Importance of school prestige for BSN

[koolaid3219]

Here's a little story all about how my life got flipped--turned upside down:

I did one year in mechanical engineering, and I really did not like it, so I switched to biomedical engineering. I really enjoyed the medical aspect but came to hate engineering entirely.

That's when I thought about switching majors out of engineering. I enjoyed biology and anatomy (which I took in biomed), the medical field, and I really wanted to do something meaningful, so I thought, "nursing, yes."

So here I am in a predicament; my GPA is too low now (2.7) due to math and physics courses to be accepted into most nursing programs in my area. They take the GPA of all classes I have into account when applying to nursing school, not just prerequisites. If I received all A's for every prerequisite for 2 years, the maximum GPA I would obtain is roughly 3.3. I can't afford to go to most schools in which prerequisites are the only classes accounted for having wasted 2 years of tuition in engineering.

There is only one school in my area in which I can obtain a BSN from now that I can afford, Mercy College of Ohio, but I am really uncertain as to how good of a school it really is. It's a specialty school with only 8 majors, all of which are in the health field. It is also accredited.

My question is: Would attending a small, lesser known college for a BSN affect my chances in getting a job? I do plan to obtain a Masters degree eventually from somewhere else also.

Also, I have thought about potentially getting an ADN from this school, then going into a RN-BSN program, but really I don't have a clue.

Any help, advice, or opinions are welcome and very much appreciated.

[OnMyWay23]

I have lived in Toledo all of my life and Mercy is very well known here. The graduates from that school find jobs right away as the area hospitals now that the nurses they produce are very good. A lot of the students have job offers before they even have graduated. My aunt is a hiring nurse at a facility here in Toledo and she herself told me that they prefer Mercy graduates because they know they are getting new nurses who have been well prepared for their careers. I have just started attending there myself, and that was the deciding factor in choosing them.

[koolaid3219]

That makes me feel a lot more comfortable knowing that bit of information, truly. Thanks a lot!

[BostonFNP, APRN]

This varies a lot based on your area of practice. I would ask around as to how things are by your area.

Around here, if you didn't go to a top program you have no shot at a job in acute care without 2+ years of experience. Outside of the city, options are much better.