University of Sioux Falls ABSN?

Nursing Students Pre-Nursing

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Hi everyone, this is my first post (non-response post)! I have applied to a number of ABSNs and was accepted to a few so far, and I am planning on going to University of Sioux Falls. I was wondering if anyone has gone through their program, or if anyone has any ideas/opinions about it beyond the website (maybe you live in Sioux Falls and you know of its reputation, for example).

Also, in general, how can I evaluate the quality of one program over another? For example, are there any questions I should be asking about the program that most people don't think to ask?

Thank you so much!

I am debating on this program and one other one at the moment. I am liking the cost of this one better than the other. Do you live near Sioux Falls or know much about the city?

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What's the other school you're looking at?

I've never been to South Dakota before, but I lived in the Midwest for about 5 years. What about you? There's another person on this site who's going to USF in January, and she's from South Dakota. She might be able to tell you more. See if you can find the other posting about USF's ABSN.

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The other school I'm looking at is Creighton University in Omaha. I am nervous about going there because it is a significantly bigger city than what I am used to living in.

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Do you think you'll live on-campus? If you do, it might feel more laid-back like a small town, but I don't know anything about Creighton. You could look at Google Maps, and see whether the school is isolated from the city. Even if it's not, it might feel self-contained. I've lived in places ranging from 10 thousand to 10 million people, and even the huge cities can feel homey if you live in the right place.

Having said that, I'm still going to USF! I don't mean to talk you out of it. I chose USF because of the program's website info, its statistics, prerequisites, clinical sites, and the cost. If you decide to go, let me know!

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I am applying to University of Sioux Falls accelerated program that starts in January 2018. Can anyone tell me more about the area? Also what was the schedule like? Was it hard to get accepted into the program? Thank you!

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The area...? For being a moderately small city, it has two large hospitals, which I believe are the biggest employers in the city. Both hospitals are well-respected. The city is also becoming a lot more "hip" from what I've heard. There are a lot of different types of restaurants to eat at, and supposedly it's a great place to raise a family. There are a lot of trails for walking/biking, and outdoors stuff to do in the area during warm months, and a place to ski during winter. What else...? I haven't lived here for a long time..

The schedule might change in 2018, but in ours, the first 5 months were really busy. After that, things settled down a bit and some people got part-time jobs. It became the pace of a normal full-time nursing program.

They didn't tell us what the acceptance rate was, but we started with something like 55 people, and it was 50 at week 2, and 40 at week 6. Most of them made it to the end (38 in total). The first 5 weeks were the hardest, because they wanted us to master all of the nursing skills and the assessment so we could start clinicals on week 6. I don't know if it's still this way, because they asked for feedback on how to change things. The people who failed out in week 5, from what I understand, they met with the advisor and made a plan to graduate... I know of one student who transferred to another local school.

I wouldn't hesitate to call the school's program directly. They were very open and helpful when I had questions!

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The area...? For being a moderately small city, it has two large hospitals, which I believe are the biggest employers in the city. Both hospitals are well-respected. The city is also becoming a lot more "hip" from what I've heard. There are a lot of different types of restaurants to eat at, and supposedly it's a great place to raise a family. There are a lot of trails for walking/biking, and outdoors stuff to do in the area during warm months, and a place to ski during winter. What else...? I haven't lived here for a long time..

The schedule might change in 2018, but in ours, the first 5 months were really busy. After that, things settled down a bit and some people got part-time jobs. It became the pace of a normal full-time nursing program.

They didn't tell us what the acceptance rate was, but we started with something like 55 people, and it was 50 at week 2, and 40 at week 6. Most of them made it to the end (38 in total). The first 5 weeks were the hardest, because they wanted us to master all of the nursing skills and the assessment so we could start clinicals on week 6. I don't know if it's still this way, because they asked for feedback on how to change things. The people who failed out in week 5, from what I understand, they met with the advisor and made a plan to graduate... I know of one student who transferred to another local school.

I wouldn't hesitate to call the school's program directly. They were very open and helpful when I had questions!

I was considering attending this university but the statistics you provided about attritition are sort of scaring me away.

Nearly 35% of your class failed within the first 5 weeks? That is not necessarily a good sign.

What could you attribute to this?

Were the professors exams not representative of the material they presented in class?

Did you require ATI exams in order to pass courses or did they make up a large percentage of your grading?

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MDtoDNP,

I see where you're coming from. My info is a few years old, but actually I'm training a new nurse at my hospital who just graduated from USF's ABSN program. I told him about those numbers last week (starting with 55, going down to 40), and he was surprised, saying it didn't happen to his class. If I remember correctly, he said that his class size was in the 30s the whole time, start to finish.

The reasons? This is going back 3 1/2 years, but some people decided the first week or two that they didn't want to be nurses, some didn't have English as their first language so it was too hard (I think they did regular-paced nursing), and some just couldn't keep up; they also had to keep a grade of 80% or higher.

Yes, we had to do ATI, but it wasn't a large part of our grade. I'm not sure about how USF uses ATI these days. Again, 3 1/2 years ago but... I think ATI was 5% of the final grade, and if we got a good score, we got 5%, but if we got a bad score, we had to do remediation and got 2.5%. Something like that. There may have been a few ATI tests per class, but I'm not sure. I am pretty sure that no one failed a class because of ATI, but I know a number of people failed certain ATI tests.

I'd say call USF if you're still thinking about the program. My new nurse felt it was a really good program. I know they polled us about how we thought they should restructure the program, so it's likely they do that every time and change it for the better.

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