Non-nursing programs decision questions

[Ifi]

Hello,

As it is registration season for a lot of folks, I was wondering how many of you choose or are choosing your nursing school programs. I am in Chicago and am looking to become a nurse practitioner and since I have a bachelor's I have applied to masters programs for non-nurses to hopefully speed up the processes of becoming a nurse practitioner.

I have applied to UIC, Rush, and DePaul. I had my interview with UIC (and can tell you all about it if interested) and have an upcoming interview with Rush. I have been accepted into DePaul's Summer cohort and I am a bit torn about my next steps. My first choice is Rush because I want to go to their practitioner program in pediatrics, also their rankings are pretty swell. Of course, this is assuming I will get into Rush (and that is a big assumption). There are a lot of things I like DePaul, like the fact that nurses are their top priority and their small class size as well as their price. However, there clinical hours are a lot less than Rush and their nurse practitioner program requires a year of work experience (which makes sense but I want to finish sooner rather than later). I have spoken to a nurse who graduated from Rush's program and she recommends go with the cheapest option. Incredibly sound advice, but I would love to hear some more opinions and hopefully if you know about the nurse practitioner program, would love to hear feedback about that as well.

Good luck everyone applying!