student79

Congrats to you both. I'm in UB's CRNA program now, and will be graduating in december. If you have any questions, let me know

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Hey guys, for those who have accepted and are planning to attend UB, can we start getting acquainted, bouncing ideas, etc? If we're gonna be classmates for the next 28 months then we might as well getting friendly :-) My name is Ben. Been an RN 3.5 years. Presently work in CVICU. I'll be moving from California by myself, and single. Where are you guys moving from? Does anyone local have any info on where to possibly live, nice areas, etc? Has anyone done the FAFSA yet? Any other things to consider - Should I get snow tires for my car, etc?

Thanks. I thought they were done with interviews, no? How is it that they are still interviewing when they have offered people admission? Or they have picked the ones they wanted and are still interviewing to fill the 15 to 20 seats?

Heard back today. I'm in!! Good luck to everyone. Post when u hear back so we can start getting acquainted.

I have not heard anything either. And neither has amiro31. I even emailed yesterday and no one has replied yet. I remember the program director clearly saying "we hope to get decisions out before christmas". So I wonder if it will be by next friday (the 17th)? Or could it be that 3 of us didn't get in? But wouldn't they send a letter either way?

Hey Rave21, have u heard anything from Buffalo?

I think I got all the questions right but he kept interrupting me and cutting me off and apologising saying I was doing great by the way but we didn't have but 25 mins. He said I had a very strong application and asked what other schools I had applied to. Also encouraged me to look into the doctorate program in the future (I think they are planning on switching from MSN to a DNP for the class of 2012). How about yours? What were your stats? CCRN? Here are mine: GPA 3.5 CCRN CSC CVICU experience 3 years I don't remember getting any questions wrong so I'm hoping I'm in. Let me know yours

I interviewed there Nov 17th also. Haven't heard anything back? How did your interview go? He said we should be hearing before christmas? Was that what you were told?

Hello You all - I've been reading your posts on here for a while. Anyway, I am a Black RN who just started working in the CVICU at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. I just graduated nursing school a year ago. Anyway, I really want to go to CRNA school. I'm planning on starting RN to BSN school in summer, and end that by next spring, just in time to apply for CRNA school for next fall. I already have a Bachelors Degree, but in Computer Science. Here are my stats: Degree: BS Computer Science Overall GPA: 3.3 Degree: AS Nursing Overall GPA: 3.5 By the time I apply to CRNA school I should have 1 year on a Cardiovascular Stepdown unit and 1 year CVICU experience. I also have ACLS, PALS, and BLS. I am hoping to take the CCRN also. Hopefully I can bring up my Nursing GPA even more by the time I take the BSN courses. I worked at my job 40 hours full-time all through Nursing School as a Senior Project Manager and was able to keep the GPA stable enough. I won't be working in CRNA school but I dunno if they'll even take that into consideration how I wa able to work off my butt and prioritize, rather than picking a 4.0 student (God, I had to work to earn a living ya know). Do you think I have a good chance? I don't even know where to apply at this point. Any suggestions and tips will be greatly appreciated!! God Bless.

I just graduated Nursing school like a week ago and I'm doing the Kaplan Review (including the online and the class). Well, the class itself doesn't start till June, but I'm doing all the Q Bank questions before then because I want to test immediately the class itself is over. For people that Kaplan really helped, I heard not to both doing other stuff, just the kaplan book (with strategies for test taking) and questions, questions, questions. Is it not worth learning anything at this point? Also, I am scoring between 50 and 65% on the kaplan Q bank tests. Is that good? I know I want to pass the NCLEX in 75 questions and 15 questions are experimental. Therefore there are 60 questions. So if I pass a leas half of those, have I passed? Or do they have to be at/or above the minimum competency level too? Just trying to figure out if I'm doing okay or not. Too bad they don't tell you on the site what your score translates to in 'NCLEX world' (whether you passed or failed). I can't do the question trainer tests yet because they've locked them until we start the physical class in June. Also I haven't been able to take the diagnostic test yet.

Hello guys. I just graduated Nursing School last week (woo-hoo). Anyway, prior to Nursing School, I had a Bachelors in Computer Information Systems and had several years IT experience. What I wanted to do was work in Nursing for a few years to get experience and then delve into Informatics. Anyway, I applied to 3 RN jobs and 1 informatics job. Well, now I have offers from all 4! The informatics position is with Epic Systems. They make nursing and medical software used in hospitals for CPOE, MAR's, Nursing Charting, etc. So the position is as a Project Manager, travelling all over the country, implementing the software and training the nurses, physicians on the software, etc and generally implementing the projects for clients. They have offered me a salary of $70,000 per year. The other jobs are RN I positions (1 in Critical Care, 1 in Cardiovascular, and 1 in Med-Surg). They pay about $26/hr (work nights). That comes to like $50,000 per year. Anyway, I feel like it would be to my benefit to work as an RN before going into these other things. Won't it? I'll gain an understanding of clinical workflow and see the nurse's perspective. Also, another reason I wanted to work as an RN first is becase I get bored easily. So in the future I may get tired of working long 50 or so hour weeks with only 2 weeks off vacation per year. So I may want to go back to working just 3 days a week or PRN/Part Time at a hospital, and without RN experience, I would not be able to find a job even though I would be a licensed RN. They would take the fresh graduates over me, because after nursing school I never got experience. So these are my concerns. Advice?????

Hey Wen, Thanks for responding. In your opinion, do you think attending the class itself helped? Or are majority of the things you go over in the class in the kaplan text itself so one can read it? I heard its doable if you are disciplined with self-study. The reasonn I'm asking is the course is $500 and I'm so broke from nursing school that I'm thinking of either sharing the cost of the course with my friend (and get online access to the tests, CD's and stuff that way), or just doing the online option ($300), or just buying the text and online questions. Let me know what you think. Also, let me know if you passed. Did you have 75 questions or more? Thanks!

Well, I'm still in school finishing up my last semester so I still have more stuff to learn, but overall I do okay on tests, I usually make B's on most nursing classes (and an A here and there), but I am just now all concerned with the NCLEX because we have to sign up by next month if we are interested in a review. I heard about the other options, but I'm hearing a lot of feedback about Kaplan and Sylvia Rayfield that they are both good. Also I'm not sure which Kaplan the students on here take the most... is it the actual instructor-led course or just the online course. The complete one is like $499. Its a heck of a lot of money, but I'm willing to put it on a credit card if I have to, just to pass the NCLEX on the first try. I will also be supplementing any course I take with questions from the Saunders book, Lippincott, and Mosby. Any opinions?

Hello, I'll be graduating from nursing school this May, then taking the NCLEX in June. Our class has been introduced to two NCLEX review courses but I can't decide on which to go with. We've been introduced to: 1) Kaplan NCLEX review course 2) Sylvia Rayfield NCLEX review course Our instructor says the main difference between them is that the Sylvia Rayfield one focuses more on teaching you the content, and the NCLEX one focuses more on teaching you how to answer the questions, good critical thinking and test-taking strategies. Now I'm really confused on which one to go with. The Sylvia Rayfield one has a 98-99% pass rate listed on their website. But our instructor (who teaches part-time for kaplan), said that she has never known anyone to fail the NCLEX after taking kaplan's review course. Of course I'll be doing TONS of questions on my own because that's what most people say is important. But please can you guys help by giving your opinions and saying what worked for you, etc???? I need to know before paying the money to one of them. Thanks!!!