are the classes more exam oriented or paper-writing oriented? Are the classes designed with the assumption that the people taking them are full time working RNs and are they accordingly flexible? What are the instructors like? How smooth is the communication with the home office? Things like that that you can't get from reading a brochure are what will ultimately help me make my decision.

Agree - but I can't seem to get that information directly from either school. Hopefully, this thread might get some existing OU students to give us some feedback.

On a completely unrelated note UGADawgs - Are you by any chance a Georgia alum (I yield to no man in my grasp of the obvious)?

chuckster said:
On a completely unrelated note UGADawgs - Are you by any chance a Georgia alum (I yield to no man in my grasp of the obvious)?

Georgia attendee is more like it. I went to UGA for 3 years but didn't graduate. I came back to my hometown to work for a company a friend of my dad's started for several years, but when my job got shipped overseas, I decided to go back to nursing school and get my ASN from the local community college. So, whatever BSN program I end up going with will be my first bachelors degree, but a good chunk of the credits that apply to it will be transfered from the University of Georgia, and I will always bleed Red and Black! I wish UGA had a nursing school so I could get my BSN from there, but they don't.

Specializes in Cardiac Nursing.

re: UGADawg..yeah SEC

Anyhoo LOL.

I've added up the approximate costs of all the programs I've researched.

Spalding University, approx cost $17,625 before fees and books

McKendree University, approx cost $14,820 before fees and books

Chamberlain, approx cost $19,550 before fees and books

Ohio University, approx cost $9610 before fees and books

The top two are in my state and are blended in class/online programs. Of course the costs are contingent on all the gen ed classes I have C's or better in transferring in. Ohio University hands down is the winner in cost....BUT I might not be able to use the state grants I'm eligible for there. Spalding I've applied to their scholarships so the cost might not be as much. Same with McKendree. So many choices....such hard decisions.

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