hello, all! i am a fellow student like a lot of people here just trying to get into a nursing program. i am applying to several schools at the moment, but one of my options is the july 2010 summer banner fellows program. i went to an information meeting in early december and got the application and thought everything was perfectly fine and dandy: i'd fill out the application, work on the essays for awhile, and everything will hopefully be fine.
however, it is not.
i have a friend who is also applying for the summer program with banner fellows with me as well, but she went to the first january information meeting. what they told her was completely different than what they had told me only a month earlier; evidently the banner fellows program is undergoing serious "restructuring" and actually canceled the rest of the january and february information sessions. in fact, they're "restructuring" so much that they didn't even give my friend an application because they were not sure how much they were going to change. they simply told her to come to the march information session to finally pick up the application.
here is what she told me that they were doing, verbatum from the email she sent me:
1.) the march cohort of the banner health nurse fellows has been filled.
2.) they have
canceled the january and february information sessions
due to a ton of changes within the program. the next session will be in march.
3.) the old application (any application prior to the future one that they will be handing out in march) is
not acceptable
and will be replaced.
((i am not sure what they will do with the applications they've sent out earlier in the earlier information session... i know i will continue working on my essays, but i will be attending the march information session))
4.) they are
canceling a couple of cohorts
(no word of which ones yet) which means that they will be lumping the remaining ones together.
5.) they are
increasing the minimum
gpa
to 3.0 but probably wont look at anyone below a 3.2.
6.) the nursing program director at banner fellows doesn't even know the different changes that is to come so the info session was not really an info session because she didn't have any info to give us.
7.) the market took such a big hit last year that when the students recently graduated from the program, some
did not have jobs
like the program "promises/requires"!
i'm not trying to cause panic or spread rumors, so please don't flame me. i am legitimately trying to let people know about this because without my friend going to the january information session, i would have been completely and utterly unaware. i've been reading through some threads and saw several people talking about the banner fellows program as if they did not know this problem has come up, so i wanted to spread the news. i'm seriously not making this up, my friend called me crying when she got out of the meeting and was seriously upset that they didn't even give her an application because she wanted to start working on it all.
here is a link to the banner nurse fellows program website:
the next information session will be tuesday, march 23rd at gateway cc.
i'm keeping my fingers crossed for all of us trying to get in that they won't be changing too much! it seems as if the banner fellows program can't escape the grasps of the economy, either...
here's to hoping banner fellows will continue to be as great as it is! :heartbeat
kf_az82: I was going off of this board, which is a LOT less specific, so that was why I was so confused as to what you were saying about the part-time thing at Gateway and whatnot:
I did not gather from your earlier post that you were proposing that the "restructuring" could possibly be already seen on the more detailed whiteboard page, with Banner Fellows only being offered through Gateway and dropping all the other schools; but now it all makes sense! :) After looking at the whiteboard page that you offered, that does kind of seem to be the case. That's a big bummer for me because Gateway is really far from me, but I guess I'll just see how the chips fall, you know? We'll have to wait until the 23rd to find out for sure anyhow.
I apologize if my earlier response seemed rash or a little abrasive... I don't really mean it that way. It's just been one of those weeks (already) and I must have taken your earlier post a little too close to the heart. It's all good now, though; I mean we're both in this crazy applying-and-waiting-to-get-into-nursing-school phase together, right?
:heartbeat
P.S. Thanks for letting me know that GCC is still open, fromthesea! ASU typically closes everything down during Spring Break so I had no idea. Unfortunately April Orr, the nursing advisor, had already left, but I left a message on her machine. Thanks!
fromtheseaRN, BSN, RN
464 Posts
no worries, i remember how stressed i was waiting to get into a program. everyone is just stressed so don't take it personally.
as for the summer session, not every campus who does banner starts a cohort in the summer, so it's very likely that gcc is not doing it this run.
gcc is open this week so go ahead and give them a call.
good luck everyone!