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Hi All!
I have decided to take the plunge and leave my career as a mental health therapist to gain a BSN in Nursing and hopefully move straight into MSN program. Is anyone else applying to Duke in the Fall??
In addition to already having the prereqs completed, perhaps another factor is prior health care experience. While schools don't necessarily require a certain number of hours, maybe it's just one of the unstated things that the admissions committee will look favorably upon in order to separate candidates that have similar prereq grades, GPAs, and good essays and rec letters. I'm not sure what Duke's thought is though.
Yes, I see your point. I guess they must be pretty significant or schools wouldn't calculate separate prereq GPAs, huh?
There's another factor that could be the wildcard, too. Believe me, IT PAINS ME to say this, but it could be the interview. The Admission's Director at another school told me they've turned away students with 4.0 GPAs because they didn't have the right motivations (among other things). She also said they've accepted applicants below 3.0 because they became convinced in the interview that the applicant had the right stuff.
Did someone say something about a 10 day vacation to Mexico? Mmmm. Nice.
Well, when I think I did badly at something, I try and remind myself that there are always people that did worse. So nice, I know, but it helps ease my anxiety temporarily.
Did it really go THAT badly? I've gotten jobs where the interviewer was totally giving me mixed (read: mean, horrible) signals! Just sayin'!
I can offer this: at the info session they indicated that clinical/healthcare prior experience wasn't that big of a deal. Duke prides themselves on diversity in their students, ie, lots of different backgrounds, not necessarily in healthcare. The current ABSN students told us that the personal statement and interview and personal references were big factors. They really made it sound like those were the biggies rather than the GPA and other technical aspects. Sounds insane, but really they made it sound like it comes down to passion, and in nursing, I can see why they want that quality in their students.
Jeez, I hope all prereqs completed aren't that much of a big deal. I'm taking two this semester - A&P 2 and Micro, which are big ones - but I took five in the fall (AP1, Stats, Dev and Gen Psych and Nutrition) and got straight A's. So, hopefully they can have some faith in me to repeat that success... man, I'll fax them my first exams this semester to show them I'm doing well if that's what it takes!
I don't know what to expect from the interview anymore, so I'm just preparing as well as I can. One of my boyfriend's professors (the boy's a counseling grad student just about to graduate) grilled me the other night on why I want to be a nurse, what I expect, and what I want to do down the line... I was sweatin' it! But the professor was quite impressed and the boyfriend said that's not an easy thing to accomplish. So that gives me some hope that I won't just clam up and stammer something stupid.
I hope.
:)
Good luck to everyone going out this week!!
Edited to add: Um. Dumb question, but I'm a bit worried all of a sudden. I just noticed that there's an English Comp (3-6 credits) prerequisite requirement. Did anybody else bypass this in their undergrad program because of AP or IB classes? That's not an issue, right? AP exams in HS count... right?
Yeah I don't know. I would think that AP credit would transfer, but I'm not sure. I'm in the same boat with the general psych requirement. I had AP credit and therefore didn't have to take intro to psych, but I was a psych minor so hopefully if AP credit is an issue I wouldn't have anything to worry about.
twois-
Oh no! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to freak you out. I was just thinking that if someone doesn't do as well as they would hope on an interview that completing all your prereqs *might* give them an advantage, but given that I am not on an admissions committee and never have been, I really have no idea.
I took an accelerated rhetoric class in college which I assume will cover the English Comp requirement. I would think that AP credit would count though!
Rubypie, interesting that you mentioned people told you that health care experience wasn't a big factor. I just looked thru my old emails cuz I vaguely remembered our dear friend mentioning it when I had asked last year for some admissions stats and stuff. She said this:
We typically look for students to have at least a 3.0 GPA or higher. You really need to
have A's and B's in the science pre-req courses. We can't transfer anything less than a
C. We typically get around 200 applicants and we have around 77 slots for
capacity right now. The average GPA is around 3.2-3.3. We do look at prior healthcare
experience very favorably. This usually sets applicants apart from others who don't have
experience. You also need to take the GRE for this program, unless you already have a
master's degree. Our average GRE score is around 1130-1150.
So I wonder why there are differing opinions on the health care experience. I guess there's no point in worrying about anything that we were told since it's too late now. Oh well.
Just a thought, but I spoke with her awhile back, when they were considering dropping the GRE requirement for this cohort. She said their primary reason is that there are people with significant healthcare experience that would be more than qualified to handle the program, but might not fare well on the test. They wanted to level the playing field for professionals and academics. So, based on that, I would say that experience can definitely have a favorable impact. If someone is borderline, experience may well give them the boost they need. I don't think, however, that not having experience would necessarily hurt, as long as they don't get the idea that you really don't know what it's all about or that you don't have any idea what you are getting yourself into.
That's my take, anyway.
I think what Kebunt is saying makes sense.
If someone's a weaker student, having healthcare experience could give them the leg-up that they need to make it through the program. However, if you're a strong student to begin with you can probably get by with less direct experience in the field (as long as you can articulate that you know what you're getting yourself into). Every student comes in with their own individual strengths and weaknesses-- and healthcare experience could help balance the equation for folks who historically haven't done so hot in school.
mld1980
91 Posts
Sure! I have no idea if this is true or not, but who knows. I've seen a lot of people on this website who are applying to a school, have great GPA's, claimed to have good recs and essays, but still are denied. They have no idea why they are denied, but I've seem to notice that some don't have all of their prereqs complete. It could be a coincidence, or maybe I'm just looking for something that isn't there. Considering, however, that most schools look the hardest at prereq GPA it could be a possibility. While they definitely admit people who have no completed their prereqs, it's definitely a plus for you to have all the requirements and then some :) Know what I mean? You've already proven you can handle to prereq courseload.