Banana85

I haven't heard this. Some proctored essay groups were more predominantly Trad or CARE, but others were more even. CARE in recent years has been making an effort to increase its acceptance numbers. TRAD classes are typically only slightly larger than CARE so that's not unusual to have an even balance of applicants. I wouldn't let it stress you out too much. At this point you've done everything you can. Now you just wait. This is a common experience in nursing school. hahahaha. Acceptance emails go out pretty quickly once the committee meets. Be warned...it can take a couple of days for everyone to be notified. If some people hear back on Day 1, don't stress cause your email may come three days later.

Yes and No. The block schedule shows official start-end times and its useful for grasping the weird overlap that happens some semesters with some classes running longer weeks while others work on a shorter, accelerated schedule. But for example, the CARE XX block schedule for semester 2 has all courses running through March 26 which isn't accurate. The nursing courses this semester all wrapped in February and so for March, we are just attending lectures one day a week and taking exams in our science courses. For vacations/holidays...you get a week for Christmas. You will be studying for exams but there aren't any lectures. Enjoy. When they say its a packed, accelerated schedule...they aren't joking. haha. For parents of kids, we have several parents in my class. It really just depends on the age/independence of the kids plus the support network at home. Schedules get funky when you add in clinicals. Some students work morning shifts, some work nights, some work nights then have to be back early the next day, and there will be the occasional Saturday shift dropped in. And because we live in a hurricane prone state, expect things to get changed last minute depending on the weather. You need to have a certain amount of flexibility in your life to deal with the insanity that is nursing school. Even on weeks when you're only in lecture 10 hours total, you'll easily spend 3x as much time out of lecture studying and reviewing. Some folks handle it well, some families struggle with having a parent who needs alot of uninterrupted study time. If you find the accelerated pacing a challenge, there is an opportunity to move to the traditional schedule. You gotta figure out what works for you.

First semester is a nonaccelerated schedule so its reasonable. If its a 4 credit class, you have 4 hours of lecture a week. That first semester is 13 total hours a week. Most days you'll be done with lecture by noon. Your lab times may be mornings or afternoon depending how they split up the groups. Cadaver lab schedule was funky due to be optional for us. Some folks never went. Some went 3 hours a week. I find it useful to do atleast an hour a week but I don't know how it'll go for fall. First semester ends the first week of December. Traditional students go into Winter vacation. CARE hits the ground running. They frontload the work in December so you are ready for clinicals in January. January is ROUGH. 6 hours of lecture a day, 8-10 hours of clinicals twice a week, plus you'll have a ton of outside work to do to prepare for clinicals each week plus the exams are nonstop. It's doable, but hard. Thankfully that means March is way more relaxed. We don't get vacations in CARE but March is a good time to schedule a weekend out of town if you need a breather. Semesters 2-4 are accelerated. So that year is just funky (Spring, Summer, fall). Your last semester before graduation will be traditional but plan on being busy studying for NCLEX and applying for jobs.

Hard to tell. I'm leaning towards likely if only because the first semester of CARE is taken alongside the first semester of traditional students, meaning the class is easily 100+ students. No lecture hall is large enough to accomodate that many with social distancing. Some lecture classes for upperclassmen are returning to campus this Summer and we've started returning to campus for select exams. The good news is you'll be on campus for hands-on labs at the very least, including the awesome cadaver lab for Anatomy.

Prior years there were multiple essay questions. Not everyone got the same thing. But definitely research the school. Know the history, the philosopy, core values, mission statement. How do you as an individual reflect that legacy? Why did you pick LSU? What values do you bring to nursing? That kind of stuff. And remember, the essay is to test your writing ability. Are your sentences logical? Do you support your argument? Its less about what you say than how you say it. They want to make sure you'll be able to write papers for class.

If the same as previous years, you'll get 2-3 chances to record each answer. Definitely practice typical interview question in advance just to get some ideas in your head. The big thing is speaking clearly with poise and confidence. Nursing is an interaction-based career. The interview is about weeding out people who struggle with expressing themselves. Just be yourself, whether that's sweet or funny, soft or boisterous.

Do not stress about the interview or essay. Honestly, both are there to ensure you have reasonable communication skills. Apparently back in the day, they didn't do the essay and wound up with a handful of students who couldn't string three coherent words together. You'll be writing a fair amount of assignments so they want to make sure your writing skills aren't severely lacking. And since we work with the public, speaking with confidence and professionalism is the goal of the interview. Review back interview questions. Why do you want to be a nurse? Strengths, weaknesses, etc. Research the school. It's fairly standard stuff.

The CARE and traditional nursing students do their first and last semesters together. We had several students who worked part-time that first semester. If you need to work, that's the time to do it. Nights and weekends. Just bear in mind, sometimes weird things come up so have a job that is flexible-ish (like needing to come in an hour late cause a lecture started late due to technical difficulties.)

Proctored essay emails went out the first week of February. I'm curious to see whether they'll be doing it on campus this year or changing it to an online experience for COVID. Getting a chance to tour the campus and talk to a CARE student was a great part of the experience. I'm enjoying it. We're a month into our first truly accelerated semester and doing our first clinicals so its...alot. But clinicals also means getting to know my classmates face-to-face which is a side effect of zoom school. As someone who has been out working and being a boss for a decade...being a student who doesn't know anything is hard. Clinicals are mentally and emotionally taxing and the lecture days are equally long. We're finally seeing our personal lives really get shoved to the side. It's hard. But you just have to embrace the change and the fear and the struggle. It really flies by.

I was 3.7. The thing with GPA is its mostly a minimum requirement. We definitely have folks in our class with 3.4 GPAs. They're trying to accommodate more and more CARE students every year to meet the nursing demand. We started with 68.

I am currently in the CARE 20 class. If you have any questions about the application process ot the program, let me know.

I wish I could just move into the dorms but I have my cats. I live on the Northshore now but I'll probably be moving to Metairie to avoid that Causeway drive. I thought about Midcity or Uptown (lived there right after college) but its gotten PRICY! If you leave early enough you can miss the majority of commuter traffic in the mornings. We'll definitely need a thread in the FB group with apartment recommendations and such.

CONGRATS!! Where in Texas? I grew up in Katy, TX. Moved here when I was 18. Bit of culture shock at first but I haven't left since.

I mailed my application fee snail mail. lt got alittle lost on the way, but I stayed in touch with school to make sure they knew it was coming. I mailed my acceptance fee from the Mandeville post office today, certified mail. I just asked for the cheapest option with tracking. They said someone might need to sign for it...hopefully that's not a problem. *shrug*

Check your email!! Acceptance emails just went out! I got in!! So excited. It hardly feels real after this long process.