Annaproblemma

we get a 15% differential for nights, and a 5% differential for weekends.

No problem Spud, be glad to give you more info. I had a great experience at Linfield. The faculty is very supportive to moms. They will arrange your clinicals to fit around your kid's schedule. I think that is pretty unheard of in most nursing schools! The faculty themselves all have kids so they know how it goes. For example, if you have kids in day care, they will give you choices of which times you would prefer for clinicals. I have children at home too and there were a couple of times a child was sick and I had a paper due. The teacher was understanding and gave me an extension on the paper. We had one situation where a classmate's brother was killed in an auto accident. The faculty kept her place open for her while she maintained a vigil at his bedside before he died (it took a couple months) they then assisted her in joining with the next semester's class. I thought that was very kind of them. Another classmate's father died and she had to fly back to Chicago to make arrangements. She was gone for 2 weeks, but was able to come back and get back in the swing of things with assistance from the faculty and graduate with the rest of us. Two girls got married, and one had a baby! Maybe that says something. I was really appreciative that since I lived in Salem, the faculty arranged for me to do as much as my clinicals down here so I didn't have to commute as much. They went so far as to open a site that had never been used before just so I wouldn't have to commute. Now that was incredible I thought! Also, about the sites! I think Linfield has the most varied opportunities to do different things. For example, for my mental health rotation I was at the State Hospital here in Salem. I worked with the men in 32F (the criminally insane!) Now that was interesting! For my community health rotation I worked in healthy Start in Clackamas County. For my Chronic Illness I worked in Wilsonville at the women's correction facility. I also worked at St. Vincent's, Emanuel, and various other places. Huge exposure! The workload, if you have all the prereqs out of the way, is doable. The most classes I had at a time was 3. Most of the time, I just had 1 or 2. Now they were intense classes, and paper intensive, but doable. The one I hated the most was Research Methods, Yuck! The teachers are very involved and helpful. A couple boring ones, but that's normal. There is a good supportive system for help such as the library, a writing center, computer center, etc. The library is the Good Sam Library. You get extremely close to your classmates. I was warned this would happen, and it sure did! These ladies are now my sisters. I will love them forever. You go through such emotional and learning experiences, that they will be part of my heart forever. Sorry this is so long, but it was such a remarkable expererience and still fresh for me. It sounds like you are an older student as I was, and Linfield certainly values that. So, hope this answers more of your questions. I will just say one more thing which I think is really really important. Go for the BSN!!!! You will never ever regret it. Don't want to ruffle any feathers of those who have ADN's, but the BSN will be very well worth it. If you are going to do the time anyway, go the whole nine yards. Anyway, that's my take on it. Good luck, and any more questions, I would be glad to answer. Anna

Congrats! What an awful rite of passage we have to go through, but it does pass! Hurray! I just heard yesterday myself and am still on cloud nine! What a hugmongous load off, huh! But congratulations, you deserve it! Go and enjoy whatever you wish! Best wishes, Anna

Dear Spud, Okay, here's to answer your questions. First of all, the scholarship is not tied into income. My husband is an attorney, so we would not qualify for any financial aid either. The scholarship is based on academics. I don't think it has to be too high to qualify for that, I know a classmate who had it who had around a 3.0. Also, as to the schedule. We did start the end of July, but ended the end of May, first part of June, like the school kids. That was the first year. The second year We did have one month of accelated Ped/L&D in July. Just 4 weeks! We didn't start again until Sept., then graduated in Dec! So, actually we pretty much had the summer off. Of course we had to have all the pre-reqs finished first. I did all those at the local Community college. Any more questions, let me know! Anna

I did this program and it was very worthwhile. If you want any more information, please feel free to e-mail me. Anna

I liked the Saunders too, had nice visuals if you're a visual learner like me. I also bought Feuer's CD's package. It reallly helped! I had to commute to school, so took advantage of that time and listened to the CD's. They were interesting and fun. We had to do the Kaplan through school and I wasn't too impressed. Good luck! Anna

I know just how you feel, scared to death! But I think if you came out of there feeling like you didn't get the answers, it's a good sign. That's just how I felt. I think that means you are in higher level questions. Also not getting any drug calculations is a good sign. Those are actuallly very easy questions if you think about it. As one of my teachers said, you could teach a 10 yr old to do those, they could get the numbers right, but they wouldn't understand what they are doing. There is only one straightforward right answer on those, so are much easier than the ones that it always seems you come down to two that could be right. That's what always happened to me! But, I bet you did pass, and the time now is tough, but will pass. So good luck and hang in there! Anna

:) :) :) Hurray! I did pass! It was so like Lily just said. I've been on such pins and needles and checked for the zillionth time this morning at 7:30 and there it was. Too cool for words! I am still dancing and laughing and singing! It is pretty silly for so much to ride on one stupid test. But at least now I am past this point! Now on to obsess about learning my new work! (A Step down unit from ICU)! As my husband says, I always have to have something to stress over. Actually this entire weekend is going to be so happy and light hearted. What a huge load off! It is incredible! Thanks all for your support and good luck to all in the future! Anna

Oh, you are so lucky to find out so quickly! This is torture! I check the site every hour or so. I'm driving myself and everyone crazy. They told us to allow 2 working days, but some have been posted within 24 hrs, so I keep trying. But congratuations! Hopefully I'll get the same good news! Ann

Hi, I haven't read all the posts, maybe someone has already said this, but you should really consider Linfield School of Nursing. I just graduated from there Dec 19th and had an excellent experience. I would say almost half of my class had previous degrees and the faculty and administration worked really well with giving value to those degrees. We were originally called "Transer Juniors" and were able to graduate in 18 months with a BSN. Also, not to denigrate any ADN program, but a BSN if you can do it, has several advantages. You should really look into it. Linfield's Health campus is in Portland, across the street from Good Sam Hospital. The school is small, the classes are small, (my largest had 22 students in it), the faculty is very supportive and sympathetic. The clinical sites were fantastic! Some people are concerned about the tuition, but Linfield offers almost everone a huge scholarship so it ends up being about the same cost of OHSU. I was accepted into OHSU also, and had a difficult time decided between the two, but am so glad I picked Linfield. One reason, even though it may seem inconsequential, is the parking! The parking is almost non-existent at OHSU, and easy and plentiful at LInfield. I had to commute from Salem, so having that problem taken care of did make a difference! Anyway, if you are interested and want more info on Linfield, please feel free to e-mail me. I'll tell you anything you want to know. Anna

I also had no calculations, none of the new format questions and it shut off at 75. I took my test Tuesday and haven't heard if I passed yet. I'm hoping what happened to you will happen to me. I hope that's a good sign we have those things in common. Congratulations and hopefully I'll be joining you soon in the great professions of RN's! Anna

Yes, it happened to me too! The computer shut off at 75! I took the test yesterday (Tuesday) and I am still waiting for the results. I am somewhat freaked because the questions were so hard, I really didn't feel for sure on the answers on any of them! But then again, maybe the questions just seemed hard because I didn't know them? I don't know, most of them were priority, pharm, or psych. Actually at least 10 End stage renal disease. What was that about? Why so many? No OB, no ambulation, no diabetes, nothing like that. A few cardiac, but also a lot of growth and development. Also no computations. I'm hoping from what I've read on this board is that because the questions seemed hard, that I was in upper level questions.I don't know, all the questions seemed hard, it didn't seem to start with a easy one and build to harder ones. That has me concerned. I did really prepare this, using Kaplan, Lipincott, and Saunders. I've spent at least 4-5 hrs every day since graduation Dec. 19th studying. I would score in the upper 70's in the pretests. I just hope it pays off! I will say when the computer shut off at 75 I went into shock/denial. I felt pretty prepared, so thought that might happen, but when I got to the questions, and they were so hard, I didn't have any confidence I was answering them correctly. Out of all of them, there were only 2 I was sure of the answer. So when that #75 was finished and I pushed the "next" button, I was so shocked to see that blue screen and then "test completed". Now I am so scared that I answered all those questions wrong and I will get a big "not passed" when I finally can get on the result page. Are there any kind words of reassurance out there to help me through the stressful tense time? I'm afraid my husband is very tired of my crankiness, (although he really is very good and supportive), but this is so difficult! I have my dream job contingent on this and hope so much I pass! I don't want to think that I really don't know this at all. After all my hard work and struggles that would be so discouraging. Thanks for any help anyone can give. Anna