Vanderbilt Program

CAG12345 · Jan 21, 2005

Thank you for your responses! I was quite surprised that I found such a program with a Masters' entry without a previous bachelors degree. I'm still considering it, but the fact of little experience as a nurse makes me a little nervous. But, I think i'll think about it some more and see what happens. I'm still completing pre-reqs so advice from both of you was super-helpful!
Thank you so much again,
Michelle :)

To: Michelle in CA,

I just sent in my application to the direct-entry MSN program at Vanderbilt two days ago and just this afternoon posted a question on another thread about what others know about the program, and nursing in Tennessee, then ran into your post and responses to it later on today. I'm also in California and had all the same questions, as well as some others, about the culture of the school and Nashville and the quality of the program.

I'd love to know what you eventually decided to do and anything else you might have learned since your last post about the program.

Catherine in CA (and in a similar boat to you with a BA and MA, an doctorate in other field and finishing prereqs for nursing)

ANPFNPGNP · May 31, 2008

I graduated from the combined ANP/GNP program a few years ago. I went to another school to get my post-Master's certification as a FNP. I live in TX and I can tell you that I've landed every job I've interviewed for and it had EVERYTHING to do with me graduating from Vanderbilt. However, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless they've got the $$$ to pay for it without taking out a loan. Fortunately, I just had to go one year b/c I was already a BSN. I was a distance student, so I had to pay for airfare, hotels, restaurants, etc (this was very expensive). Also, they are misleading people when they say you can work fulltime and attend their accelerated program...it is NOT possible! I had to finish close to 800 clinical hours in one year plus the trips to Nashville...where's the time for a job? Another thing, I remember there were a lot of nurses there who had a big problem with the students who were non-nurses. Frankly, I didn't care, but I thought it was really weird when we were all starting our clinical rotations and some of them hadn't even taken the NCLEX yet! In fact, before going to Vanderbilt, I had never even heard of a NP program that accepted non-nurses. If someone is truly an Advanced Practice Nurse, then the general public is going to assume they actually have experience as a nurse first! Also, I remember the non-nurses complaining that they were treated very poorly by the staff where they did clinicals, specifically b/c they hadn't put their time in as nurses. Although, I never heard about docs treating them poorly.