FutureRN9

Congratulations! I wish you the best :)

Sounds good. Make sure to post back and let me know if you get in )

St. Mary's has always been known to be a good program. I would definitely try applying there. You may also consider Collins Career Center. They have an LPN program and it seems to be easier to get into LPN school first and then do the LPN to RN bridge.

I definitely understand your frustration. One thing I can say about OU is that they don't care about your family problems or money issues. They could care less if you have to travel several hours to a clinical, you better be there on time. Did you speak with ---- or maybe ------? ------ is really helpful and knows her stuff, but the director will "override" the policies to further her agenda. Marshall's Point Pleasant campus accepts more people and is a more laid back environment than the Huntington campus. Mapquest says it is only about an hour away from Minford, of course you know how long it is from your house. Do what you feel is necessary, but I want you to be aware of the issues. Your best bet would be to talk to other current students in the program. Very few will talk, especially if there is no guarantee of anonymity. I cannot think of a second year in the program that would recommend Southern to anyone. Those who speak out against the program or speak up for themselves are very quickly shown the door. I hope that your experience is better than mine has been thus far. I wish you only the best. Good luck!

I re-read that you mentioned your ACT's. You have to take the ACT's for OU-Southern, too. At least I had to give them a copy of my scores and I had over 4 years of college classes since I took the ACT. I know that waiting a year does not see like it is a good idea, but it may be the best thing for you. Keep in mind that the clinical placements for OU-Southern are KDMC (Ashland), OLBH (Ashalnd), SOMC (Portsmouth) and SMMC (Huntington). It is very unlikely that you will get to go to SOMC the majority of the time. I would look into Marshall University - they have a BSN program and a campus in Point Pleasant, WV.

If you post some problems or at least a type of calculation you are having difficulty with I would be more than happy to help if I can. :)

Also, I don't think that this is your ONLY option. I would strongly suggest you look on the Ohio Board of Nursing website and research other programs before you limit yourself to Ohio University-Southern.

You could attend the OU-Chillicothe campus. I have heard some better comments on this program, but the general complaints come from all OU campuses. The classes at OU are hard. The content is very challenging (but that isn't the problem) and the instructors are reluctant to help. The instructors talk about the students behind their back and are very childish in their actions. I am in the last quarter, graduating in June. I wish I had never gone to OU-Southern. The instructors make your life miserable. They could care less if you succeed or not. If you won't give them their good pass rate they make it a point to get you out of there. I've seen it done to my friends.

Does anyone know anything about KVCTC? Anything would be appreciated. Thanks :)

First, the program is NOT easy to get into. They accept almost 100 people, so it is easier than it has been in the past, but they still turn many people away. There are four components to the application: your grades, your interview, your essay and your HESI admission exam. Your interview is probably the MOST important indicator of acceptance into the program. They do have a goal of "weeding out" those they don't think can cut it. In the end their only goal is to have good pass rates and they only need 10 people to pass the NCLEX to have a 100% pass rate. I know this because an instructor told me, although most won't admit it. It is recommended that you only work 20 hours a week. I know several people had to quit their jobs to stay in the program, I had to cut down my work schedule to one day a week. There were a few people that were able to continue to work, but they had extreme flexibility in their hours. You will have an outstanding amount of studying and busy work to complete. They do not like to term it as busy work, but there is no other way to describe it. They no longer can give points for anything other than tests, but you will have care plans, case studies, workbooks and other carious assignments to complete for NO credit. I'll admit, some of it helps but mostly it is just buys work and takes time away from studying. Starting third quarter you will have two clinicals a week. This will only allow you 3 out of the 7 days of the week to study/work/spend time with family. They routinely have Saturday clinicals and it has been said that starting next quarter they will be starting Sunday clinicals as well. I would NOT recommend taking any other class with your nursing classes. It is okay to take a one hour class or something you know will be easy if you need to be full time. Especially since those are the classes that you have to take. I would say that with those classes AND your nursing classes you would be unable to work at all. With that, nursing classes take up the majority of the day. Usually 9-3 two days a week, and sometimes there is a third day for lab. It is very hard to fit other classes into this schedule. You will find that most classes offered at Southern (including Proctorville) will overlap with the nursing classes. I personally would reconsider enrolling in the Fall unless you are willing to take one or both pre-req's this summer. I don't know where you live, but I'm assuming you live somewhere between Huntington, WV and Portsmouth, OH. There are several other schools within the area, I would seriously consider looking into other school because I would not recommend this program. I wish I would have never started this program and I would have attended somewhere else. I'm not trying to discourage you from nursing, but I would discourage you from this program.

I would not recommend Decadron PO. I speak from experience. It is absolutely the MOST NASTY medicine I have ever tasted. The nurse that gave it to me told me that they use the same formula for both IM and PO routes. I don't know if I can even describe the taste for you. Also, the taste remained in my mouth for several hours. I would take a shot anyday over PO Decadron again.

If your school does not provide residential housing it is within the guidelines to use financial aid for housing. Keep your head up and keep looking. Call your local Department of Health and Human Resources (some states use different names for the agency) or other agencies in the community, they should be able to help you some.

I started looking into a few things for you and I found that Kent State University offers an ADN program at several of their campuses. While only the Kent campus offers student housing, the Tuscarawas campus offers some off-campus housing resources. You can look into it more here .. http://www.tusc.kent.edu/student-life/housing.cfm I wouldn't rule out attending a community college or a regional campus of a college just because of the living situation. There are usually apartments/houses available to rent around the school. Contact the school to see if they have resources (like I mentioned above) or if they could direct you to someone whom could provide you with those resources. If all else fails .. google it. Regional campuses sometimes offer the best of both worlds - you get the well known school name on your diploma, but you get the small-private school experiences in the classroom. I go to a regional campus of Ohio University and I feel that I am getting a more personalized education because of the smaller class sizes. If you are wanting to stay in Ohio, reference the Ohio Board of Nursing website for a list of schools/programs within the state. http://www.nursing.ohio.gov/PDFS/education/RNprogramlistJan2011.pdf And if you get nothing else out of my post, please take this to heart. DO NOT give up on your dreams!!! You CAN and WILL achieve anything you set your mind to. I don't know you, but I believe that if you WANT this then you can achieve it. Nursing school is tough, anyone who says it's not is lying to you. BUT nursing school is also very rewarding. I have met some amazing people - classmates, nurses, instructors and patients. Sometimes that is enough to teach you much more than a textbook ever could. Someone very special to me once told me, "Failure is not an option, failure is only found in ourselves when we are looking for someone else's purpose." What he meant by this is that you will only fail if you are not following your heart. These are your dreams, so go get them (: I wish you the best of luck. If I can help you in any way, even just listen to you vent then please let me know.

Where do you live?

This link is for the institutional version. If you are only using it for yourself then you won't need this. This is for schools to purchase for their students.