Arrrg... Every college has totally different programs

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hi all, some of you like me are searching the internet looking for a college that will take you into their nursing program, without waiting 3 years. i have spent hours looking up colleges, nationwide, determining their wait lists, their entrance tests, their pre-req's, their co-reqs and the total number of credits.

what have i found???? every college is different.

there are limited entrance tests that i have found: 1. none, 2. net, 3. teas and 4. hesi. (i am looking at 4 colleges just now and they each have different entrance tests). then you take an entrance test and they then tell you that they have changed the entrance requirement and you now have to take a different test.

then the pre-reqs: florence or wants 47 credits as pre-reqs, some colleges want the cna (aka can etc) others want communications, medical dosage calculations exam, medical terminology etc. a&p 1 and 2 seem pretty standard. then you get into residency requirements. you get points for being a yavapai resident etc.

then the co-reqs, (co reqs??? if you don't have them, you won't get into programs built on a points system) i could go on for a long time here... nutrition, pe, soc, 2*hum, 2*psy. it's mind numbing even within one state. i have started a very large spreadsheet to start my comparisons.

the trouble is, if you start down one colleges requirements, it could take another year to get a different colleges requirements.

then you have the number of credits, az maricopa is around 64 i believe, then wa is around 110 (may as well get a bsn at that point).

it's hard enough to get into a school, but finding matching ones to apply to simultaneously is even harder! couldn't they standardize the program. after all, what really counts is having enough education to function well as a nurse and pass the nclex!

:twocents:

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You're right. It is frustrating. I'm applying to 2 colleges in the Spring for the Fall 2010 semester. One college is 17 miles south of me, the other is 25 miles north of me...each in a different county. Their program requirements for applying are different from each other and both are competitive (no wait-lists). It would be nice if it was all standardized...but I don't forsee that happening any time soon. I guess you just have to prioritize and take what's common to each, then add on the unique pre-req/co-req/support courses for the college(s) that you want to go to, get the highest grades you can and then apply as early as possible.

Good luck!!

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Specializes in ER.

I agree! In researching colleges/programs, I soon discovered this myself. If it makes you feel any better, it's the same with medical school. Every program has its own requirements.

It would be nice if all programs were created equal, but they are not. I find it very frustrating in trying to plan, especially when I'm trying to do this in the shortest amount of time possible!

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yes!! they must weed out a ton of people by making the application process so complicated! i am going to apply to several different schools (all CSUs) and each one is very different! it's incredibly frustrating. the point system at one is compleeeetly different form the points system at another. luckily they all only require the teas so that will make my life a little easier and most require the same core classes with tweaks here and there... and now we are having severe budget cuts so one school is not accepting you unless your prereqs are done BEFORE sending the application. they will not review you without your transcripts showing you are done with GE and nursing pre reqs. you have to apply a year before so you will basically be waiting for a whole year to see if you get in with nothing to do. other schools are not accepting spring application. many are not taking people who already have a bachelors. it's so hard to keep up with everything no wonder i am losing hair! i am not even applying until 2011

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It's driving me crazy also. I need to start a new spreadsheet and organize it better. I'm looking into 3 schools for sure right now and possibly another 2 or 3.

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Specializes in PICU, Type I Diabetes.

Ugh, I feel you wholeheartedly... in California, there were over 30 programs that I was considering... but only ended up applying to 3 for this very reason... and what I find even worse is that for some schools Anatomy and Physiology is fine, but for others they MUST be HUMAN Anatomy and HUMAN Physiology... so I'm only eligible for 2 out of the 3 I applied to... Grr... I agree, I wish it could just be standardized like Medical School.

Another thing I found coming from a 4- year top tier university is that if your school does not have it's own nursing program, it often won't have pre-nursing courses that apply to nursing programs. For example, my uni didn't have the "right" microbiology class or the "right" A & P as discussed above so I had to go to a community college on top of my own university just to do simple pre-reqs!

Spreadsheets will do wonders, and I say apply to what you can when you can. Plan on taking the important and versatile stuff first (micro, A&P, and gen bio and chem if you don't have it) and apply to the programs that only require those (there are some, I promise!) and then keep taking the more obscure classes. Then, if you get in right away, you're done! And if you don't, then you didn't waste much time because you needed those classes for the other programs anyway. That's the plan I worked out for myself, and I got in after the basic stuff (thank heavens...). Good luck, and I wish you the best!

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You're right. It is frustrating. I'm applying to 2 colleges in the Spring for the Fall 2010 semester. One college is 17 miles south of me, the other is 25 miles north of me...each in a different county. Their program requirements for applying are different from each other and both are competitive (no wait-lists). It would be nice if it was all standardized...but I don't forsee that happening any time soon. I guess you just have to prioritize and take what's common to each, then add on the unique pre-req/co-req/support courses for the college(s) that you want to go to, get the highest grades you can and then apply as early as possible.

Good luck!!

i know how you feel. for me, i drove all over the city from la to orange county.

cerritos, cypress, irvine, diamond bar... (you name it) to apply different colleges.

well. .. i tried my best and still waiting ...

wish me luck..

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Then I have just heard that the NET test is going away NATIONALLY. So everyone will need to take a different test. But at least that narrows down the entrance test differences. We are left with HESI and TEAS I believe.

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Specializes in Emergency, Pre-Op, PACU, OR.

Some schools don't require an entry exam at all. None of the accelerated second Bachelor programs I applied to did. The entry exam seems to be more common in ADN programs and some private schools.

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