B K

Waitlist will come out as the same time as decisions. Probably won't see movement until the Summer. I don't know if they tell you where you are on the list.

I will if I get rejected at most of my other schools but of the other 3 I’ve heard back from I was accepted at 2 and waitlisted at 1. I have no hard feelings.

My first paragraph I tried to grab the reader's attention. I wrote about the night I found myself trying to flush a client's heroin down the toilet while they were screaming at me, discharge them from our sober living, but also trying to manage the whereabouts of our schizophrenic patient who had a tendency to wander. It was maybe 6 sentences, about 100-150 words. Concluded the sentence with a good transition into the next paragraph about what made me want to be a nurse. I talked about diversity and how Penn would be a wonderful opportunity for me as someone from an underrepresented community to help people like myself. Talked about research and spent a paragraph talking about a few faculty research projects at Penn that aligned with my interests (and tied it back to nursing). One Summer I had nothing to do and spent it reading all of the Harry Potter books for the nth time. I used multiple note books to write down dialogue and its overall linguistic framework as well as key phrases and key physical descriptions of characters. I then spent many weeks writing few hundred pages as a sequel to what would happen right at the end of book 7. I spent a lot of time studying the overall framework so that I could get my voice to sound as similar to JKR's as possible. I also took the ACT and received a 32 on the writing section which was better than any of my other scores. I think I write well and usually get A's on my papers. Maybe that first paragraph or so felt a little too literary for Penn?But, I spent the next 650-700 words tying it together professionally and hitting all the major points. I have a guide from UCLA about how to write grad school applications and used that to make sure I avoided some of the major mistakes people make. I had several people read it over for grammar issues. I think I am a good writer (much easier to type that then actually ever say it allowed to someone hahahah). How I talk on this forum isn't edited much or worked over so my writing style in this moment isn't reflective of how I write when I have time and purpose. Definitely not grammatically correct. As I said before though, there is no way to really know and I can only speculate. Maybe working in drug and alcohol treatment wasn't nurse-y enough for them? I don't think I'm a good candidate to compare against if you have an academic career that is more traditional (3.7 GPA, 21-22 years old, CNA hours, traditional community service, etc.)

Biochemistry Major, 6000+ hours of working in drug and alcohol treatment with direct patient contact. A couple thousand hours of community service and an award from my county for the work I did. Prereq GPA is between 3.73-3.9 depending on the school (I can't remember Penn's prereqs). My overall GPA for the past 4 years is a 3.66 (128 credit hours in that time and only 10 units were non-science), but my overall is GPA 3.08 due to some very bad grades from 11 years ago. The school that I earned those grades at won't let me retroactively change with extensive medical documentation. I do have over 270 credit hours bringing up my GPA from a 1.6 to a 3.08 . I taught organic Chemistry seminar 2 quarters to undergrads and was technically a school employee even though I am also an undergrad. Without getting too specific, I am from a minority group that is highly underrepresented. My LOR's were good-great as I had good relationships received multiple A's from my LOR writers. My interview video wasn't very good, but they said it won't hurt only help. I didn't blow it though and practiced for hours prior to filming it. It was just awkward and felt fumbled. Honestly I was pretty surprised that I was rejected outright given how high the MSN acceptance rate is. I was waitlisted at University of Washington, accepted Hopkins , and accepted MCPHS. I'm still waiting to hear back on 7 others. Penn, Duke, and Hopkins were my top 3 and I got into one so I can't complain. I want to move onto a DNP/PHD program after my RN, so I can do research and work at clinic part time. Maybe teach. I wrote about that in the appropriate essay question. If I had to guess it would be that one of my essays was a little too "provocative" for an IVY League school, although I really don't think I crossed any boundaries and was professional. I have neck tattoos that I can cover up with a turtleneck type shirt but they were somewhat visible in my interview suit. All of that combined with my lower overall GPA from 11 years ago...maybe? Maybe I'm a little too "west coast" for them? Maybe they wanted future DNPs? Maybe someone was hungry when they read my application? Who knows. I have talked to several people who sit on admission boards for post-doc programs and they've said that if you gave them the same pool of candidates multiple times, probably 25% would be different each time. I wouldn't compare though. I have some unique circumstances although I feel like I redeemed myself. Penn is a great school and I wish I got in, but I'm happy with how things have turned out so far. I plan on applying to either their PHD or DNP program in the future.

Same here. I just got my acceptance this morning. From what I have read in the past threads, the acceptances seem to go out over about 10 days. Then the waitlist and denials go out at the sametime. The good news if you're waitlisted is that this program is 2x-3x bigger than most incoming classes and it's expensive, so don't be too discouraged if you're on that list.

Still waiting here. No news yet.

I was rejected but it was posted in my portal. Maybe people who are accepted/waitlisted will get acceptance posted to their portal a little bit later.

Decision updated in portal

Hopefully that includes the BSN-MSN cohort?

Ya, I have seen that. Sometimes they are right but not always. I haven't seen anything confirming that number on their website or in their webinars. But the one you linked does specify entry MSN so I would tend to believe it more.

Are you sure that’s for direct MSN and not RN-MSN?

They responded to my comment about sending in updated transcripts and asked me to email them. I imagine over the break they got backed up and no one was working.

I think about 10% but I could be mixing that number up with Columbia.

I got into one and was waitlisted at University of Washington with around 15 W's. Most of them were for retroactive medical withdrawal though. I have a few in the past 4 years, two of which I had during quarters where I only took 6 units. No idea how much this actually affects my application, but I don't think nursing schools look at W's the same way medical schools do. W's can be used to identify a certain pattern of behavior in a certain type of student. There are dozens of reasons people take W's. So my personal opinion is that yes, they can affect your application, but only in certain circumstances. The only exception to this that I know of are CSU schools. Some of them count W's against you and you can't even apply because they will only take your first grade. So, if your first grade is a W, tough S.

Nothing yet. I'm guessing in the next week or two we will know.

Sometime in March according to their website.

Experience is pretty important, because it gives you a platform to explain why you know deep down that you want to be a nurse more than anything. Schools that focus on GPA and test scores can be harder to get into than some of the more "elite" schools which look at the candidate is a whole. You only have feedback from one school right now. You could reach out to their admissions department and see if you could talk to someone about why you didn't meet their standards, so that you can focus on changing that over the next year before applying again. Someone might be willing to talk to you. Don't give up. This requires a lot of effort and sometimes takes multiple tries. But as I said before, you only have feedback from 1 school.

I am not sure how their selection process works, but it could be based on their point system for selecting a candidate. Some schools are more holistic than others and look at the candidate as a whole. How many hours of experience do you have?

If you are talking about in terms of FASFA, it depends on your EFC score. I think just over $2000 per quarter in grant money. They offer loans, some without interest, but it's not enough to cover the full cost.

Looks to be $130,000 for the 15 month ABSN (5 quarters). https://www.nursing.upenn.edu/admissions/tuition-and-fees/accelerated-costs/

I was wait listed myself. This was my first time applying. Overall GPA 3.08. GPA over past 4 years is 3.66. 3.65 science GPA. Biochem major with 5000+ hours of experience working in drug and alcohol treatment. Letter of recommendation written by a supervisor who is an LVN at UCLA. This was the first application that I handed in and in hindsight I could have written the essays better. I think I would have got in or been higher on the waitlist if I had written these essays similar to other schools. Healthcare experience is important but having LOC written by a health professional I think is really important. Their questions are very specific about how you’ll do as a nurse. I have two professors that think very highly of me, but I’m not sure if their LOC would have been all that insightful for UofW. Other thing I would have done differently is was written my essays in a more creative and narrative way. I did that for my proctored essay and I think it turned out very well, but no way to really know. I don’t have prerequisite GPA off the top of my head but around 3.65-3.85. I think at a certain point the diff between 3.6 and 3.9 prerequisite GPA isn’t all that important compared to LOC, experience, and essays. lastly just apply. If you don’t get in this time it’ll show the committee that you really want to be a nurse. I’m 30 and spent 4 years getting my GPA up from a 2.05 to 3.66. It’s a process. Don’t give up.

I think January sometime.

My guess is that the waitlist is half of the total amount accepted, but it could be more than that.

Does anyone know from previous years how far they usually work through the waitlist? Honestly I wasn't expecting to get in at all, so to have them waitlist me makes me much more optimistic about other schools.

Let's just called general Chemistry for science majors/medical school prerequisites "Gen Chem 1" and "Gen Chem 2". These are the classes you would take as a freshman science major. If a school requires General Chemistry lab and you did not take a lab for Gen Chem then they will not consider the prerequisite complete. For schools that require 1 semester of general Chemistry with a lab, in my experience they will accept either Gen Chem 1 OR Gen Chem 2 (with a lab) if your Gen Chem 1 does not meet the prerequisite requirements. For example, my C did not meet the standard for some schools because they require a B- in all prerequisite classes, but my B+ from Gen Chem 2 w/lab did meet that requirement. I cannot tell you if all schools will do this, but for the four that I applied which required 1 semester of Chemistry, they did accept Gen Chem 2 with lab. None of the schools would accept Organic Chemistry, Advanced Organic Chemistry, Biochemistry, Physical Chemistry or quantitative analysis even with a lab component as meeting the Gen Chem requirements. Even though physical Chemistry is a type of inorganic Chemistry, it did not meet the requirement. For clarity, all of the classes in this paragraph are advanced upper division classes that you would only take as a junior or senior Chemistry major with the exception of sophomore organic Chemistry. The only example I found where schools would accept a non-lab Chemistry class when their prerequisites specified "General Chemistry with lab", was "Advanced Inorganic Chemistry". Even without a lab component, some of the direct entry masters programs would accept this class. It's an advanced upper division class that 4th year Chemistry majors and some biochemistry majors take if they want to punish themselves. I'm giving you more information than what you asked for, because you are moving onto organic Chemistry and there's a good chance you're a science major where some more advanced Chemistry classes are required. Also anyone searching for this topic in future years who is a Chemistry major (there are few of us), will have at least 1 person's experience. How the class is titled on your transcript is far more important than what is actually in the class if you want to use an upper division Chemistry class as meeting the general Chemistry prerequisite. For example, quantitative analysis is essentially statistical analysis of 1st year general Chemistry where you had to solve the gen chem problem first. Physical Chemistry is using calculus to solve and dive deeper into general Chemistry problems. I don't think anyone at the nursing schools making a decision on prerequisite classes has taken physical Chemistry, and when I tried to make my case, the answer was no because the name of the class said "physical Chemistry"and not "inorganic Chemistry" on the transcript.