Best and Worst Schools?

the waitlists at all the denver area community colleges have 2+ year waitlists to get into their ADN RN programs, i'm pretty sure. i'm not trying to discourage you (and maybe you already knew about the waitlists) but that is how i ended up at DSN in the first place: every community college i tried between denver and the springs had these long waitlists, so i took the loans to go to dsn b/c i figured i could start nursing a few years sooner and make up the payment difference that way (of course, i had a really low-paying job before school, so that made the decision easier). plus at dsn there are some accelerated programs too, which speeds it up more (regis and cu, and maybe other places also have accelerated programs).

evan

I have to agree with Evan...the community college route in Colorado can get you a great education (from what I've seen and heard, anyway) but it takes for-freakin'-EVER to get into their programs. A woman from my church has been on ACC's waitlist for three years...she finally just started the program this fall.

CU requires at least a 3.0 GPA...and even 3.0 probably isn't good enough to catch their eye. If they were going by the classes I've taken in the past year I'd be fine, but I know they're also going to look at my illustrious college years from the early 80's. Um. That's a bit of a problem. HA!

I'm not looking forward to what it will do to our financial situation, but paying the tuition at DSON is really looking like my best option. I'm 46...I have no intention of being on a waitlist for three years when I could be nursing by then. I'm still looking at the options right now, but there are girls in my prereq classes who are perfectly content to wait for openings in the CCC system. They're also young enough to be my daughters. ;-)

Agreed, the waitlists were just too long for me. I put myself on the waitlist for FRCC (Westminster) around 4 years ago and still wouldn't be started (I still get their emails even though I've asked them to take me off their list). I decided to work on pre-reqs for a 4 year degree and applied to CU and UNC -- I'll graduate from CU the same semester I'd start at FRCC.

Penny8611 - CU will look at your pre-reqs to calculate your GPA. If it doesn't pertain to your transfer credits they don't care what grades you had in the past. Check out their website for a list of pre-reqs to see what classes you'd need to transfer in. Also, the application essay counts as big part of their acceptance decisions, if you're closer to the 3.0 minimum but can write an awsome essay you have a good chance to get in. :)

RNin'08

Wow...wow. WOW!!!!!!!

Thank you so much for this information! What I've been hearing is not at all what you've stated here. I've been told that they will indeed look at my transcripts from 25 years ago; if I had bothered to look at their website for myself (as I did last night) it states clearly that they won't even consider any classes that are more than 10 years old. This changes my plan significantly. ;-) I really appreciate the information and will look further into CU.

I heard from an RN just a couple of days ago that CU will not even look at you unless you already have a Bachelor's degree. Obviously I need to stop listening and look into it for myself.

Thanks again!

Penny

This is some great info, thanks. Yea I have a problem with GPA too. Classes I took when I was 18 and stupid....I almost failed my first year of college. The second year I did pretty good, still wasn't that motivated yet. I took time off and then did more school and did great since then. I just wasn't sure if those early grades would be overlooked. And I hate being put on a wait list when I haven't even done my pre-req's yet. I would be waiting 5 or more years just to start! Seems ridiculous. I am going to seriously look at these other schools.