Chamberlain or Maricopa CC

U.S.A. Arizona

Published

Hi everyone! I have been floating around this site for a while and decided to create an account finally :x3:

I just graduated high school this year and don't have a stellar GPA - I didn't care about school until senior year and by then it was too little too late. My options are limited now and I am torn between two pathways - Chamberlain or the CEP program at the Maricopa Community Colleges.

Chamberlain is so expensive but I love the community feel, the fact that it's a school only focused on nursing and everyone in the program seems to love it. There's also a lot of information about the program and a lot of their students post about their experiences online. Because the degree is so expensive if I decided to go there I would take all the classes possible at community college and the total cost would go from about $85,000 for a BSN to $50,000. It's still a lot of money. Everyone that goes there loves it but I've read some not so great things about the school on this site, like how employers don't want to hire graduates from the program but I've also heard the opposite. Their job placement rate is 95% which seems pretty good.

I'm also considering the Maricopa nursing program but I don't feel the same excitement that I feel thinking about Chamberlain. Students don't seem to post about their experience and information is hard to find. I read bad things about CGCC's program from years ago but nothing recent and because of the lack of information I feel unsettled. I also don't like that the CEP is online because I don't think I would focus as well as I would in a classroom. Any advice would be super, super appreciated and sorry for the long post! :)

Thanks for replying - I was thinking of both doing the ASU CEP or taking prerequisite classes and then transferring to their BSN program which I heard was hard to get into as a transfer, not the CEP route which doesn't limit you as much. And I recently looked up the cost and it was crazy the amount they wanted at ASU - especially when I'm just taking their classes online. My friends that are going to live in the dorms will be paying $28,000 a year which I will do over my dead body, as I'm mostly relying on loans as well as help from my parents. I was looking into doing the UIU route, I felt they had a lot of information available and I emailed the advisor and she was very sweet and quick to reply. The cost is pretty affordable for what college is these days. The only concern I had about that route was that I felt ASU would look better on a resume than UIU - just because people in AZ are pretty passionate about that university.

Employers don't really care where you got your BSN from. Don't spend the extra money for the name unless you really want it.

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Employers don't really care where you got your BSN from. Don't spend the extra money for the name unless you really want it.

Ditto.....don't place so much on the school name, unless it's some unheard of, un-credentialed place in the middle of some unknown country!

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That's great to hear! Do you mind me asking what your GPA was? And how are you liking the program?

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Thanks for the long reply - really helpful!

Before I graduated high school I wanted to do the NAU CEP or transfer over to NAU for the BSN program but the lengthy prerequisites put me off. I didn't want to spend all the time when there were less lengthy options. I'm now looking at UIU because I really am in love with the fact that they have a hybrid option because I am scared of taking online classes. I don't think I will focus very well. I've never really had "school spirit" regarding colleges so I can't say I understand the whole idolization of a school, I just was concerned about the name on the resume. I'm glad to hear that the name isn't a big concern because that school is a chunk of change!

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That's good to hear - reading the forums I saw a lot of employers looking down on the names of the private for-profit schools like Chamberlain and Brookline so I wondered if it applied to the state universities as well but I'm glad that it's not an issue :)

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Thanks for the long reply - really helpful!

Before I graduated high school I wanted to do the NAU CEP or transfer over to NAU for the BSN program but the lengthy prerequisites put me off. I didn't want to spend all the time when there were less lengthy options. I'm now looking at UIU because I really am in love with the fact that they have a hybrid option because I am scared of taking online classes. I don't think I will focus very well. I've never really had "school spirit" regarding colleges so I can't say I understand the whole idolization of a school, I just was concerned about the name on the resume. I'm glad to hear that the name isn't a big concern because that school is a chunk of change!

Yes - UIU offers the hybrid, whereas Ottawa (where I applied), doesn't. That is a big part of the decision if you don't like online classes (and you wouldn't be alone there!).

Honestly, I can't even recall my GPA, because not every class you need to complete is actually included in the GPA they use for acceptance. For example, say there are 10 classes needed to get into CEP (I can't recall how many classes it actually is, sorry), they only use 7 (again, can't recall actual number of classes) of them to calculate your GPA, even though you must have those additional classes in order to apply. I'm ball-parking then when I say my GPA was around 3.75.

The GPA isn't the only thing they look at though. They look at HESI scores, previous degrees, etc etc

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