CRNA school admission

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Hi! Im planning to apply to CRNA school just as I approach my 1 year in the ICU. I have taken my CCRN and am preparing to take my GRE (and hopefully will get over a 300). What other extracurriculars/activites can I do to boost my resume? In my ICU its a pretty strict 5 year rule for being charge and our committees are almost impossible to join (strict membership, spots rarely open, but there is a waitlist for when they do). 

Thanks for any recommendations! 

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Don't apply.  One year is really, simply, not enough time.  As a Clinical Coordinator for 3 programs for over 20 years, I can tell you with absolute clarity, that we can tell who are the one year wonders a mile away. 

Your ICU experience is the foundation upon which your entire career will be built.  Get some solid foundation.  This is especially true if you choose a front loaded program, where you will be in the classroom for a full year, completely loosing the skills you were just starting to master.  A spot in a class will still be there 2 years from now. Honestly, if you feel like you have learned everything there is know after 1 year in your ICU, than you are simply in the wrong ICU.

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25 minutes ago, BigPappaCRNA said:

Don't apply.  One year is really, simply, not enough time.  As a Clinical Coordinator for 3 programs for over 20 years, I can tell you with absolute clarity, that we can tell who are the one year wonders a mile away. 

Your ICU experience is the foundation upon which your entire career will be built.  Get some solid foundation.  This is especially true if you choose a front loaded program, where you will be in the classroom for a full year, completely loosing the skills you were just starting to master.  A spot in a class will still be there 2 years from now. Honestly, if you feel like you have learned everything there is know after 1 year in your ICU, than you are simply in the wrong ICU.

Thanks for responding! I do appreciate your perspective and I definitely don't feel like I know everything there is to know in the ICU, but I do come home from every shift and study the patho of my patients. I look up the mechanism of actions for the drugs and drips that they are on and make sure I have a full clinical picture of them. Because of this, I feel that I've excelled far past the other nurses who were on orientation with me! I graduated nursing school and came into a SICU with the intentions of applying to CRNA school, so I have tried my best to make this quality experience. That being said, I completely hear you. I decided only to apply to my first choice school this year because by the time of the programs start I will have 2 years. If I get in, then I'm taking it as "a sign" and going to put my work in and continue to make the most out of my experience. But if not, I will wait till next year and apply to all of the schools on my list and have 3 years by the time I enter a program.  

All of that being said, in your experience as a clinical coordinator, what experiences/roles/extracurricular things outside of the unit makes a candidate stand out? So far my *stand out* feat. is that I've presented undergraduate research at my states association of nurse anesthetist  conference. Besides that I graduated with a 3.78 GPA, 3.84 Science. I'm currently on a SICU at a level 1 trauma university hospital, I have my CCRN, and im preparing for GRE... Is there anything you would recommend, outside of more experience, to strengthen my application for when the time does come for me to apply? 

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