victoria113

I haven't had any experience with providence either, but I bet that its far from a deal breaker. If you are immensely more qualified than a providence employee in other aspects, I doubt they will still choose the employee over the more qualified applicant. They are trying to hire the best nurses for their program, and you don't have to work or volunteer for providence in my opinion to fit that description. That being said, I'm sure it could be that extra push or tie-breaking aspect of an application. From what my interviewer implied, where you are willing to work (i.e. if you chose locations outside of Portland on your application), and your relative age (again, going along with the idea that younger people are not in a settled life stage and are therefore more mobile) are much more important. It also states online that they favor four year UP students over transfers on the application, yet it wouldn't seem fair or rational to a three year employment contract and a large investment simply based on that fact. Also, from my endless creeping of this website over the past half an hour, I found several people who posted here and were providence employees, were interviewed and did not get the scholarship. There is hope for us yet!! 70/30 is a good ratio for any scholarship! ...can you tell i'm a little anxious to hear back?

yes, they definately do go off of more than GPA, if you give them other resources. You kind of have to work the system a bit; I went in and spoke to the transfer counsuler when I saw how sporifice the application was. It didn't make sense to me that a liberal arts institution would require so little about an applicant. She said that they do look at extras such as personal statements and resumes if they are in early enough, because they don't have the time to read all of them (which is why they don't require it). As for the girl who got in with a 3.2 GPA, any UP student with a 2.8 or above is automatically accepted into the program, so a 3.2 isn't that rare. Also, if they are a transfer, then they must have had extraordinary supplimentary information. Either way, I think that most schools, including UP, believe that extremely high grades do not accurately predict who will succeed as a nurse, so they look for strong grades as well as other expiriences indicative of healthcare sucess.

I suppose its all about what you want to do with your RN. If you don't want to get any sort of masters, then a community college would probably suit those needs perfectly. However, if you want to get any sort of masters or at least have that option open without needing to take yet another year of school, then a 2 year BSN program looks very attractive. At least that's my reasoning. Also, I have multiple relatives who work at various nursing schools in and out of the area, and they all unatimously tell me that UP has one of the most stellar programs when it comes to actually preparing nurses for their career. Its not really reflected in the rankings because they don't get a bunch of research money, but when it comes to preparing nurses for practical application of their skills no school is better.

Lisa, I haven't heard back either, and i'm a bit out of area too in Seattle. But I don't think you should be stressing at all-if you got the providence interview, from what I understood when I spoke to the nursing counsuler, it means that you are accepted. I emailed her today and she said that she only has a few more letters to send out, so they arn't mailing them all at once.

yes I did. It seems that quite a few people were invited though...I guess we'll see. Hopefully somebody there has a good idea of how many scholarships are going to be awarded this year.

I spoke to an advisor this winter and she said that you must be accepted into the school in order to get an interview. Apparently Providence has a list of people they want to interview, then they get the list of who is into the school from UP and kind of cross reference. However I called the office today and the woman didn't really give me a straight answer. I'm 99% sure you have to be in to get an interview though-it just wouldn't make sense for them to waste an hour of their time and resources otherwise.

Thanks for the clarification! Still though, that seems a little high. If its 400 dollars a paycheck, twice a month for 2 and a half years, that still comes out to about 24000 dollars. Assuming the scholarship is worth about 75,000 and the income tax rate is about 9%, then it should be more in the neighborhood of 6 to 8000 dollars of total taxes. Sorry if I seem like i'm belaboring the issue, its just the one major aspect of this scholarship i'm worried about. I'm at UW right now and waiting to hear back from the SON, and i'm trying to decide which deal would be better. Of course, I would have to get the scholarship first! Do you (or does anybody) know how many they are giving out this year? Has their endowment for the program improved since last year with the economy?

smASH this, I may be misunderstanding your reply, but something does not seem right with the math on the taxes for the scholarship. If the nurse is paying 796 dollars twice a month over three years, that comes out to about 57,000 dollars in taxes. I am also interviewing on the 20th, and if that is the amount of taxes we have to pay, I may as well take a loan out.