BSN at UT-Austin

hopefulprayers1 · Nov 27, 2011

Do you know the length of this program?

meownur · Nov 28, 2011

yes, it's 2 years for upper division bsn

MikeJones · Jan 14, 2012

yea I have some advice for you, hopefully not too late. Get some hospital experience; do some volunteering at Brackenridge or St. David's. It's important, trust me.

Also, keep that GPA up, obviously. And keep applying if you don't get into upper division 1st time.

meownur · Jan 15, 2012

how much do you think is enough? I am just now getting into a hospital so I'll have about 7 months of experience volunteering there by the time I apply for upper division . Are you at UT?

MikeJones · Jan 15, 2012

i just graduated and got a job (although some ppl still haven't, due to the economy and competition). I think that 7 months should be enough, it sounds more then what mine was (like 40 hrs in ER), hehe. I started off in the gift shop, they let me have some of the snacks + popcorn, it was awesome.

GL! The SoN is awesome!

meownur · Jan 15, 2012

Thanks!! Do you mind if I ask you more questions? Like what my GPA range should be to get into upper division and how did you survive pharmacology (was it really hard?).

MikeJones · Jan 15, 2012

Yeah my gpa was a 3.8 the 1st time i applied but with 0 hospital volunteering. The 2nd time i applied, it was around 3.6 but with 40 hrs volunteering. Weird, huh. I would keep it above 3.5 if I were u. I got into the spring class instead of the fall class, so who knows, fall class may be more competitive.

Pharm is taught by one guy, in a huge auditorium in jester, it usually weeds out a lot of people. He goes over a crapload of drugs/day, so the # of drugs to memorize is crazy. You will find mnemonics to be very helpful. I barely made a B, but i remember after tests, he showed us a bell curve where a lot of people made C's, less B's, and very few A's.

I would suggest find a partner and study drugs with them. You could also do the S.H.I.N.E. volunteering in the SoN on top of the hospital volunteering to get a good letter of rec from faculty.

meownur · Jan 16, 2012

Aaah, I'm trying to improve my GPA. It's a 3.4 right now and I'm planning to apply this fall to get in for spring 2013. I looked into the shine program... thanks! Did you get your other letters of rec. from other sci. professors?

MikeJones · Jan 16, 2012

yea i got one from the volunteering lady at Brack, a Microbio professor, and I think my SHINE lady. I may be wrong, it's been a while.

your GPA is not bad, but if u can, turn in ur completed app SOON AS YOU CAN b/c if your at the top of the stack, u always have an advantage.