SoWellRounded

City of SD versus San Diego County. Tricky. The scholarship I got was certainly on the small end: $500 the first time, $1,000 the 2nd (depends on how many apply each year, and how much $$$ they have to hand out). But hey, for only requiring a few hours of my time, well worth the effort. I'm sure there are similar ones in your area that are kind of hidden and unknown like the one I got was. Are you certain about the expense of San Marcos? I think our spring/fall tuition and fees was something like $7,200 each semester, and in the summer it was about 1,500 more. So in the neighborhood of $46,000 for a classmate with zero financial aid (6 semesters). Is postponing your attendance by a year an option the school offers or something you would consider?? You'd want to meet with a financial planner to really help you go over the numbers, but just one more year of working and paying as much of your old loans off as possible, could really help you out in the long run (saving on interest). With an Excel spreadsheet and some basic formulas, you could work this out on your own. And if anyone can hold down a part time job while in school, I have to think that definitely applies to you. Due to your academic and career background, you'll have a foundation none of your classmates will have, which should hopefully mean you don't need to study as much. And of course your past jobs will look really attractive once you do have your BSN. ehh?

Unless I'm missing something, I'm pretty sure "brick and mortar state school BSN program in San Diego" can only refer to SDSU... $55k seems a bit excessive unless she's an out of state resident. (But I could be wrong, the VA paid my tuition). I would recommend checking with the school and looking around on your own, my school's program coordinated a number of scholarship opportunities (often offered by a 3rd party, but you would turn in your application to the school). Getting one or more of those can really help defray costs. I happened to find one on my own offered by a local hospital; not a lot of money, but better than nothing. Entry Level Masters. Anyone who wants to see a list of the CA programs, scroll to the bottom of this page: RN Programs Two are in San Diego, but both are private. And for anyone else looking, to my knowledge CSULB's ELM is no more (I got my BSN there, would have done the ELM except I missed it by a semester taking my last pre-req). They used to take 1 cohort every 3 years (3 year program), but it depended on getting a large grant each time. I think the grant money dried up. The last cohort graduated last May. I think that's true state wide, at least in the urban areas. But most of my friends from when I took pre-reqs at a CC who got their ADN there have landed jobs at small hospitals. The bigger/more prestigious places are nearly impossible without a BSN. And a formal new grad program/residency? I've only heard of a BSN as a minimum. APU is in... Azusa! (not within driving distance of San Diego) Back to the original writer: As I said above, I got my BSN at CSULB, definitely happy with that choice. I was in the accelerated track, and several classmates had part time jobs, it was manageable in 1st semester, but 2nd semester (over the summer) I don't think anyone worked. Those who wanted started working again in 3rd semester. I had several friends at the community college, and 2 continued on at Fullerton, the rest are finishing up at CSULB. That's another year to a year and a half. And most are working as RNs while they do it. So that's definitely a possibility, but timewise it takes longer to get to the BSN.

Reading between the lines on their page, that appears to me to basically just mean they offer affirmative action for veterans. Not all that surprising because they know most likely Uncle Sam will be picking up the tab. There are schools out there (U. of Phoenix, Embry-Riddle, and others) that market themselves to active duty big time, and gee, their tuition just magically happens to match up EXACTLY to the maximum amount of what Uncle Sam will reimburse. I hate that. So I would urge caution with any school offering a VBSN 'program'.

Saw this thread get highlighted in one of those emails, and thought I'd chime in for the first time in forever. What do you mean by trying to take pre-reqs? You can't get a seat in the class? Or you can't get a good grade? Is that associate's degree from the Navy's community college or your local one? The Navy one probably doesn't transfer as well as a local school. As to the 2nd half of your post, ugh. As someone else basically said: man up (or woman up as appropriate). If someone can't figure out how to apply to nursing school, they probably don't belong in nursing school. Want to figure out if you still need a class? Or if a class you took will qualify? CALL THEM UP! Or go to an information session if they are close enough to you. It's impossible for anyone on here to definitively answer your questions as to whether you are good or not, you can only find that out by talking to the schools you are interested in. I'll give some background on myself and school requirements, and perhaps that might offer some insight: I have a BS from years ago that the military already paid for (I was an officer, and because of this I was not eligible for the regular/Post 9-11 GI Bill) but is totally unrelated to nursing. The only specific class I ended up using to fulfill a nursing pre-req was a psychology class that I got an A in. However, having that degree did mean I did not have to take any of the General Ed requirements for my BSN. I took my science pre-reqs at my local community college, along with retaking an English class (because I previously had a B), speech, debate, trig to fulfill the math requirement (last took that in HS), stats (barely got a B in that years ago), and maybe something else. We'll call this school A. School A, along with the other community colleges here in CA as best as I could tell, required Microbiology, Anatomy, and Physiology as the science requirements, but not Chemistry. However, the BSN programs all appear to require chemistry, so I took that while I was doing my others (this class was 1/2 general chem, 1/4 organic, 1/4 biochem, and pretty much only future nursing students were taking it). Something I found out by going to information sessions and such, is that each school/program has slightly different admission requirements or ways of evaluating applicants. I applied for the ADN program at school A, along with the ADN program at school B, another community college not too far away. School A looks at your science GPA, throws your name into 1 of 3 hats based on that, and then draws out 40 names (20 from the highest group, 10 each from the other 2 groups). School B uses a points system, and unless you max it out (I was just shy of doing so), you don't get in right away, but instead have to wait on their waiting list... about a 5 year wait. I did not get into either program. But they were also not my preference. Instead, I got into the local Cal State program, where they used a 10 point system that took into account my science GPA (Anat, physio, chem, and micro), non-science pre-req GPA (English, math, psychology, etc), and TEAS score. And then they took the top 70 applicants. Because I do great on standardized tests I got in no problem there. They also have an accelerated track, which I was able to do, and so I finished in the same amount of time as if I had gone to an ADN program. I just graduated and several of my friends from taking pre-reqs who first got their ADN are now working on their BSN at the same school. I did not apply to another Cal State school's program, but I know the others all differed slightly, just as the community colleges do, and I had also looked at UC Irvine, they were a little nuts and required something like 4 chemistry courses and a DNA class at the time, some of which were only available at UCI or the community college in Irvine. Lesson being: each school is different. You may not qualify for some, but as others have pointed out, that doesn't matter as long as you have a few that you do qualify for. Also, here in CA there is a website that shows course equivalency between all of the UC, Cal State, and community colleges (and probably many of the private schools in the state). Classes at our community colleges are explicitly designed to transfer to the UC and Cal State systems. Perhaps there is a similar site for your state. Things get a lot more confusing, however, when you cross state lines (another reason I didn't try transferring much from my first degree) GI Bill advice: like I said above, I couldn't qualify for the regular one, but as I have a rated disability I did qualify for Vocational Rehabilitation. If you also qualify for that, I had a friend who had both, and I think he first had to apply to use the traditional GI Bill, and THEN after that applied for Voc Rehab... by doing that he was able to get himself more money (though I forget how much). Basically, Voc Rehab covered all tuition, books, other school expenses (same for me), and then from the traditional GI he got a housing subsidy equivalent to BAH for an E-5, which where we live is very nice. And I think this was pointed out: if a school requires something and you lack it, yes you will get rejected. If you leave anything blank on an application, even where you can legitimately put down "N/A", that too might get yours tossed. And some schools, such as the one I attended, only allow you to apply a limited number of times, twice in our case. So sending in an incomplete app will doubly hurt you. Something else I remembered: there are pre-reqs that one needs to get INTO nursing school, then there are other classes one needs in order to graduate FROM nursing school. All 3 of the schools I applied to had classes such as this, and all 3 strongly encouraged applicants to have such classes completed before starting the nursing program because you'll be so busy, but if need be, you could take them while also taking nursing classes. The semester when applying, between finishing pre-reqs and beginning nursing school, was a great time to knock out any that one had left.

Hi everyone, another first time poster here. I checked this thread a couple of times in the past and got a few pieces of good info, so thanks for the contributions. I too got accepted and will be attending. A bit about me: Long Beach native, already have a BS from elsewhere but wanted to pursue a new path/career. Never attended CSULB before, but my parents met there as students waaaay back when. I also happen to know someone who already posted in this thread, let's see if she recognizes me *waves hi* Since I saw some others wondering about where to live: as a general rule of thumb, anything east of Redondo Ave. is ok. East Long Beach in general is a safe place to live. Right around the school is generally pretty nice. The neighborhood west of Bellflower Blvd. has some very nice homes, and the neighborhood to the east of campus is gated south of Anaheim Rd (around the old Rancho Los Alamitos house), to the north is your standard 1950s tract housing (3 bedrooms, kitchen, living room, and 1 or 2 baths in under 2k sq. feet if the house hasn't been added onto). To the south is Belmont Shore and Naples, homes would be unaffordable, but there are some small apartments that can be found (my cousin used to have one). Use the google satellite view and street view, you can figure out a lot just by browsing around on there. The not so nice parts of Long Beach are the area just north of downtown, west of the LA river, and North LB (literally north of the train tracks). If you don't mind driving a few miles to campus, Rossmoor, Westminster, Cypress, and Lakewood are all places you could consider. I'm just north of the airport, so I'll be driving or busing every day Feel free to PM me if you want to exchange emails or have any questions. And looking forward to meeting a bunch of you at the orientation.