Dr. Gordon

Hello, The 60 percent refers to the SMUMN pass rate from the class of 2019. I took over the program, and our pass rate is now over 90%. Our graduation rate is 100 percent. Thanks Leah Gordon

No need to apologize. I am glad to share insights.

Hi everyone! So, yes, we have made our decision. NO, the admissions office has not been informed of our decisions. We are working through a new process of electronic acceptance. My plan is to get letters out first thing next week. It sounds like Daniel let you know that. There are a few people who have their hands in this work right now. In the academic setting there are many layers when departments need to collaborate. In this instance, I was not aware that we have privacy regulations that do not let me simply send the letters myself like I did 12 months ago. I was not made aware by leadership of the admissions department that they need to be more involved until about one week ago. Add to it that we are not on campus all the time right now, and processes sadly do take a long time. Please know a few things - 1. This is a priority for me. I know you are waiting. 2. We do not have to give you this level of detail about our processes. I am doing it to be kind and help you to understand that these issues are bigger than just me. Please do not use it against me by calling the admissions department. Thank you so much! I appreciate your patience. Leah

Yes, that is what it means. We have made a decision. Just need to spiral through the formal processes. Thanks to all of you. What a great group of applicants.

Hi everyone The admissions office actually does have a formal process. They will be sending out emails on our behalf soon. I can't make them go faster. (I wish I could). I did not know that they wanted to take this from our hands, but with COVID processes sometimes are not made clear to us program people. So email first, then the program will be reaching out to those of you selected for the program and those selected for our waitlist. Thanks for your patience! Dr. Gordon

Hi everyone Our group is going to meet in the next 10 days to make a decision. Thank you for your patience.

You should haveheard either way by now. Please reach out to Daniel Lawrence so he can double check your file if you have not heard either way. Thank you! Leah Gordon

Hi there, thank you for the question. I am copying the instructions below. For the purpose of this worksheet I had also created an accompanying sheet that detailed exactly what we count as a math or science class. I listed multiple subjects and courses on that document. If you did not see it, it is possible that you (or other candidates) completed last years math and science class worksheet which is different that the one I created and used. We only noted a few people that did that, and when we caught it we asked them to please complete the correct form. These are the directions: The attached math and science GPA worksheet will be used by the application committee to calculate your science and math GPA, which is what we consider when selecting candidates for the program. We require that you complete the math and science worksheet based upon all of your post high school educational transcripts and to the best of your ability. We reserve the right to review your transcript and add or delete courses, so please use your best judgement and we will make modifications if necessary, upon further document review. The list on page 2 details the different professional health schools and the courses we will consider when calculating the science and math GPA. As each academic institution is different, pass/fail work will not be converted into GPA points. Accompanying lab course grades are not to be included or counted. To calculate your science & math GPA, use the following steps: List each course you took or plan on taking and how many credits it is worth. Please list the required Chemistry course for admission first. If you retook a course, please list the highest grade earned only. For each course, list the earned grade only (do not list expected grade). Multiply the number of credits by the grade to get the “Grade Points” for each course. Add the Grade Points for each course together to get Total Grade Points. Divide the Total Grade Points by the total number of Credit Hours attempted. Credit hours = the total number of credits you earned and attempted. ___________________________________________________________ Many schools do not necessarily tell you that they are looking at your science and math GPA, and they do the calculation for you without your knowledge or participation. We put it out there so you know we are doing it, and allow you to assist us with calculating it so you are not in the dark. I hope this helps. There are many factors at play. Dr. Gordon

I have asked the admissions department to send letters. It sounds like they come in the U.S. mail. I will confirm tomorrow. Thank you!

Good morning, I am reading the comments and I do want to share that we are looking very closely at the science and math GPA worksheet that each applicant submits. We go through and make sure you listed all of your science and math classes, but errors do happen on your part or ours. The reason why we look at that GPA specifically is because sometimes people go to college and into a career and find it isn't for them, but they may not have gotten very good grades. Then they mature a little bit, go into nursing, and their grades significantly improve! We try to throw out the classes that will not really impact your success at St. Mary's, but of course the overall GPA does impact if you can be admitted to the school. Our overall requirement for SGPP is 2.75, which is generous. Secondly, we are one of the last master's programs in the country, so we are very competitive, nationwide. This is not a referendum on you as a nurse or a candidate. The competition is fierce right now. The average science and math GPA was 3.5. Third, we are looking for one full year of ICU experience at least before you apply to the program. If you went right to the ICU after graduation, and have not been in the ICU for a full year already, there is a good chance we set your application aside until next year, should you choose to reapply. Lastly, we are looking for that Chemistry class that we require to apply to our program. You can still apply, as Daniel Lawrence will tell you, but it does make us wary of those candidates. If your GPA was very very high and your experience was amazing we might still look at your file, but we are scrutinizing everything even more closely. If you want to be guaranteed to be looked at, you do need to take the class. We don't have time to monitor Chemistry classes for 32 new students over the next nine months. If for any reason someone doesn't get a 'B' or higher, we cannot admit them. This is a huge gamble for us as a school. Thanks everyone! We will start interviews this week, and once we know our DNP is a go I will post here about a new opportunity to re-apply. You are all amazing candidates, so do not give up hope. The best of us apply more than once and persist until we achieve what we want! Dr. Gordon

Also a great question! I can't really comment here. If you are interested, ask at your interview! Thanks.

Great question! You will need to reapply, so get ready. It is going to be a smaller pool because it will be fast and furious! Starts Fall 2021! Dr. G

Hi there, Yes, that should be accurate. Letters will be coming from the admissions office. We plan to be offering our DNP starting the fall of 2021, so please keep an eye out! Dr. Gordon

Hi there! The interviews are get to know you type interviews. Casual. We want to see what you are like as a person more than anything. Thank you so much! Dr. Gordon

Hello! It sounds like you will be able to see updates on smumn.edu/myapp. I asked the admissions office because I do not work in that department. At the University level I do not have the ability to have a complete understanding of all of the bells and whistles of the University. I can tell you our admissions department will be mailing letters and updating your accounts online, per the information they gave me. With that, I am going to sign off - we are going to start sending notifications this week for interviews. I have to say, this is a wonderful year of applicants. Please know that there are so many outstanding people, and we cannot take you all... we wish we could... but! Should we be so fortunate as to get our DNP approved, there is a possibility that we will have TWO cohorts starting in 2021. Stay tuned! Dr. Gordon

Great question! I will check with the admissions office to see what they are doing during COVID.

Hi Everyone! We are selecting our interview candidates now. Letters will be out in two weeks either way - if you will be interviewed, or, if we will not be interviewing you at this time. Thank you again for your patience and interest in our program. Dr. Gordon

Hi everyone! We are going to start reviewing files next week. Again, COVID has made it very difficult for us to follow a strict timeline. Ensuring our current students stay in clinical is a huge time commitment for us, and our priority is there. Please hang in there for us and stay patient. We know we need to select students (obviously) and we will! Thank you! Dr. Gordon Program Director, SMUMN

Hi there We typically like to discuss you and your work experience etc. Thanks Dr. Gordon

Hi there Updates? We will be reviewing applications soon. Some transcripts are still coming in despite the fact that applicants requested them months ago (due to COVID). We are making sure our ducks are in a row and we will start the process very soon! Be safe everyone! Dr. Gordon

Hi Amanda, In years past we have had a waiting list with which we guaranteed admission. As I was 'new' one year ago I maintained this tradition. As I have grown in my role as a program director, I have realized that is not a very good process. For each person on the waiting list, unforeseen issues have come up that have made it difficult for us to maintain that guarantee. Now that we are going to be moving to a DNP, there are simply too many moving parts. We might go back to a waiting list with a guarantee someday, but for right now it is not something we want to continue. That being said, we will maintain a waiting list. I am unsure how public it will be. Thank you for the great question!

Hi there! Great question. We admit 32 students each M.S. cohort. So we will admit 32 M.S. students in Spring. As for fall, provided the DNP is approved we COULD admit 30 additional students. Honestly COVID might impact that number if clinical spots are still in Flux I don't know how many complete files we have yet. Because so many institutions were online since March we are still waiting for some documentation that is taking a while. I think it is over 200 applicants, which is on par for us and other local schools. In terms of interviewing we have not officially decided yet how many applicants we will meet. We won't start really going through applications until after August 1. I have a few major deadlines that I must meet, then we will be ready to work on applications full throttle. Thank you! Have a good week! Dr. Gordon

Hi everyone! This is Leah Gordon, Director at St. Mary's We are going to be completing our application review in August 2020. We have a deadline for our DNP application of August 1 with the Council on Accreditation, so I am knee deep in that work. Our PLAN is to start our final cohort of MS in May 2021. THEN we will start a smaller cohort of DNP students in September 2021. How that will play out is yet to be determined. Interestingly COVID has made life challenging, as all SRNA students have been in and out of clinical based on liability as well as PPE availability. So that might impact if we can start this fall because clinical sites are finite. In terms of interviews, we did stop doing those a few years back under the direction of Dr. Moody. We do not think this is a good practice, as our students must spend 2000 hours at the bedside training to be a CRNA. We have 40 clinical sites that we use for our program, and personality is truly everything. We need to know if our students are able to not only be self-motivated, bright, and hard working, but we also want to know if we can send them several hours away without having to worry about their maturity level. In addition, without meeting our prospective students, we were really doing them a disservice. For example, I was not the best student when I was in undergrad. Fortunately, I am well spoken (or so I think!) and my interview to go to MSA 12 years ago went well... and they selected me! Without them meeting me, I don't know if that would have happened. So we want to know you as the whole package! ? We are still blinding the essays and that is a part of our selection in addition to your overall academic profile. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave them here and I will try to answer them so the whole group can see my responses! Thank you for considering St. Mary's! Happy 4th! Dr. Gordon