UHV 2nd Degree BSN 2015 Applicants

U.S.A. Texas

Published

Anyone else plan on applying in August?

I am applying to UHV Spring 2015 program as well. I plan on taking my TEAS exam July 2nd. Im sooo nervous about the test I have the study manual and practice assessments from the ATI website. I wish I had someone to study with. I hope we all get accepted as well. And as far as housing It all depends on where yu want to stay the school is located pretty close to some nice, affordable apts.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Well, first of all, thank you for taking the time post such a detailed message. I was really set on UHV and now I'm second guessing my decision. At the same time, I'm not really worried about it, because I've already been through a stringent nursing program, as I am already an LVN. The pace of the program is the main reason why I chose UHV. I think it forces you to keep focus and stay on track. I really hope that the instructors are not intentionally "weeding out" students. It can really ruin a students career plans. I plan on going right into a DNP program after getting my BSN and if I got kicked out of school for reasons other than my grades or my behavior, I would be devastated. If nothing else, your post has opened my eyes. I do appreciate that they want to have high NCLEX passing rates(and they do...I looked it up) I think its healthy pressure for students. I have looked into applying to UTHSC-Houston's Pacesetter program, which has a really cool concept of front loading coursework and back loading all the clinicals. Having been through an LVN program that uses the traditional style of mixing coursework and clinicals simultaneously, I think the student would benefit more from back loading clinicals. I think you would go into the workforce more prepared to work with confidence. The issue I have with UTHSC-Houston is that they require the HESI A2. I don't want to have to study for the TEAS and the HESI A2...ugh! Anyway, the other program that I was thinking of applying to is UTHSC-San Antonio, but it doesn't start until May 2015 and I really want to start a program by Spring 2015, because I'm finished with all of my present req's. Oh, and I finally input ALL of my courses from my previous colleges into the nursingcas system...took me for...e...over lol. I also learned the hard, expensive way that you need to have all of your official transcripts sent DIRECTLY to nursingcas. I had all of my official transcripts mailed to me and then I sent them to nursingcas...they sent them right back, unopened. Obviously, I can't read. So I had to pay to have them sent directly to nursingcas. Has anybody taken their TEAS yet?

Up Vote Up Vote ×

OMG! Well right now I am lost for words. That post really gave me insight. Wow is all I can say. No I have not taken the TEAS yet. I am trying to study but will end up taking it sometime in July.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

BirdGangStackRings,

Thanks for sharing about nurscas. I have some transcripts and thought about putting them all in a folder to send in. You just saved me time and money.

Thanks

Up Vote Up Vote ×

@[COLOR=#003366]Future Nurse3

Hi, this is the classmate that withdrew after Alex was kicked out. I have a theory that they have a set number of students that must be eliminated because of lack of resources. Perhaps UHV can't have all 60 students at Texas Children's for pedi clinicals...something like that, do you understand what I'm trying to say?

It was sad to hear how many of ya'll got kicked out :( gosh, all that hard work :(

Anything you need feel free to contact me.

I'd definitely would want to go to a nursing program where they want us to succeed. UHV definitely did not provide help for those who were struggling.

To those who are applying to UHV, please do your research and see if the program will suit you. Best of luck, any questions feel free to message me.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

jennytmuw, is there any other positive or negative information you can share with us about the program(clinicals, lectures, exams, administration, admissions process, instructors,etc.). I'm looking for something to help make my decision clearer. Maybe something that you or another student experienced that was good or bad. After reading these negative reviews, I'm second guessing my decision to attend UHV. Are there other programs that you've heard great things about? Like UTHSC-Houston? Any and all information you can share would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Holy Cow! Future Nurse3's post scared me. We all have a degree from other majors and want to switch to nursing. If UHV swept 17 out of 60 students in the first semester, that is is more than 25%. Without standing letters, they have a very limited chance to get into other nursing programs.

Jennytmuw, do you have any information about fast-track BSN programs in UTHSC-Houston and UTMB? Did they kick that much students out?

Thank you in advance!

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Part 1 of 5

Hello,

I’d be happy to share my experience at UHV. Keep in mind, this is my point of view and I did go there for 2 months before withdrawing.

The dean has a few rules that she likes to repeat every chance she gets: no drama, no weddings/pregnancies, and no working. I think there’s a couple other rules but I‘ve forgotten.

So I broke one rule, I was working! And previous students warned me not too. I’d like to think that is what made me do horrible in Pathophysiology, and there was no way to recuperate my grade. So I withdrew because I did not want to take my chances of working really hard and fail, where it’ll be on my transcripts forever.

UHV Admission Process:

When I was applying, they required us to use Nursing CAS. I sent all my transcripts to NCAS and input all my grades into their system. Then paid the required fee. UHV was good in emailing reminders if they missed something from me. They require the TEAS V and I made an 82% last year. My overall gpa isn’t all that, it’s well below a 3.5, my prereqs gpa ~3.6 and I think that is all they look at, I’m not sure.

Interview was pretty late, I can’t remember the exact date but a couple days later they emailed the decision.

But their decision was like in December! And school started in January so they cut it close! We had an Orientation Day but it was also the first day of school. The weeks before first day, they emailed us a list of textbooks (they sold a package with everything for $1800—which I recommend in buying because I bought everything separately and it came out the same amount) we needed to buy and what we had to wear/bring.

Previous students told me that a few weeks before class they got an email of required readings. We did too, but only for Pharmacology and it was a few days before class started.

So we basically were behind, and there were problems with some students’ electronic materials (that was part of the package) that made us even further behind in our readings. We had a bumpy start!

I haven’t heard of UTHSC-Houston because I wasn’t interested in them and so I never researched. I’m sorry I don’t have any info there. I didn’t get accepted to the accelerated UTMB program last year because of my overall gpa they said. My buds go over there and they say it’s hard but are doing well. I’ll ask them if people have withdrawn or gotten kicked out and will let you know.

Our UHV Spring ’14 class actually started out w/ about 63 students and as of today there are exactly 32 students.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Part 2 of 5

Administration:

UHV staff are proud of the fact that UHV had the highest first pass NCLEX scores rate in Texas.

I love the fact that they are approachable but not the inconsistency of one professor to another. There was a lot of situations where one professor taught one way and the other a different way, especially in Sim Lab. It can make any student confused! And it is a huge risk during Sim Lab since students only have 2 tries to get their skills checked off. But why make one student suffer if professor #1 taught him/her a certain way, where professor #2 told them that way was wrong?

I didn’t like the fact that the main administration for UHV (non-nursing administration) are in Victoria, TX. If you have to deal with Financial Aid concerns or Billing, UHV takes care of that but unless you want to travel to Victoria, TX, you’d have to deal with them through email. I believe some staff (financial advisors) traveled to UH Sugar Land or UH Cinco Ranch like twice a week, but that means you’d have to be flexible to catch them. I had financial aid concerns and would have liked to go to school and talked to someone face to face instead of a run around of numerous emails and phone calls.

Exams:

We would have an exam every Tuesday. For example, 2/04 Evidence Based Nursing Exam #1 and next week Pharmacology Exam #1, and next week Nursing Process for Symptom Management Exam #1…and so on. You’d have to by a special screen protector that covers your laptop screen because students take their exams on their laptops in a small auditorium. We would have to download the exam a day or two before. The exam was downloadable but not viewable. You download that software program the first couple weeks of school.

Most of the exams were about 50 questions or more. There were reviews posted at least a week before the exam called “Blue Print”s that listed objectives that may be on the exam. Some students formed groups that would split it up among themselves. Professors warned not to do that because if one student was in charge of objectives 1-5, then she/he would have greater knowledge of it than her buddies’ objectives 6-10. But who had the time to do each objective themselves?

Pharmacology and Evidence Based Nursing (which is Patho) exams were always curved, well at least during the time I was there.

EVERY NURSING SCHOOL EXAM: All questions are right!!!! But you have to choose the MOST RIGHT!!!!

That is what makes nursing school though, deciding which answer is the most right answer.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Part 3 of 5

Clinicals:

For the Spring semester students were to have 6 weeks of Medical Surgical Nursing, 5 weeks of Psychiatric Nursing, and 2 weeks of Pediatric nursing. Students would go one 8 hour shift day, per week. On the night before medsurg we’d have to go to the hospital and get all the info on the patient that we got assigned to. The first few times it took forever!!!

We did Psych at UT Harris County Psychiatric Center. Pedi at Texana, an autism center. Medical Surgical Nursing at Houston Methodist Sugar Land or West Hospital, depending where you are placed—they keep in mind of what part of town you live but the profs did mention that they will try to move students to different hospitals each semester.

The profs mentioned at the beginning of the semester that in the Summer medsurg would be at the same hospital. Obstetrics would be at Methodist Sugar Land or West or Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital and Pediatrics at Shriner’s. For the Fall they mentioned that Community Nursing would be at Fort Bend Home Health Agencies, Pedi at Texas Children’s Hospital and MedSurg at the same hospitals.

I loved clinicals!!! J You’d shadow an RN and basically learn all the hands-on portion of Nursing.

Sample of one of my Weeks at UHV:

Week of Feb 10: (*weeks are similar to this)

Monday:

8:30a-4p Simulation Lab (each group had stations to go to, ie. 8:45a to 9:45 Activity 1, Group 1)

VCE Lesson 2 (Stress) Due

Taylor PrepU (2 quizzes) due.

****Each PrepU quiz were to have been taken at least 4 times to reach the Level 4 requirement****

Tuesday:

8:30a-10:00am Pharm Exam #1

10:30a-2pm Nursing Process for Symptom Management Lecture

2:30p-3:30pm Pharmacology Lecture

3:30pm- 6pm PickUp Patient (go to hospital and be assigned a patient and get all their info&prep work for Weekly Care Card)

Pharm PrepU (18 quizzes) due

Wednesday

8am-1pm Clinicals or “Off”

Sim Lab DocuCare Due

SimLab NSST Due

Thursday

8amish (not sure of time b/c I didn’t have to) Pick Up Patient if Friday Clinicals

10am StudentSuccess Appointment for those who didn’t make 75% on last week’s exam (it was supposed to be individual but that wasn’t possible so I believe it was changed to a group session)

11:3a- 1:30pm Synthesis of Nursing Lecture

2pm to 4pm Intro to Evidence Based Practice Lecture (Patho!!)

4p to 7pm Sim Lab

Weber PrepU Due (11 Quizzes)

Friday

“Off” or Clinicals

Weekly Care Card Due (if clinicals on Wednesday)

Saturday

Journal Entry Due

Lab Activity Due

Read/study chapters

Sunday

Read/study chapters

For this week we were supposed to have read:

Taylor Chapters 26, 33, 35

Taylor’s Nursing Handbook Clinical Nursing Skills # 37, 97, 110, 133, 143, 163, 172

Watch Taylor Skill Video Chapter 33

Taylor Chapter 17, 26

Karch Part 4, which are chapters 19-28, but this was a requirement of last week, so let’s say half of that

Porth Chapter 34-37

Weber 25, 30-32

Hinkle & Cheever 65 (assessment and patho sections only)

Lippincott Videos Vol 3: Topic 4 and Vol 6: Topic 2

So that makes a total of about 20 chapters to read per week, 7 sections of clinical nursing skills to read, 3 videos to watch. This is an estimation, some weeks we would have to read more. Additionally, we had many quizzes and assignments to complete. And don’t forget, Test every Tuesday #tet

I worked 12 hour shifts on Saturdays and once on Sunday. Yeea umm…don’t work in this program!!!!

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Part 5 of 5

Last year I searched for 2013 UHV students and asked them “If you could go back/look back to the beginning of nursing school, what would you do differently, or advice yourself?”

These were some of their responses:

“VCEs are virtual clinical excursions. It counts as clinical--CDs you pop on your comp are you have to answers a ton of questions.

Hmmm great question. I would say to not be as nervous, ask more questions (especially during simulation), and know there is light at the end of the tunnel no matter how hard it is.”

“…the best advise I could give you is to relax. Just take one day at a time. Some days you will feel overwhelmed and that's okay. I'm a pretty laid back person in general so that definitely helped me. Remember that you cannot do everything they tell you to so do as much as you can. Get a study group immediately and split up EVERYTHING! Make time for yourself every week, even if you have a ton of things to do go workout, cook, see friends or family. If you try to do everything as fast as possible you WILL get burned out and next year will not be a good one. Make friends with everyone and avoid any type of drama. You will spend 70+ hours a week with these people and they will become your best friends so enjoy the year and remember it is possible to get through. People will fail out and you have to learn how to handle that cause it is VERY hard to watch so help anyone you can! But most of all just relax right now. There's no need to get ahead. just get organized and that's IT! Enjoy the next few weeks! You can do it!”

“Immediately get used to calling the books by the names of the authors, not the title of the book. Keep a small booklet with you at all times with all your sign-in information for each of your online projects. Also, we all had trouble last year with doing the VCE's because we would get almost to the end and it would erase it all. Most of us started doing it in Word and then cutting and pasting the material. Good luck.”

“Haha ummmm. Probably understand and learn more my first semester.

Instead of waiting till the third/last semester.

USE YOUR ATI BOOKS that they give you.

Also there is a green colored zerwech book. Do practice questions in those

Third semester the test had questions from the zeerwech practice questions ( the online questions and end of chapter )”

“I've thought about your question for 3 weeks now. I can't seem to come up with an answer worthy of such a good question. Just try to do all you can in clinicals and use that time to practice your clinical skills. Don't study with anyone who has a tendency to panic. Sleep 8 hours before a test. Try not to get discouraged when you fall behind. Prioritize on the basis of grade weight and take things one at a time. Humor is extremely important, get a good laugh in each day. You are going to be an excellent nurse. How are things going? When do you start?”

“Sounds like a good plan...focus more on pharm class. Thats where ppl fall behind. For psych class, mark down whatever dr. B$%&()*m says in ur text book. Always take ur text book in class with u”

This student had a 4.0 gpa overall at the end: “Wow! I feel like a celebrity, lol. Congratulations on surviving your first week in the accelerated program! I think I got that award because I didn't know when to stop studying and I truly wanted the best for my classmates and my patients. So during the year when you show that you care about the success of everyone and not just yourself, the faculty notices. My advice is to do your best and take each day as it comes. If you fail a quiz or a test just accept it and move on. I was way too hard on myself and I didn't relax for the entire first semester. In my opinion the first semester is the WORST. By the second semester you will have made friendships that make the studying and suffering easier. You will know your teachers and feel comfortable asking candid questions. Know that there is a time to be serious but you also need time to unwind and be silly for your own sanity. A little advice to you is that the ATI books make studying for some of the tests really nice because it highlights the things the profs are going to test on. To be honest I literally had no life for the last year. I studied/did assignments till bedtime almost every day. But do take breaks and spend time with your family. That's all the advice I can think of. The program is tough and scary but you can do it! Just stay positive! Let me know if you have any other questions throughout the year. I am happy to help!”

I urge you all to research the schools you are interested in. Last year, I found these people through facebook lol I looked at the UHV facebook nursing class and just randomly messaged people about their experience. I think I should have searched for those who did not complete the program because, well you shouldn’t rely on testimonies from successful people.

I hope all this helped somewhat! Best of luck!!

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Thank you jennytmuw for such five long-and-detailed posts. It really helps us to understand the study and life in such a intensive program.

Just hang over there. I believe you will find another BSN program soon. Best wish for you!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Add a Comment