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Nope, if you know what specialty you're interested in go for it! Don't waste time in an area you're not passionate about. You will be trained sufficiently during your orientation to that patient populations specific needs. Thing like basic nursing skills and time management can be learned anywhere. Best of luck!

1. Richmond, Virginia 2. $23.18 base (evening +$5, night +$6, weekend day $5.50, weekend evening +$7, weekend night +8.25) 3. New Grad RN 4. Surgical Trauma ICU

During school all of my clinicals ended up being on medicine floors. I worked as a UAP on two surgical units a PACU and Cardiac Surgery ICU. Having exposure to those ICUs and liking surgery more than medicine is how I ended up on a Surgical Trauma ICU. I think the best way to find what you're passionate about is to try to cast as wide a net as possible and see what you're drawn to.

It will depend on you. Everyone in my program (Accelerated BSN) is different. Some are focusing only on school and don't hang out much, work, or do many extra curriculars. Personally I have been able to manage working ~20hrs/week, various ECs, and training for things like a marathon and IronMan. It totally depends on the individual. Don't get freaked by what you hear, wait until you are well into your first semester and figure out where you fall in the spectrum. I still find time to hang with friends and eat out. Keeping a balance in your like during nursing school is important, be sure and have fun while you're there!

I don't think so. Medstar Georgetown is one of the places I'll be applying to after graduation. Worst case scenario is you get a job here at VCU or Richmond in general and stick it out for a year and then you can go anywhere once you're no longer a "new grad." VCUHS definitely hires a lot of VCU Nursing students, especially if you're a care partner. Also, quite a few nurses in the CRNA program or who are practicing in the OR (I work in the peri-operative department as a care partner) come from the hospital and several from the VCU BSN (trad or accelerated) programs. Coming from VCU will not hurt your application for sure.

Hi, I was in the same boat as you 1 year ago. I was accepted to both programs and ended up choosing VCU. From my position now I must say that I'm very glad I chose VCU. I've heard some thing about gmu's program that I don't like and I think that the 12 months is just too accelerated for me. VCU is a fantastic hospital, the floors are very receptive to students and you have many many opportunities to perform skills. The nurses like teaching and the school is closely affiliated with the health system. It's a huge when you're at the same hospital for the whole program and it is very conducive as far as networking goes. The hospital also hires students as care partners(nurse aids) which is a great way to again network, practice skills and find a job. Richmond itself is going through a bit of a renaissance and is great town coming from NOVA myself. Good luck!

The minimum for us is 80% but we're also on a 7point scale... So that's a C on the transcript.

Biochemistry, but don't like the corporate/ lab environment.

Ill see you on 5/13 then 08rea!

My stats were 3.6 ugrad GPA (biochemistry) and 4.0 pre-reqs. No volunteer/clinical experience so I was surprised that I was actually accepted. I also feel I had a pretty good essay/unique life experiences so that might have played a part. Good luck.

Hey all, I was accepted too but will be attending my 1st choice program elsewhere. One more off the wait list. Good luck to all

@lexi. Can you pm me as well. Thanks!

OMG! So much for the 31st!!! See you there Lexi!!! @allie I'm sure it will open up! Good luck!

@alligem. I sure hope your right! I'm going to be a frantic paranoid mess by February if I haven't heard lol.

In one of the emails they sent out regarding updating transcripts over winter break they mentioned that decisions would be emailed in early Feb. unfortunately

From what I understand, they will take the gre scores and use those to estimate what the sat/act score would be as if you had just taken one. Another thing that surprised me and several other people in the info session was the fact that graduate school grades are ignored for the GPA calculations. Only classes from you undergrad degree and pre-reqs are calculated . The addcom is only interested in undergrad related metrics, not in graduate.

Hello all, I just finished my applications as well! Just waiting on transcripts and act scores to be received. I'm going to an info session on Friday so if anyone has ?s post them and I'll see if I can't get an answer. A little about myself. I graduated in 2012 from UVA with a BS in Biochemistry, undergrad GPA mid 3s, and my ACT composite score was 29. LORs should be pretty good but, I think my biggest weakness is a lack of volunteer/medical work, which with taking prereqs and working I haven't had the time to do for this cycle. I'll have all my prereqs finished this semester(taking AP2, Micro, and Stat... cannot wait for the semester to finish!). Anyway, good luck to us and I hope to meet some of y'all this summer!!!