Columbia ETP 2015

Nursing Students School Programs

Published

Has anyone started a thread yet? The application is due in 174 days and as you can see I'm already obsessing.

Anyone else?!

I sent a reply, at least I think I did... but I can't seem to see my own message on the PM link. Did you receive it?

Hi Easyas123247!

1. Yale is weird in that it doesn't have specific prereqs and seems really vague about what it looks for in its applicants. I assume I didn't get an interview probably for the same reason why I was ultimately rejected from UCSF: not enough birth experience for a midwifery specialty. Many of the people I've talked to in the ETP program are in the same boat as me in that we did not get accepted to our first choice school (mine was UCSF, a friend was set on OHSU). Yale has a great program for my specialty...but it's also in New Haven! :p

2. No. We had about 7 people drop from the summer. One of them was my partner during clinical, and it sounded like this person was struggling too much academically to pass the summer courses.

3. You're correct: Columbia does not interview. This surprised me! This year, the ETP class was even bigger than I expected: 207. Yes, 207. Typically, I've heard the class size has been 160-180. We took all our main summer courses together in the same auditorium (Physical Assessment, Science of Nursing, Pharmacology, Issues in Nursing). Physiology was combined with the regular master's track students, so that class was about 250 students. Lab size was roughly 20, with 4-5 students per instructor. Clinical was 10 students to one instructor. In the fall and spring, they split the ETP class into 5 groups, and you go through your rotations with this group. In my didactic, this group is less than 40. In my clinical, we're 7. Pathophysiology is again combined with the master's students, so that's about 250. In the fall, you're assigned an advisor for the ETP year, and Dr. Desjardins (the program director) has always seemed very open to supporting and talking to the students who come to her office.

4. I am not sure what the acceptance rate is, and this varies by speciality. In any of these nursing programs, family or adult is usually the biggest group and has the most space. Midwifery is especially selective because it is limited by the amount of preceptors they can get for your master's portion. You are paired individually with your preceptor (at least in midwifery), so they can only accept for the amount of preceptors they have.

Hi GuiltyLove!

I am able to receive your PMs, but the system won't let me reply to them. I can answer your questions here in the thread, if that's all right with you. Otherwise, I just get this message:

We apologize for the inconvenience but sending a Private Message is disabled for all members who have not actively participated on the site. Members are required to have a minimum of 15 quality topics in order to use our Private Messaging (PM) System.

Hi GuiltyLove!

I am able to receive your PMs, but the system won't let me reply to them. I can answer your questions here in the thread, if that's all right with you. Otherwise, I just get this message:

We apologize for the inconvenience but sending a Private Message is disabled for all members who have not actively participated on the site. Members are required to have a minimum of 15 quality topics in order to use our Private Messaging (PM) System.

Oh, strange. I did get a reply from my first message... Weird.

Ok, I'll just copy-paste it (without my GPA and other scores included this time, haha):

My GPA and GRE scores are a little bit lower than yours (except for the GRE writing section)... Hope that's still good enough for Columbia!

What sorts of volunteering/work experience would you recommend? I did volunteering in college and in Taiwan, but... now that I graduated, it's hard to find a job as a Bio major. :| I'm really worried that this period of not being able to do much will look horrible on the resume.

Speaking of the resume, did you try to relate hobbies/interests/etc to nursing? If they were not related to nursing, did you just not put them on the resume?

Do you know anyone in the pediatrics program? That's the specialty I'm aiming to get into. In my personal statement, I'm writing about an experience I had with a toddler when I was volunteering in Taiwan, what I did for him, and how it inspired me, but am also including a section about my interest in patient education. Would you recommend that I spend more time discussing my experiences with kids instead? How would you talk about a weakness, anyway? The prompt this year wants us to write about strength/weakness too.

So you went to UC Berkeley, huh? Do you think that adequately prepared you for the ETP program? I went to UC Irvine and though I doubt it was anywhere near as tough as Berkeley, I'm curious what someone from the UC school system thinks... ETP is hard enough to be called bootcamp too?!

Hope I'm not overwhelming you with too many questions, especially ones that may be hard to answer (like the personal statement...). I'm just not really sure what to do to make my application look better. Thanks in advance!

Dear GuiltyLove,

Honestly? Don't stress the numbers. Seriously. During the summer semester, I never worried that my classmates scored better than me; I worried that they were so much more experienced than me! A lot of ETPers experience an impostor syndrome and think they surely got in on a clerical error because they can't be as awesome and accomplished as all their classmates!

Experience is very important and shows that you have done more than just think about nursing—you have explored a pathway into your nursing speciality. If you don't have the right/enough experience at this point in the application process, it would be better to take another year to get that experience. If there's a candidate who's volunteered for one year at a youth health program versus a candidate who just started volunteering at a hospital this month, that first candidate looks a whole lot more promising.

Work experience is not that important (there are some students straight from undergrad here). If you have gaps in your résumé, you should use part of your personal statement to explain them. I don't think I included any hobbies or interests on my résumé. That part of you should shine through on your personal statement.

(If I am starting to sound like a broken record, it's because your personal statement is very, very important. I would argue that this plus your letters of recommendation are the most important part of your application.)

I probably do know someone in peds, but I don't hang out with peds people too much. In terms of relating your experiences back to your speciality, I would recommend explaining why this patient population interests you, your background in working with children, and how this all relates to nursing. With peds, one thing to consider is the amount of abuse you will observe as a nurse in a hospital: many peds patients end up in the hospital not just for congenital diseases and cancers but also because of abuse/trauma from home. How will you be able to handle this?

In my personal statement, I focused on a weakness that I worked on improving in the past few years and how I've improved myself in this area. Think about the skills you would need as a good nurse and try to relate your talk of strengths/weaknesses to this point.

There are a lot of people in the program from UC Berkeley, but students come from all over (including Irvine). If you already have a science background, the material in the classes shouldn't be too hard. The hardest part about the program is time management and taking care of yourself mentally and emotionally. The summer is very rigorous: you're thrown into a new world immediately and expected to apply the skills and knowledge you are gaining in a short amount of time. I would not recommend this sort of program to someone who is just thinking that nursing might be an alternative to something else. Nursing needs to be what you want to do or else you will be miserable here.

thank you! That helps a lot

Does anyone have the specific day in May that the ETP programs begin -- Columbia Nursing?

Well, the site says the orientation is the Wednesday after Memorial Day: ETP FAQs | School of Nursing

Other than that, I don't know.

Have people submitted their application yet? I sent mine last week or so and now I'm quite nervous on how it will be reviewed by the admissions committee... I sent it a month ahead of time because I wanted to just get it over with

I will be submitting when I have a few more letters in. Good luck

Hi everyone,

I am a senior biochemistry major at LSU. My only serious experience is oncology research. I am really wondering what is everyone background and what other programs are you all applying to? what is your top choice? I myself is applying to 6 programs total only 5 of which are bsn/msn programs. Yale is my top choice but if I get into Columbia I want to do midwifery/ PhD and ultimately DNP.

Hi, BettyBones! Thanks for taking the time to post the information. It gives me a really good idea of how the program is structured.

Have people submitted their application yet? I sent mine last week or so and now I'm quite nervous on how it will be reviewed by the admissions committee... I sent it a month ahead of time because I wanted to just get it over with

Hi, GuiltyLove! I submitted my application a few days ago. At first I was a little nervous about clicking the submit button but I feel much better knowing that I did. I hope to meet all of you May 2015 during orientation! :up:

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