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If your grades are extremely, extremely competitive, Rush allows you to apply and may accept you to their NP program when you're fresh out of GEM, but most clinical instructors strongly recommend working at least one year as a staff nurse before you go and apply. There was one guy in the program a cohort or two ahead of us who got into the FNP program right after GEM, but he had nearly a straight 4.0 GPA and glowing recommendations. And a 4.0 at Rush...isn't easy. :) To go CRNA, you must have at least one (preferably two) years of ICU experience as a staff nurse before you apply. And typically to get a job on an ICU unit, you need a year of med-surg nursing experience first (although like NP, an ICU may accept you right out of school if you have competitive grades and strong recommendations.)

Another Cohort 11 member here like Renee. Good to meet all of you, and good luck with your applications! ~31k a year sounds like a lot, but Rush's cost is actually lower than DePaul, and (probably) UIC seeing as you're out of state. It's really the room and board that will soak you; Chicago isn't cheap. The debt level is far from ideal, but nursing's nice in that most hospitals and health care organizations where nurses work are nonprofits. Working for nonprofits allows you to discharge Perkins loans after 5 years, and Staffords after 10 (at least until the pols decide to change that for the sake of political expediency...) I'm a guy, and as Renee said, we have the most men of all the cohorts. We started out with 9 and now have 7 (one dropped permanently, one had a family emergency and had to defer one term). Cohort 12 started out with two men and now has 3 because of the 1 from our cohort, and Cohort 13 has six or seven. Expect somewhere between 2-25% male, which is about what nursing is running in most fields right now outside of CRNA (it's more like 60% F / 40% M there). Let us know if you have any more questions!

I'm in. Looking forward to meeting you folks soon. :)

Hey, b. I'm only on here sporadically, so I didn't notice your post until now. I'm currently applying to the Summer 2013 cohort for Rush and have made it past the first round of cuts. GPA: Rush wants a minimum of a 3.0 on a 4.0 scale; they'll waive your GRE score if you're over 3.25. Coming out of undergrad, my GPA was 3.22/4; this improved to 3.35ish total once I took a few prerequisite courses at the local community college that my undergrad school didn't have available. GRE: At most grad schools, the GRE is more of a formality than a serious admissions consideration (unless your score is truly abysmal or truly exceptional). Rush is a bit more selective than most, so it might be a bigger weight than usual. However, your recommendations/GPA/personal statement still trump the test score. My personal scores were 610 verbal/690 quant/5.5 writing. (Under the new system, this would be ~160 verb/154 quant). 314 is a "good" score, maybe about a B or B+ as far as letter grades go; solidly above average, but not anything to write home over. Prereqs: Rush appears to have made their required prerequisite course list a bit more permissive for Fall and beyond, but it is unlikely that this means that admissions have gotten any easier. A list: -Microbiology (REQUIRED; generally means that you need to take general biology first) -Anatomy and Physiology (REQUIRED WITHIN PREVIOUS 5 YEARS; this needs to be a two-term sequence of either human anat. and human physio., or a two-term sequence of combined human A&P) -Chemistry (At least 1 term. It should be noted that when I applied, Rush required both a full sequence of general chem and at least one semester of organic.) -At least 1 class in the behavioral sciences (Needed both Psych 101 and an additional course in developmental psychology when I applied) -At least 1 class in the social sciences -Statistics is no longer explicitly required, but I would still recommend taking it, especially if you're planning on any additional graduate-level work post-GEM. -Nutrition is similar to stats; no longer required. Take it if you can; as far as prereq classes go, it's definitely one of the easier ones and can help act as a GPA buff. -I'm not sure if it was Rush or one of the PA schools that I applied to that wanted medical terminology. Regardless, good class to have under your belt. Experience: If you decide to apply, I would think previous experience in a healthcare setting, even if it's not direct patient care, would be a leg up, and you could weave your experience into your personal statement somehow. However, if possible, get some experience where you have to directly interface with patients. I've only had paid positions in retail since undergrad graduation (ugh), but I'm a volunteer for local physical therapists and a CPR instructor. The more you show that you really, really want to work directly with people, the better your application would become, IMO. Best of luck!

Applying to the summer cohort of Rush's GEM program; made it past the first cut and got invited to interview in February. Best of luck to everyone else. :)

The computer-based test has adaptive difficulty, so you really can't tie a specific percentage right to a specific score like you sort've can with a paper-based test like the SAT or ACT. Back when I took it, question difficulty was dynamically monitored by the computer on every question, now it's monitored by section. Section 1: Gets a broad feel for your aptitude level ("OK, this guy/gal is somewhere around the 156-163 range in Verbal. Section 2, serve up medium-hard to hard difficulty questions.") Section 2: Fine-tunes score in the narrowed-down range. Thus, it would be better to get, say, an 80% on Section 1 and a 40% on Section 2 than it would be to get a 40% on Section 1 and an 80% on Section 2.