Nolander

I saw your previous thread/post and realized you applied to the same school I did. I received an interview invitation for January. My stats are eerily similar to yours so I too am surprised you were not granted an interview. My science and overall GPA were slightly higher than yours that you listed. Are you out of state of the school, did you have any shadowing experiences, what about the strength of your letters of recommendation?

I have an interview as well Jan 18th

I'm Currently applying for Anesthesia school, application deadline is November 1st so I have time to prepare my application before submission but I do have worries regarding my stats for school. My stats are as follows: -3.44 cumulative GPA. Graduated Cum Laude with my RN-BSN program I completed. My ADN was completed at a local community college. All science courses (A&P, micro, chemistry, stats, etc.) are A's. My ADN specific nursing courses are the only classes that have brought my GPA down. -3 years experience at level 3 trauma center combined MICU/CCU/SICU. I have had some relief charge experience an I have been the preceptor to quite a few new hires during their orientation period. CRRT/IABP/Impella LVAD trained. -Certified in BLS, ACLS, PALS, and I have my CCRN as well as my TNCC -I have a combined 34 hours shadowed with multiple CRNA's between two different hospitals in different cities for varied experience. One of the hospitals I shadowed at is directly affiliated with the CRNA school I am applying to. For what it's worth I also have no spouse, no children, 26 years old and have full focus on completing school with very minimal current distractions.

No regrets so far. The things that really drew me away from engineering as it comes down to it is that I'm honestly not that good at math and probably would both dislike and have a hard time juggling the math heavy course load, as is the nature of engineering school. I like science, but not math heavy science, and fortunately nursing has adequate science with only a handful of math that must be known to practice. No real plans to pursue engineering in the future, most likely I'll stay in some type of healthcare setting while looking into advanced practice nursing in some form or another.

What a way to revive an old thread! I'm happy to say that I am now a practicing RN on my local hospital's stroke and neurosurgical unit and just recently received a nice little pay raise.

The externship I participated in looked at overall GPA and not just individual grades in your Nursing courses.

Hot? In an OR? Surely not.

This is purely speculation from my own personal encounters in my locality. Is it just me or does it seem like LPN's are on the rebound in terms of being hired. I know a large consensus of people find the LPN is being phased out, as not even 2 year RN's are becoming the standard of nursing care, but the BSN nurse has now taken over that spot. But I personally have seen a very large number of job openings lately for strictly LPN's in my area. One hospital currently has more job openings for LPN's than RN's, and has been this way for months! My colleagues have seen it as well. Many explanations hinted towards the affordable care act being implemented, and the uncertainty it brings with it, some places are more willing hire a lower payed LPN in oder to save money in the uncertainty of the new healthcare laws. Anyone else seeing what I'm seeing or is this something going on solely in my neighborhood?

Yeah the online program through IWU used to have a clinical component, but no longer does. My main reasoning is that I will be working full time, as a new grad RN. Having clinicals is one thing, but doing it when you are work full time as a new grad RN is another. Also, my ADN program, though we did not have a dedicated "community health" class, we did do a lot of clinicals in places such as health departments, homeless shelters, etc. Lastly, my ADN program has 2 full semesters of pharmacology, a lot of these bridge programs I see are having you take a pharmacology class all over again.

Both of the schools I listed above are CCNE accredited.

I will graduate with my ADN come December and plan on applying to RN-BSN programs soon after that. One option I have to attend an rn-bsn program from a fairly well known state university in my state. The program will take 2 years, mostly online, and have clinical portions that would require me drive to the main campus in a town about an hour away from my home. My other option is to attend a completely online private university that isn't nearly as well known as the big name state university (Indiana Wesleyan University). This option is completely online, only one class at a time, and no clinical portion. I would like to attend graduate school one day; will the school I received my bachelors from affected my chances to attend. Do admissions committees prefer to see big name universities as opposed to small private, evangelical colleges?

I will graduate with an ADN in December of this year, probably won't take (and hopefully pass!) the NCLEX until sometime in January. I was browsing my local hospital's job openings today and noticed an RN position in a unit I would really like to work in. It's only September so my concern is if it's inappropriate for me to be applying to jobs so early in my final semester of nursing school. Should I go ahead and apply to this job anyway, or wait until closer to graduation/nclex before applying to anything?

Is it very often that RN's get to scrub in on surgeries, or are the RN's more exclusively becoming circulators while the surg techs take over scrubbing in?

I'm not sure, but people can and do graduate and become good nurses, everyone that graduated last year had an RN job upon graduation, whether locally or in another town. My main concern is the grading system. Yes, any third person viewer can simply say "wah wah cry about your grades and try harder" but they are simply ignorant to how my program is run. As I stated in my previous post, a "C" is what the overwhelming majority of the class makes in our classes (me included). We are not a stupid class, nearly every single one of the original remaining members of my class had a 4.0 before nursing school. You can say its all on the student to make the grades but that statement only goes so far. I have plans to continue my education at the graduate level, and I know grades are taken into consideration. Am I just going to state that I came from an extremely difficult program with a C average and expect them to believe all that? It's a mess....

I'm entering my 4th semester in my program with 9 people. We started with 25. My school has the highest NCLEX pass rates in the surrounding area. Nobody at all in my program has managed to make an A in any of our classes so far and only a select few (1-3 people) have managed to make low B's in a couple of our classes we've taken thus far. We are required to have a 78% as our final grade to pass. We've had people fail out of an entire class by .02% (no rounding up). Our check-offs for our lab skills (med admin, foley, etc.) must be performed perfectly in front of an instructor. If you miss a critical step you are allowed to repeat the skill one more time, should you fail again you are forced to withdraw from the class. You can reapply to the program but, obviously, many people fail out and it is very difficult to get re-admitted.

Does anyone know what the bio-patches are inoculated with?

OP I could swear you are talking about the same situation I see in my local area. We have one ADN program in my area (that I attend) and a BSN program that is an extension from a university a few cities away. All of the examples you cited in you original post reflect near exactly how my local ADN vs. BSN programs appear to be. I know quite a few people who have outright failed within the first 2 semester of our ADN program, still decide they want to pursue nursing, get into the BSN program that accepts nearly anyone, and pass with flying colors. My biggest criticism is the differences between skill check offs between the two programs. In my ADN program, we have a list of skills that MUST be practiced in the lab, and then individually checked off by TWO instructors performed exactly the way we were shown in lab. In my program, if you fail to complete any critical step or possibly "harm" the patient in any way, you fail, and then are allowed ONE more chance to perform the skill again. If you fail a second time, you are forced to withdraw from the entire class. Now, onto the BSN program. They learn their ENTIRE set of skills in just a few weeks. when it comes to "check offs", they literally draw ONE skill written on a piece of paper from a bucket, and then have to perform that skill in front of a teacher. If they complete the skill, they are automatically deemed appropriate to perform EVERY skill. If they fail the skill, they are given remediation by the teacher, and allowed to practice until they get it right. This just boggles my mind to no end.

What other kinds of interview questions did they ask?

If you don't mind me asking, why did you bomb the interview? I'm located in KY, and if I ever went to CRNA school, either the military or Murray would be my first choice.

Fall 2013 is my final semester. Yes, there is in fact an externship at my hospital for nursing students during the summer. I will most definitely be applying with hopes of going to the ICU/CCU. However, I don't even currently work at the hospital and I just know they will take preference to people who either have worked as a CNA/tech previously, or currently are employed by the hospital; I meet none of these criterion and am unsure of how me applying to extern will go.

No, only one hospital in my area. That's actually the reason why I didn't get the chance to do an ICU observation day. A school from out of town, knowing that the only hospital near them is the one in my area and where my school does clinicals, some reason got there students ICU observation spots, yet the school located in the same city as the hospital (my school) gets left out; that's why I'm so frustrated.

Actually, if I wanted to have a preceptorship in the ICU next semester I CANNOT have a job as a CNA or anything in the unit I want to precept in. My school states that if you work as a CNA or tech in a unit, then you will not be placed there to precept. I think it has something to do with knowing the people who work there and them giving you good marks, creating a bias.

No, we don't even get to go to the ER in my program. The only chance I have now to get into the ICU before I graduate is my preceptorship next semester

Yeah I would absolutely love to have an ICU preceptorship next semester. I guess I was thinking that maybe this observation would help, in whatever little way, to get me a preceptorship position there.

A little background: I'm just starting the final year of my nursing program. Our clinicals allow for us to have certain observation sites are various hospital units, one of them being the ICU. I have a very strong interest in critical care and would really love the opportunity to go here during school, even though it would just be a one day observation. So now today during orientation, as we were being handed our clinical site rotation, the teacher states that unfortunately, a conflict with another local school has lead to the ICU rotation site being removed from clinicals this semester. I'm extremely disheartened, the ONE place I was looking forward to is now gone all due to another school in another county getting the spots for its students first, or whatever happened. Am I overreacting, like I said, its just one observation day, but it was one I was REALLY looking forward to. I want to work in critical care, and I feel any way to get my name known in the ICU would help when job hunting, and one opportunity has already been taken away from me.