Started a new thread, since the other threads on this topic look like they are from last year.
Okay,
I just got my acceptance letter in the mail today!!
I was going totally mental with anxiety, checking this board several times a day to see when people were hearing back, compared to when they had applied and what their stats were. I was also very nervous about how I had done on the TEAS, so I wanted to post my info to help other people a little. Here are my stats:
I applied to the school January 4th, 2010. I took the TEAS January 23rd, 2010.
Previous BA degree in anthropology. I graduate in August of 2009 with a 3.46 cumulative GPA.
I took A&P I last fall, at Gateway: B
Developmental Psych: A
TEAS: 81.2% (mean national was 72.8% and the mean for the program 73.3%)
My adjusted individual scores were as follows:
Reading: 82.5%
Math: 82.2%
Science: 70%
English: 85.5%
In all my nervousness, I called two days ago and was told that I would likely hear back from the in school 4-6 weeks. Then I got my letter today, February 5th. For the record, my admissions essay was based on a CNA training course I took in the fall and I also think that having a previous BA really helped, especially in seeing past that nasty 70% in the science section of the TEAS.
Good luck and I hope this information was helpful, or at least of interest, to some of you!!
Just thought I'd let all you guys know that I just priced out the required first year books on Amazon. If you thought about purchasing them individually, think again! Through Amazon, you'd end up spending $725.36 if you have an Amazon Prime account with free shipping. If you purchase the package through the school, it costs you only $581.95. Therefore, the package is by far the better value!!
Just thought I'd give you guys a heads up because I know many have been questioning whether it would be cheaper to get them elsewhere.
i cant believe there was a tornado! that sucks you couldnt take a tour but it probably is going to take a little while before you actually remember where everything is anyways. and they probably will let you walk around if you just went on another day. that really is crappy about the uniforms..im a size 0.. but i can buy the pants somewhere else at least? when i went to pay my application fee i was talking to someone and they said it would be cheaper to get them used but just a hassel to find them all and order them. were you pricing the books new?
Haha, yea… the tornado definitely made things interesting.
A medical student told me that many of the nurses wear the Baby Phat brand, and that they are supposed to have a really good fit. I think I am going to see if I can find some of those to try on. If you're that small, you will most likely not fit into the cargo style at all. Those were much bigger than the standard ones. The standard ones I could have gotten away with but they have an elastic in the back and you still can't tighten the string in the front all the way because it is sown into the sides. The fit just wasn't right. Just be aware that one of the girls was trying to tell me that you have to purchase the pants through the school because instructors may check at any point to see if you are wearing them. However, she was the class treasurer so I am assuming she was just trying to push it on us to get more sales. After talking to the other second year student, she told me that it wasn't necessary to buy the pants and that I could definitely get away with purchasing them elsewhere. The funny part is that the first student who was trying to make me buy them wasn't even wearing the pants from the school, she had purchased hers outside as well. LOL! So don't feel pressured into buying them!
The books I priced were all new. It may be important since if you purchase used may not have access to any of the ebooks that the books come with. Access codes typically expire within a year. Just from having taken AP, I know that the online resources can sometimes be invaluable when studying since they typically provide practice quizzes/tests. Plus the ebook feature helps when you want to look something up, since you can just type in what you are looking for as opposed to having to search for it through the actual book. Just a thought you may want to consider. If you don't think you may utilize all the books, it may be better to purchase used. Your right though, it is a hassle to find a decent quality used book at a good price. If you look on Amazon, they will tell you if they have the book used and then you can go through all the listings by vendor/price/quality to see which one you want to purchase. I just thought that the package would be the easiest way to go since you don't have to worry about not having something that may be important. Plus you may find them to be good resources throughout your career. The med-surg book looks great, all 2,300+ pages of it!
Good luck with your orientation!!! Hopefully you won't feel as rushed as we did. I think everyone just wanted to get home because of the situation with the storm.
Yeah you dont need to get the pants from the school supplier. We are supposed too, but there is only one instructor that really cares about it. The rest want you to save money and have a more comfortable fit. The guys pants are great though, havent been able to find anything that quite compares to the storage space the cargos give. Congrats on getting through orientation.
So I had my orientation yesterday. Since there has already been so much helpful information supplied on this forum, I found the orientation to be a bit of a review of things I already knew. It was nice to get our books (heavy!) and uniforms though.
I totally agree about the fit of the pants. I tried both types (cargo and non cargo) and they both fit horribly. Mediums were too large and completely falling down, while the smalls were very tight across the rear with about 4 inches of extra material around the back of the waist since the drawstring doesn't go all the way around as already mentioned
Now, when I asked if I could buy pants elsewhere, the student told me that while I could supplement with pants I buy on my own, that I absolutely have to buy the complete package provided by the school - 2 pants, 2 shirts, 1 labcoat. I'm not sure if this is the new response they're using to counteract inquiries about the pants, but I didn't really know what to say so I bought them from the school. She also told me I can expect the pants to shrink a little bit, only making the fit situation worse. If I do end up having to buy other pants, I'll pretty much have two useless pairs that I paid for.
On a separate note I took the required CPR class last night and was very dissapointed with it. I'm not sure if my expectations were too high or it was just an "off" night, but there were a lot of issues ranging from non-working equipment to the class being cut about an hour and a half short.
i went to orientation yesterday too. i had to get permission from i think it was the director to get pants somewhere else. she said that they all fit bad no matter what kind you get because they are supposed to be roomy. i had about 6 extra inches and i couldnt even tie them tight enough so they said i wouldnt be able to work in them properly so i can try and find smaller ones as long as they were all white.
O man... That really stinks you guys. I guess I lucked out with the student that was working the day I went. Wannabe, I had the exact same problem as you so it wouldn't have been a good situation for me to buy them either. Imagine being worried about your pants falling down during clinical....lol! I am glad that you asked the director as opposed to just buying useless pants. That is really terrible that you got stuck buying them Jess. Perhaps you can try washing them in warm water. Wannabe, what did you think about the fit of the lab coat? I am surprised they didn't have a size smaller than a 4 but at least it isn't as big of a deal as non fitting pants.
So I got the books yesterday and all I can say is I am now a little scared...lol! I couldn't even lift the box, it was that heavy. Three of the books are monsters! The med-surge book is actually broken up into two volumes. I thought there would at least be some interesting pics but I had to search for them! It was almost all text...a little intimidating. Let's hope that they serve mainly as reference, as TH0r said. Good thing is that they pretty much all come with CDs.
Jess- what a lousy experience you had with the CPR training. I wonder if it was just a fluke. I still have to do mine. Perhaps I can look for another program.
Irene - it's quite possible that it was just fluke. I'm sure there are different instructors for each course who handle the material differently. Ours was taught by a young EMS gentleman and a nurse. Both admitted they were pretty beat and wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, which is understandable. The problem with that is we rushed through the material extremely quickly. The dummies were old and didn't illustrate when you gave a successful breath, but at the same time the instructor's stressed the dangers of providing too much or too little air. They gave us sanitary mouth covers as though we were going to practice the regular mouth to mouth technique, and then we never used them, just the bags. None of the AED machines worked at all, so the only thing you could do was stick the electrode on the dummy. They fast forwarded through several parts of the video and we didn't even reference the book. At the very end, they give you a 20 question test which I thought could potentially be a little tricky given the specific information we rapidly covered. I could easily have seen someone not pass since I think you can only get 4 or 5 wrong.
I would recommend just asking a lot of questions if it looks like your class if going the same. Just scanning the book several of us noticed things that we needed clarification on. In some cases we had received part of the instruction but were missing another piece of information. Some of it ended up being on the test. I'm sure we'll get more instruction in school, but it would be nice to feel more comfortable given the type of training we received.
i really hope that you just had a bad class..sorry for you though.. because it is kind of an important thing to know..not that we will be alone for a while and will probably get more instruction over the years but what if you were taking the class for another reason and you needed to do cpr the next day and you couldnt because you didnt know to correctly.
i actually got a size 8 lab coat and the arms were still short. i have a tall upper body and she said that we dont wear them closed so it didnt really matter if they were a little loose .
I almost think that you should tell the school that you guys didn't receive adequate training. Just because the instructors had a long day is no excuse, especially in something as important as CPR. Sure, for some it is just a refresher but for others that are going through the course for the first time it is important that they receive solid training.
I recently took the TEAS back in June and did not score as high as I would have liked(71%) I am awful at these types of tests. My overall GPA is 3.43 and my AP 1 grade was a B+. All my pre-reqs will be completed next month. According to what I have read 25% is weighted on your TEAS, 25% on your AP1 and 50% on your GPA. While this is all great that they tell you how it is weighted this still does not tell me much nor give me much comfort and was wondering if anyone could kind of give me some insight as to what my chances are of getting into one of the 5 schools offering the RN program based on the information I provided above. I my first choice for a CC is NVCC (though I am willing to travel to Hartford, Bridgeport Hosp or even NewHaven). I am considering re-taking the Teas however I was laid off so if I don't have to spend the extra money I would prefer not to. Has anyone been in a similar situation with regards to TEAS score, GPA and AP1 grade and made it in without having to go on a wait list. I am really concerned that if I can't get my TEAS score up I will never get into a program and right now time is of the essence with me being unemployed.
Let's hope that they serve mainly as reference, as TH0r said. Good thing is that they pretty much all come with CDs.
Ladybug15
198 Posts
Just thought I'd let all you guys know that I just priced out the required first year books on Amazon. If you thought about purchasing them individually, think again! Through Amazon, you'd end up spending $725.36 if you have an Amazon Prime account with free shipping. If you purchase the package through the school, it costs you only $581.95. Therefore, the package is by far the better value!!
Just thought I'd give you guys a heads up because I know many have been questioning whether it would be cheaper to get them elsewhere.