ADN to BSN vs. Trad BSN

[Guacamolee]

Hello. I plan to start Pre nursing at my community college. My community college very fortunately offers an ADN program. I was initially thinking to just take my pre reqs at community college, but now I am really considering getting my ADN and transferring to uni to get my BSN. My main reason for this: I get clinical experience my whole four years rather than my last two.

I would appreciate any input about ADN to BSN. If there are any advanatages or disadvantages, if it would be better to just do my pre reqs and than apply for nursing school, so on.

[FutureNurseInfo]

I may have some insight into this, but, I am sure there are more knowledgable allnurses on here. As far as I know, ADN are 2-year programs. It is clinical phase, meaning for the two years you will be studying nursing classes only. However, to even get into such a program, you will probably spend another year, or two, getting your pre-requisite courses, like sciences. BSN programs are usually 4 year programs. The first two years are general education courses like your English comp, math, and, of course, sciences. The last two years are your nursing courses. To get to the clinical phase of the BSN program, you will have to file an application, and, like some institutions require, pass an entrance exam. One exception I have seen with the BSN programs though, is Hunter College in NYC. It is a 4-year BSN, but upon admission into the clinical phase (year 2), you will be taking A&P 1 and 2, rather than taking such courses as pre-requisites. However, it is still 4 years. All in all, both with ADN and BSN programs you look to spend 3-4 years. The difference, though, when you graduate you may either have an ASN or BSN.

[EmDash]

When you say you'll have clinicals for four years if you do an ADN first, are you thinking that you'd do clinicals during your ADN and then do more clinicals in a BSN program? Because once you complete your ADN, you'd get your RN license. From there, you'd do a RN to BSN program, not a traditional BSN program. RN to BSN programs generally either have no clinicals or only a select number. So you won't have a full four years of clinical rotations. And I'm not sure clinicals are going to help that much if you are working as a nurse once you get an ADN.

And maybe your school is different, but with our local ADN program, you still have to complete prereq classes before applying, just fewer ones than the BSN requirements.