canadian nursing programs

lovelivelearn · Nov 12, 2010

From my experience, I did not apply to u of t simply because their program seemed to give less clinical experience. If u look into the UofT nursing program u'll find that for the first 2 years u will have to take general science and IF by the end of the 2 yrs u have an amazing average (mid 70s i think) THEN u can get into nursing (courses+clinical) while other schools ie. mcmaster, queens, ryerson, western already started their nursing courses from yr 1 and clinical placements in yr 2. Ryerson i heared is known for their nursing program and i did hear good things about it. Western...i heard from the students there that their clinicals weren't that great. Queen's is alright, i just wish they gave us more clinical hours (althought im sure most schools have around the same amount of hours because they need to teach us more theories). The profs at queen's are also incredibly supportive and if you ever struggled, they will offer you plenty of help.

Mac ...is good if you know what kind of nursing you want to do and if you have good marks. Placements are picked by you so you are not given exposure to everything (mental health, pediatrics, maternity, medical-surgical etc.) compared to other schools where u have to complete those clinical rotations. Placements are given out based on who has the best grades...not too sure, you should ask to confirm when u go to your local university fair. I also heard their statistics course don't count when you apply for masters program, so u might have to retake it again..

I hope this was helpful but i would advise you to look more into each school's program and ask them questions about it when you attend your university fair or call them. I applied for nursing school a few years back so i'm not sure if they made any changes...ask to confirm=) Good luck!

OttawaRPN · Nov 12, 2010

All of the programs are very competitive so you may not even get your first or second choice, it would also depend on how long you're willing to wait to get into your dream school. I would suggest applying to all you're prepared to attend then base your decision on seat offers.

futureRN_Anastasia · Nov 12, 2010

I have a few friends that graduated from York and Ryerson. Many praise the program at Ryerson, although it has 1400 clinical hours vs 1700 at York. I applied to York, Ryerson and Western, and I hope to get into Ryerson.

Speechless · Nov 17, 2010

I went to Ryerson. Honestly, if I looked back on it I probably would have stayed at uoft and hammered out the 2 years to apply.

What is wrong with Ryerson, first of all NO PREFERENCE for your clinical placements whatsoever. Sure they have a form where you write down your preferences but nope they don't even accomodate it whatsoever. I had friends who put down pediatrics and did not get it BUT friends who haven't put down pediatrics got a placement with peds!! None of my preferences got chosen ever. Another thing, for third and fourth year you get to apply to Sick Kids for both semesters but what they don't tell you is that if you got Sick Kids for your fourth year 1st semester you can bet they won't even turn in your application for second semester to give other ppl the chance to get in (this happened to my close friend who confronted the placement office and the managers at Sick Kids, Sick kids had nothing to do win it; Ryerson controls whether your application gets sent)

Secondly there are TOO MANY theory courses and not enough science credits. You ONLY get 2 health science course and it's in 1st and 2nd year: anatomy & physiology and nursing pathotherapeutics. The 3rd one is adult/maternal/family health in fourth year that is completely optional. Yes theres health assessment but thats only in 1st year. There are no pharmacology or other health science credits you can take.

Uoft: 2 years but they go for 10 months long each year. Shorter clinical stays BUT you will get to experience almost every field of nursing, maternal, peds, ENT, clinics, etc AND you have a saying in where you want to go for your consolidation (not really at Ryerson) there are less people to accommodate at uoft so placements are much easier for them to coordinate not only that but they have a control in the dt hospitals since they also have a medical school. For the last 2 years, students at uoft who opted to have their crne results sent to uoft and it is a 100% pass rate for their students (~uoft crne prep course) i would have went here, I regret going to Ryerson but I have a lot more to say but yeah here aree the reaaons.

RN2B123 · Nov 17, 2010

I completely agree with Speechless. I also went to Ryerson. I never got a pediatric or maternity rotation. Our maternity

'course" consisted of 6 Hours of stuff like these are pregnancy symptoms,etc. Super basic stuff. In no way would our two week lecture prepare you for maternity. Friends had to buy and read up on maternity themselves because Ryerson does not teach you a full maternity course. I had NS friends who had a whole semester on maternity, peds, etc. I have friends that never got both of those and also didnt get mental health. The pharm class is not a pharm class...its integrated into our patho class. I have a friend in RPN school right now and her pharm class is hardcore...they have to know everything about meds, side effects etc. Maybe it was just the clinical instructors I had or the profs but I was never grilled on stuff like that. Stuff like that...I just feel like we could have had a great pharm course and it was so basic that it didnt prepare us for graduating. All I remember learning about was insulins and a few other meds. It was NOT comprehensive at all for pharmacology in comparison. Alot of my classmates would be like "what pharm class? we had no pharm class!". There were too many theory courses and barely any hardcore science courses like in all the US nursing programs that I keep reading about.

And then you get a whole year of community - something like 400 hours! and then they expect you to rock fourth year after not being in acute care for a year and a half....so going from like 1 pt generally in year 2 to 4 to 6 pts in year 4 was extremely difficult to time manage. They really need to change community to year 2 and then do medsurg in year 3 and then regular year 4. And give students actual choice of placements. They didnt take into consideration where you lived. One good example of this is that I had to commute 1 hr 45 minutes in second year for clinical....while students who lived by that hospital had to commute 2 hours into downtown toronto...does not make sense placement wise!!!

I had friends who also had long term care placements in fourth year...that does not prepare you to enter the acute end of things...sure if thats what you want to do but they had requested med surg or ER etc and got non acute care placements. I think it was because our NS was huge and they didnt have enough good clinical spots...

I guess pros are that ryerson is right downtown so its handy that way. Personally if i had to pick again I would have gone to a nursing school with more varied clinical placements, not a 400 hr community placement (day cares? elementary schools? fine...but not a whole semesters worth...could have been done in like 3 to 4 weeks...we dont need 12 weeks of teaching nutrition class for grade school students)...I see the point of all the community courses. It WAS interesting...I liked it. But they could condense it into a half semester course. The majority of student do not go directly into community after graduation.

But then again I heard negative things about York, U of T, etc...so I guess I'm not the only NS who was unhappy with the way clinicals and courses were run. Most profs at ryerson were great though, I never had an issue with profs. They were all very helpful

lilaclover · Nov 21, 2010

I have heard AMAZING things about the Nursing program at Dalhousie University. If I had the choice of any school in Canada I would choose them hands down.

They also have a very good reputation for producing amazing nurses.

Fiona59 · Nov 21, 2010

I have heard AMAZING things about the Nursing program at Dalhousie University. If I had the choice of any school in Canada I would choose them hands down.
They also have a very good reputation for producing amazing nurses.

Must be a regional thing, because out west, we've never heard of them. We like our RNs from GMU in Alberta and Langara in BC's always had great reps.

poohbear32 · Nov 22, 2010

Thank you everyone for your helpful responses. Suprises to hear about ryerson since it seems everyone wants to go there

StudentRS · Dec 1, 2010

I go to York and chose it due to location as I could still live at home. If I could go back I would choose a better nursing school father away. York's school of nursing is pretty unorganized, you don't know your placements until right before or sometimes a week or two after you should have already began clinical. You only have choice in placements for consolidation 4th year, other than that you only do two: med-surg and community. There are at least 4 pointless courses at York you waste your money on that involve caring, client centred care and dialogues, and random stuff they use to fill your schedule to stretch their RN cirriculum into a 4 year degree program and make money. On the good side, the profs are really good, the lab is really nice and has a lot of equipment, the computer labs are good, and there are a lot of resources for papers and such. If you enjoy the medical aspect of nursing, York is not for you, if you want a fairly easy ride and to write flowery papers about caring, then York is for you. If you are looking at the 4 year program and going to Georgian College...it is not at all like university. The profs are too easy and everyone slacks off and gets extensions and all the lazy students get away with their laziness instead of being penalized for their lack of work effort and punctuality. The students I didn't understand how they passed 2nd year definitely did not cut it at York, I haven't seen them in 4th year, thus showing the difference between the college and university standards.

benedict123 · Apr 27, 2012

Please try to join York,if not try with U of T as per my knowledge York has the most human teachers available in Toronto.U of T is also OK. But never go to college in etobicoke better stay at home. You will regret