sweetcheeks05

Enursing, I went to SMU and had a good experience. Granted, it was expensive but I would do it all over again. SMUs ABSN program has a 95% first time pass rate for the NCLEX and some years, it was 100%. So when picking and choosing for yourself, money aside, look at the schools pass rate for the NCLEX . That alone will tell you about how well the students are prepped. But pick the cheaper school because at end of the day, it doesn't matter where you went and you wanna graduate with as little loans as possible. I got accepted to 2 CSUs and Samuel Merritt and I'm really glad I went to SMU. Looking back, I'm really happy with the choice I made and I would make the same choice if I had to again. I did the normal 2 year BSN. We all took the NCLEX a month or two after graduation and everyone in my cohort of 50 landed job within a year (we graduated back in December of 2009). I even had the opportunity to study abroad in Ireland for a month and learn about healthcare and nursing in Ireland during my last summer in nursing school, offered in a partnership with SJSU school of nursing and SMUs school of nursing. I took a job as a labor and delivery RN in San Diego for 3 years after graduation and now I work as a trauma ICU nurse at a level one trauma hospital. You'll find SMU grads all over the Bay Area. I have many old classmates working from Stanford to UCSF to John Muir to Kaiser to Highland...and that's just my close group of friends from my SMU cohort. I have no idea where this "bad rep" is coming from because SMU RNs are working everywhere in the Bay Area...so the school must be doing something right. Good luck! Whatever decision you make will work out for you.

Hey guys, I'm about to apply for this program cuz I have about 80K in loans. Do you pick what places you wanna work for or do they tell you what facility you will be matched with? How do they choose who you work for? THANKS!! This thread is really helping me a lot!

22 by Dec 09.

THIS IS A REAL SCHOOL : go to www.samuelmerritt.edu Visit if you want: Admissions Office is 370 Hawthorne Ave., First Floor, Oakland CA I got to Samuel Merritt and graduating in December. Im going into my last semester of the BSN program and I like it a lot. After applying to 8 diferrent schools with a 3.8 GPA and getting rejected by every single one for 2 semesters...I almost gave up. I could either 1. keep trying and waiting and waiting or 2. do private school, pull out loans and get out faster. I did option 2. I did get into Stanislaus State's BSN program but it was 3 years and theirs was new so I didnt go. Yes, its expensive but by the time you get into the program after years of being on the wait list, you probably would've been working for a year now. Samuel Merritt has a 0% default rate -- meaning every single student pay their loans on time without problems. So paying them back isnt a problem for most SMU students. Almost, SMU grads get hired 4 times faster than grads from any other college. Its not guarantee you'll get a job but you're more likely to get hired than someone else. The economy sucks and its hard to find a job right now -- but it will pick up and by the time you graduate from your program, Im sure you're most likely to get a job 2 years from now than right now. And with the money -- their financial aide will do its best to help you get the money you need, whether through government/private loans, grants and scholarships to attend this college.