Nursing Schools: Private vs Public

Nursing Students School Programs

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I am a student at a technical college (taking my pre-reqs) and planning on transferring to either UW-Milwaukee (public School) or Cardinal Stritch (private) in Fall 2014. I was taking all of my general classes with UWM curriculum in mind, but now I am learning more about private colleges (Cardinal Stritch in particular) and am thinking which school will be best for me. If I go to UWM I will graduate 1 semester earlier, plus the tuition is 4000$ per year less in UWM compared to Cardinal Stritch (they offer several scholarships and grants which will bring tuition down). On the other hand, Stritch offers immediate acceptance (no waitlist), and professor to student ratio is 1:14, which is awesome because my teachers will actually know my name, while at UWM they can have over 100 people in the same classroom. I am also volunteering at the hospital right now and when I asked nurses which school they think is the best, all of them agreed that private schools like Alverno, Stritch and Carroll will provide a higher level of education and nurses who come from these colleges are much more prepared for the job than students from UW-Milwaukee. Stritch's NCLEX passing rate is also higher - 93% compared to UWM's 89%. I want to ask your opinion if it is worth it to spend extra time and money to go to Stritch or should I just go to UWM as I planned before? Thanks to everyone :)

P.S. I have a high GPA, so I wasn't really worried about getting into UWM clinicals. However, I believe their competition is currently 1:4 and everything can happen, so no one can guarantee the acceptance first time around.

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I have been wondering the same thing. I start my prerequisites at Matc in a few weeks. I figured it was going to take me 3 or 3.5 yrs at matc to get my adn, so why not just take an extra semester or two and get a bsn? I'm just stuck on UWM or Cardinal Stritch??

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Specializes in ER.

Find out if your pre-reqs will transfer from the technical college. Many in my state will not transfer. Also, most nursing schools do not have 100 kids in a single class. Usually they have 6 to 7 per clinical group if that followed by max 30 students in a class which isn't that bad and most instructors learned our names anyway. I would contact the school to find out about true ratios when it comes to nursing. The pre-reqs like chemistry and English may have that many but not usually the true nursing classes.

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I would continue to investigate until i felt comfortable enuff to make a decision. If it was me i would go to the school that thebother nurses are telling u best prepares nursing student. You dont want to get out in the field and not know or not be confident in what you are doing.

I had somewhat of a similiar problem. Whether to chose the no NLNAC acrredidation private school i went to for my ADN because of the exeptional teachers and no wait list. Or choose to go to an NLNAC accredited public school with a supa long wait list ok teachers and cheaper.

I chose the school with the awesome teachers and no wait list/accredidtion. And i did awesome in the program.

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