How I got into Trinitas NURE 130 - UCC Jan 2011

[Vinster]

this is a run down of getting into trinitas nure 130 through ucc. i just had the first class this monday, jan of 2011. it's great to finally be in and doing it. 5 more semesters and i can move on with my life. the process was a little confusing and none of the counselors seemed to know anything, except one. what's below is a combination of personal experience, what i've heard from the instructors, and a reliable counselor. this post is a little longer so folks can see what was involved and get their questions answered.

talk to ******at the plainfield campus. she is the only really nursing-school-competent counselor at the entire college. no lie. i got little help from any other counselor and even have a friend who was guided into a couple useless classes for her major and has to take 2 extra semesters to make up for it. (not nursing thankfully.) double check everything a counselor tells you to make sure its correct. assume they are all probably wrong and you'll be better off. ****is really passionate about students and very competent. probably too much for her own health but she helped me so i won't complain.

after all is said and done, this program is about $25,000-$28,000. this is a total of 5 semesters of nursing courses and all the other credits. pell and freeholder's scholarships and the kellogg scholarship will help. get international versions of text books. the supreme court ruled this was legal despite what mcgraw hill says. google it if you like. save some $$.

trinitas, a diploma school, lets ucc do all the screening and admissions. there is no interview or pleading letter to get in, lying about your devotion to nearly dead people and how you like wiping adults' butts. i didn't go to muhlenberg because i heard the trinitas program is easier for the working adult student by having more night and weekend classes. my class is monday from 6pm to 10pm so this has been true so far. to be considered for the school, you have to declare nursing as your major. having nursing as your major will cost you about $500 extra per semester, even if you never get accepted. there is a point system to get in. it works this way:

gpa + 1 point per 3 credits earned at ucc +2 for nj residents

how many points do you need to get the invitation letter? no one knows but those sending them out. there are 230 seats in the opening class nure 130 and about 60 graduates at the end. i heard 230 seats from janet but my class on monday is 70 and i think the other two on thurs and saturday are too so it's possibly 210 total. to fill the class, i've been told about 600 consideration letter letters are sent to those with the highest points. 60 is the entrance class for most schools. trintas is the 6th largest nursing school in the country including university of phoenix (#1) and the other online schools. there is a higher than normal chance of getting in because of that.

when i got the letter i had 4 + 5.7 + 2 = 11.7 points. (i had 17 credits divided by 3=5.7) i'm guessing the 10-15 point range is where we're at right now. ***** says this points amount that triggers you to get a letter will go up or down depending on the backlog of students. only the top 500-600 get consideration letters, you reply back expressing interest, then of those that reply a smaller amount get a registration invitation letter, and only 230 get a seat on registration day. consideration letter was early october 2010, registration invitation letter was december 12 or so. they decide the first week of december and send the letters out at the beginning of the second week of december. when you register, you go at different times of the day. the earlier in the day you register, the more likely you are to get the schedule you want and even a seat, since more are invited to register than there are spaces for. you are assigned a registration time and it looks like it is all points based. highest points go at 9am, second highest at 11am and so on. you are also given a registration number so there is no cutting lines during your time slot. my high gpa did not get me into an earlier registration time. i was assigned 11am as my registration time, #33 as my registration number, and my gpa is 4.0. not bragging. someone will ask me this if i don't put it down.

many don't respond and want to wait another semester and many don't make the final point cut to get into the program. nure 130 is really rigorous and it's not a good idea to bundle it with other tough classes. i've never heard of someone putting nure 130 off a semester to take bio 106 or 108 and then not get in the next semester. it seems they always do if they keep their grades up, but i don't know that for sure. also, since nure 130 has a larger drop out/failure rate, last year there was a summer 1 and summer 2 nure 130 offered to help fill nure 131 in the fall. it may happen again this year. ***** says it probably will. my nurse instructors say it was a fiasco and they aren't sure if they will do it again. money will probably make them do it, if they can. they want to get as many in to nure 131 as possible. more that can get into nure 131, big dollars for sure for them. so if you put it off january, you may still get a letter for the summer 1 session. there is a nure 130 class starting both spring and fall, and last summer for the first time a summer 1 and summer 2, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. the lpn rn bridge program i think only has a fall start. i was told that about 6-8 years ago some students were caught cooperatively cheating in the nure courses and the school failed everyone in the class. some students fought back (i think they sued) and had their diplomas given back and were allowed to sit for the nclex. because of the cheating, the course is much harder now than before.

applicants are a little less this semester than last and janet doesn't know why. she thinks maybe the bottle neck right now is the typing class (adm 110) they are requiring by jan 2012. i took it because they said it was a pre-req. for jan 2011 but that wasn't true. this was a horribly boring class that i wish they would just allow us to test out of it. i would've paid the full tuition even if i could've gotten out of the class. i kissed a lot of saturday afternoons goodbye for this one. make sure they are firm on this being a pre-req. before you do this. i had ***** as the prof. who is one of the coolest people i've ever met. she made the class bearable.

last summer i was told by another student who had just gotten her consideration letter that she heard if you take chem 105, you'll get flagged for the program a little sooner. so i changed my fall 2010 semester from bio 108 to chem 105 and i did get a letter. however, a girl who sits next to me in class hasn't taken bio 106 or chem 105 yet and she got in too. so the chem 105 rumor is probably just a rumor. (she's doing nure 130, bio106 and chem 105 all this semester!!!! i would blow my brains out.) i don't know her point standing but i think it is similar to mine. she started last jan, like me, but took the summer off. i clep'd eng 101 and she didn't.

my gpa is 4.0. i don't think this helped me get a letter other than for the points themselves, but i don't know for sure. i got an 89.8% in ******* summer1 a&p1 and 88.9% in prof *****summer2 a&p2 but they both gave me the "a". very cool of them. i talked with them a little after class about questions i thought of during class and complimented them on their teaching style or dealing with unruly students (i was genuine). i think this helped. i really liked **** way of teaching. intellectual, visual, had great notes prepared and kept the class moving along. he'll tell you "sorry if you don't pass. this is the summer session and it's a tough class. that's all there is to it." i did not like **** way. she told too many stories. the girls in the class really liked her and her style, though. the stories helped them remember the kinds of pathogens and diseases, though i found it boring especially at 10:10pm after hours of listening. she did put disease and vaccinations in great historical perspective. she is a very informed, intelligent person and i like her as a person. both took no sass from anyone, which i liked. shut up and listen or get out. we need to show some maturity as medical professionals. it is impossible to cheat on their tests. they know all the tricks and have made a few little rules to eliminate the possibility of cheating. just over 50% passed both classes. 32-35 per class out of 60. there were 9 a's and 7 a's in those 2 classes respectively. ****said 9 was unusually high and was very happy to see that. starting at 60 students in each there were 8 boys and 9 boys respectively. only about 4 boys left in each by the end. there are 13 men out of 70 total in my nure 130 class.

don't be a baby. read the entire trintas faq off the ucc website and the 27 page pdf off the trinitas website and know what your next move is. don't wait till the last minute for anything.

if you graduate with b+ average, trinitas offers a scholarship for your last semester. i think the kellogg benefactor for whom the kellogg building is named is the originator of the scholarship.

in retrospect, i would probably have taken the chem classes allowing one to go for the bsn later, chem 113 and 114 i think. that's the only thing i would've done different. i will have to take them next summer if i can.

timeline:

jan 2010 started - spanish 102, was still deciding if this was right for me. did late registration on a whim and took the next few weeks to think it over. clep eng 101

summer 1 - a&p 1 summer sessions are great because the material is less and they are quick. i would take everything as a summer session if i could. these science courses had a lot of casualties but easier courses you should do.

summer 2 - a&p 2

fall 2010 - chem 105, adm 110

jan 2011 - nure 130. will clep psy 101 (feb 8th appointment) and soc 101 sometime between now and the summer session

good luck everyone. hope this has been helpful.

[nurse-sugar]

Wow, you explained this quite well. I thought about A&P 1&2 during the summer but was in fear of failing due to alot of info in a little time. I really don't want to take the A&P with Chem, I think that's going to be very difficult. But it doesn't seem like I have a choice unless I want to take forever to finish. I am also going to take Che 113, 114. I'm married, mother of 4, and work full time so things seem impossible right now but I'm going to give it my all. One thing that will help is I'll be quitting work for fall semester. I wish I could CLEP but I've been out of school for 21 years alot has changed since then and what hasn't changed I've forgotten. Well good luck to you and thanks for your indepth description of the process because my greatest fear also was not getting a letter of invitation and then wondering what the process is going to be. I recently also applied to Muhlenberg because of this, but with your description of the process I just may stay with Trinitas.

[Vinster]

Also, I took ***** summer 1 microbiology (BIO 108) course. *** was the Lab prof. Don't know my grade because UCC's IT department consists of a bunch of encephalic crack babies. I have to physically go down there to ask a counselor what my grade is.

*** rambles. Useless, never ending, sometimes wrong. He thinks organic agriculture is responsible for the recent E. coli outbreak in Europe. He read an article to the class that said overuse of antibiotics was the reason and then said the real reason was natural fertilizers in organic agriculture (which doesn't use antibiotics) was the real culprit. He is a staunch republican. I have no issue with republicans or democrats in general . I am pretty apolitical but it seems the hardcore on either side don't like facts, reason, history or context. **** grossly mischaracterized Al Gore's positions on climate change just to make him look bad. I thought it a little unbecoming of a scientist.

I spent most of my in class time studying for the tests and not paying attention to his stories. You get good at discerning what is a story and what is useful after a while. Nothing about his family, or his septic tank or his beach trips or his history at Rutgers are on any tests. What is on the test is on his power points. Don't spend a second studying anything in the book that is not alluded to in his power points. The power points don't have much flesh on them but you can use the book to put some meat on it. Understand what is on the power points and you will pass. Many recorded his lectures but that was mostly a complete waste of time. Remember, YouTube has great videos on how tRNA works and what antigens are. This helped me get some points that I was weak on.

*** is the kind of guy you would like to have a beer with and go fishing with. He's not pretentious and I'm sure is a good father and grandfather.

**** was great. Great sense of humor. You do not need to buy the lab manual. He won't say it buy everything you need is provided in class. Again, stick with the power point hand outs. When you have to identify your unknown microbe, I recommend assuming your Gram-stain will be inconclusive and running all tests for both Gram-positive and Gram-negative on your microbe. Then decide what it is. This way, you'll know for sure. No need to tell him you are doing this, but if you did, he would probably commend you for being thorough and careful. Most of the people got nailed by a bad Gram-stain, and then did all the wrong tests thinking it was a different organism than it really was.

[Vinster]

i thought about a&p 1&2 during the summer but was in fear of failing due to alot of info in a little time.

it's tough, especially with kids. parents had the toughest time of all. if you can do non-science courses in the summer and take regular session science courses you might find it easier with the kids.

i really don't want to take the a&p with chem, i think that's going to be very difficult. but it doesn't seem like i have a choice unless i want to take forever to finish.

i would'nt do that in the summer but in a regular session you might make it. i've found it best to take one course at a time, clep everything i can and pay for it out of pocket since the low credits disqualifies me for any financial aid. because nure 131 is 8 credits, i qualify for loans now.

i am also going to take che 113, 114. i'm married, mother of 4, and work full time so things seem impossible right now but i'm going to give it my all. one thing that will help is i'll be quitting work for fall semester. i wish i could clep but i've been out of school for 21 years alot has changed since then and what hasn't changed i've forgotten.

clep-ing is way easier and less time consuming than any of the courses. you literally read the book once or twice, take the quizzes in the back three or four times and go down and kill the test. you can clep a course in your spare time (what you would normally call tv watching or decompression time) in about 2 weeks of studying. do the practice tests and look up what you don't know online or right in the test explanation. the practice quizzes are more important than the text.

good luck. let me know how you do.

[judy1824]

Question Vinster- I hope you get this message. First, thank you for all the information posted here, it's very helpful. Blessings to you and I wish you the best in your journey.

What text books should I purchase for now to begin reading and practicing for Nure 130. I received my consideration letter and am really hopeful to receive an invitation letter. All my psychs and pre req classes have been completed except ADM 110 which I'll do at the last semester maybe.

I want to be prepared, so any info on the texts to purchase and prestudy will be helpful. Thank you.

[Vinster]

There are two books. Nursing Fundamentals by Potter and Perry Edition 10 and Medical Terminology though I don't remember which edition. These were the ones I got but you may have a different edition for both so ask the book store people. If you tell the book store people you have NURE 130 they will tell you exactly which books you need. Get the full name of the book, edition and publisher. They will not tell you the ISBN because they don't want you to go buy it online. They say in a snarky way "I'm sorry, I can't tell you the ISBN." You can Google it to get the IBSN's and get the international editions. They are identical to the american editions and save big bucks. Good luck. Glad all my blah blah blah is useful to someone.

[judy1824]

Thank you! It is useful, believe me. good luck as well.

[sdeme1229]

Does anyone know anything about the diploma option at trinitas?

[Vinster]

****** at the Elizabeth campus would know.

[iPink, BSN, RN]

$25K-$28K for an ASN program, lasting 2.5-3yrs? Isn't that a bit too high? I'm at UMDNJ's ABSN program for 15 months and it cost ~$30k. Anyways good luck to all of you.

[CeceStar5, ADN, BSN, LPN, RN]

Hello all,

I will be attending Union County for the Fall Semester and I am interested in attending the Trinitas School of Nursing and I need some advice from those who are already in the program. Here is my situation:

I applied online in May, waiting to hear from them for months (like an idiot)

Finally decided to go down there.. I had to fill out an application again and transfer marticulation form.

I am a NYC who is willing to pay any amount of money to get my RN degree

I have a B.S. with all of my sciences, psych etc.

I spoke to a counselor at UCC and the only classes I need to take is the nursing courses and one humanities course (which I dont think I need)-

I was told that I have to take some classes at UCC to build a GPA with them to be considered for the program (which i believe is understandable)

Did anyone take Nurse 130-131 together? Is that possible.

How much did you guys pay for each nursing course, uniform etc?

[pompo24]

I'm a transfer student and applied in UCC /Trinitas in the spring 2011. They accepted 31 credits but have to do 9 buy back credits. January 2011 - I took STATISTIC MATH 127 & ITALIAN . Summer 2011- ADM 110. Now , am waiting for the consideration letter. I currently registered for fall 2011 - CHEM 113 while waiting and PSY. I basically finished all the prerequisites. Currrently earned 3.1 GPA. at UCC now. Let's see how long it will take.