Does School Really Matter?

It matters if you went to that well known diploma mill school.

I always say that there's 4 types of schools:

1. Well known nationally (think Ivy's, nationally renowned big name schools)

2. Regionally respected institutions (schools known in a particular location as good schools)

3. Schools nobody has heard about (only applies if you move to an area where no one is familiar with the school)

4. Schools perceived as diploma mills

Your safe with 1 and 2, and to an extent 3. Stay away from 4.

And...we used to think doctors had to order everything! I think as times change, school (as long as accredited) names are just that...names.

For me, I'm an employed APN for the last 6 years and what I brought to the table was more important than the name of the school.

I went to one of the so-called "diploma mills" - University of Phoenix for both an RN to BSN and then MSN and nope I've never had any problem whatsoever with employment. In fact, am considering a DNP and once again, no problem.

Chances of employment for a candidate definitely evolves around the "total package". School alone will not get you hired, but a big name school on your resume can catch the eye of a recruiter or a physician looking at a stack of resumes with similar qualifications. That could get you an interview. Who gets hired? it depends, it could be the candidate with desirable background experience, the one with excellent communication skills during the interview, or the one who is smart enough to answers any clinical questions asked during the interview.

In any case, NP students are best served by networking early. Regardless of where you went to school, a big part of your future career is making it known to prospective employers that you are in school to be a nurse practitioner. It can be physicians who round in the hospital you work in, it could be other NP's who could give you leads to where jobs are after you graduate. You just have to get out there and be aggressive. Schools can be overlooked by employers if you could make up by being stellar in the other factors above.

I actually graduated from a school I consider in the 2nd catergory (based on the qualities I mentioned). It got brought up during the interview and it made for some banter with the physicians interviewing me because a number of them went to med school and residency there and a few are actually faculty members. That alone didn't get me hired. I like to think I did well on the interview and my experience in nursing was felt to be valuable to the employer.

Now that I've moved on the opposite coast, very few people know about my school and now it's probably on the 3rd category here (luckily the chief of the ICU who interviewed me knew about it!). During my interview here, the main focus was what skills I bring to the setting and the 5 years as an ICU NP in my previous state sealed the deal for me.

Is Frontier actually considered a "diploma mill". It seems like an easier option to get a degree from Frontier but they are always in the top rankings for their FNP and Midwife programs. And I hear the praise about Frontier all them time. It's like they have a great reputation but a diploma mill vibe all in one lol.

I actually don't get that vibe with Frontier. That institution has a place in nursing's history as the first ever training school for nurse-midwives as well as the first family nurse practitioner program in the US. The school's almost iconic logo pays homage to a tradition of community-based practice: a nurse-midwife perched on a horse, the only means of transportation at the time the school was founded to access the poorest patients in the South. They have long since embraced the distance education route so that is probably what is giving you an impression that the school is not very competitive to get into. However, the institution only offers CNM, FNP, and WHNP programs (not even a BSN!) and that to me solidifies a school's mission of service to women and children. I think they figure well in the US News rankings because of that.