MJane29

Hey Marie1995, There were 86 students in my accelerated cohort.

Hey anbrennan09 and richmondliving, Most of my friends and peers lived quite close to campus and it seemed to work very well for them. I was a bit of weirdo in that I lived (and live) out in Short Pump, VA. My commute to VCU SON was approximately 30 minutes or so, but factoring in the time to park and walk to the nursing school I would say approximately 37-40 minutes total. If going straight to clinical at the hospital, I always left my apartment at least 45 minutes prior to my scheduled shift. Granted, I was always pushing it a bit.

Hey vcu17, I believe that for the first semester you will have the same lecture schedule as your peers. The only thing that will differ will be your clinical section. Unfortunately, students have no control over their own schedules and are randomly placed into clinical sections. Perhaps this is good news though, as being pulled off of the waitlist late will not have any impact on your schedule. As far as textbooks, I bought all of them the first semester. I do remember thinking that the assessment book was helpful. However, after the first semester, I was able to find most of the textbooks online in PDF format. I only bought two other books during the program; the patho/pharm book and the critical care text for Adults II. I suppose that it depends on your personal learning preferences.

I believe that there were people from my cohort who were waitlisted at around #18 and did get pulled. For me, the second summer semester may have been the most difficult. For our cohort, the second summer semester was crammed into just 8 weeks worth of time, based on recommendations from the previous class. I believe that we had to complete 90 hours of clinical for Adults II and around 90 for Leadership. However, our leadership professor realized that the number of hours was not as feasible given the abbreviated time frame and ended up allowing us to cut down the hours a bit. It may have been more difficult for me because I had an evening clinical for Adults II. I did not leave the hospital until midnight and did not arrive home until about 12:30 AM. I had lecture the next morning at 9 AM, which proved to be a bit of a struggle for me. Again, I will do my very best to answer any questions that you guys might have. Congrats and best of luck to all on the waitlist! :)

Hey nursegabbyc! I know that VCU SON thinks very highly of care partner experience, so in my opinion, the admissions committee will likely look favorably upon it as well. I can't say a whole lot about the weight that they place on GPA. I can tell you that the GPA's of those admitted to the cohort prior to mine ranged anywhere from 2.95-4.0. Best of luck!

Hey Ashley, Unfortunately, I am kind of a weirdo in my cohort, so please don't focus too much on my background (I am certainly not trying to heighten your anxiety). I applied with a masters degree in counseling psychology and a bachelors degree in psychology. I didn't have any "medical" healthcare experience coming in, but had a year of providing psychotherapy under my belt. While my graduate GPA was a 4.0, my undergraduate GPA was substantially lower (3.14). However, I did have a 3.9 average in my prerequisites. I can tell you that the cohort prior to mine had admitting GPA's ranging anywhere from 2.95-4.0. As stated above, I consider myself to be a weirdo in my cohort, as I only know of 1 or 2 other people who entered the program holding a masters degree. I can say the undergraduate majors of those accepted into my cohort are quite diverse and really all over the board. We had some students who entered the program with bachelors degrees in fine arts, interior design, forestry, etc.

Hey there, I am currently enrolled in VCU's accelerated BS Nursing program and will be graduating in just a few days. At the time that I applied there was a student in the accelerated program who was really helpful in answering my questions. In fact, she continued to answer my questions throughout the entirety of the program. Therefore, I would be more than happy to try and answer any questions that you guys might have regarding the program. :)

Hey there! I am looking for nurses who have graduated from or are currently enrolled in one of CU-Denver's NP programs who would be willing to share their experiences while in the program with a prospective student. I completed the admissions interview for the spring 2017 cycle about two weeks ago and am hoping to learn a little more about what past/current students have liked/like most about the program, what was/has been the most difficult part (problems) of the program, thoughts regarding commuting to the campus in the winter, credit load limits (I did ask during the interview, but am still a bit unclear as to the answer..i.e. would it be possible to front-load the first semester with 13 credits), and time that it took you/will take you to complete the program. I am also interested in the experiences of "distance option" students. More specifically, how far from campus must one be to be considered a distance learner? I realize that CU typically finds preceptors for students who live in the Denver area, but I'm curious as to what the experience of finding preceptors is like for distance learners. Any information that you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

Hey there! I am looking for nurses who have graduated from or are currently enrolled in one of CU-Denver's NP programs who would be willing to share their experiences while in the program with a prospective student. I completed the admissions interview for the spring 2017 cycle about two weeks ago and am hoping to learn a little more about what past/current students have liked/like most about the program, what was/has been the most difficult part (problems) of the program, thoughts regarding commuting to the campus in the winter, credit load limits (I did ask during the interview, but am still a bit unclear as to the answer..i.e. would it be possible to front-load the first semester with 13 credits), and time that it took you/will take you to complete the program. I am also interested in the experiences of "distance option" students. More specifically, how far from campus must one be to be considered a distance learner? I realize that CU typically finds preceptors for students who live in the Denver area, but I'm curious as to what the experience of finding preceptors is like for distance learners. Any information that you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

Hey meanmaryjean, I don't think that your suggestion is at all radical. It is the next step that I will take if I have not heard anything come Wednesday. I am probably dating myself by saying this, but my preference would have been to opt initally for a phone call over electronic communication, as I feel that it is much more personal in nature and often a more efficient means of communication. In addition to email addresses, we were given the main hospital phone number with our preceptor's extension. However, our clinical course faculty primarily focused on and recommended starting with email. Little emphasis was placed on the phone number, and it was mentioned only after the suggested timeline for sending initial emails and follow up emails was discussed. Nonetheless, thank you for taking the time to respond. Suggestion duly noted. :)

Thank you JustBeachyNurse, I needed that. :)

I should add that a former student did inform me that she did not hear from her preceptor for about two weeks. However, in her case the reason for the delay involved a system wide email related issue.

I am looking for some guidance and am hoping that there is someone out there who has experienced a similar situation. I was recently assigned a preceptor for my leadership practicum experience on a floor perfectly matched to my future specialty. I was beyond ecstatic (quite literally jumping with joy) when I discovered that I had been assigned to my first choice of unit for the practicum. I attempted to make initial contact with my assigned preceptor last Monday, as we were instructed by our course clinical faculty member to contact our preceptors on the same day that we received our unit assignments. We were also told to send a follow-up email if we did not hear back by Thursday of last week. I did not hear back by Thursday, so I sent a follow-up email, as instructed. I also wrote to my clinical faculty member on Friday to inform her of my failed attempts, and she stated that she would try to reach my preceptor to remind her of the summer semester time constraint. It is now Saturday evening, and I have yet to hear back from my assigned preceptor. Now, I will certainly admit to being a bit neurotic at times but feel that the considerable amount of anxiety that I am experiencing regarding this situation is somewhat warranted. Especially since we are required to complete 82 leadership practicum hours and must find a way to schedule these hours around our 90-hour adults II clinical and two other regularly scheduled classes (leadership and adults II in-class lectures) that meet for approximately 12 hours total per week. Granted, it has only been six days since I sent the first email, so it is certainly possible that my concern is a bit premature. It's just that all of my peers in my clinical group have already successfully established contact with their assigned preceptors and have either begun their practicums, or are due to start early next week. I am so eager to start practicum and firmly believe that it is a privilege to have been granted the opportunity to shadow/work with this particular preceptor in my specialty area. I have been looking forward to the experience, but suppose that I am curious as to whether what I am encountering in regards to communication is typical, or if it is more of a rare occurrence. If you have indeed experienced something similar, how did you go about handling it? It may be worth noting that I completed a clinical rotation on my assigned preceptors unit in the fall of 2015. Despite having never met her in person, I already have a great deal respect for her, as many of her co-workers spoke very highly of her while I was on the unit. I certainly do not want to be a bother and the last thing that I want to do is make a bad first impression. Any input, suggestions, or advice that you can offer would be very much appreciated.

I can definitely relate to this. I am currently in an accelerated BS program and a 94% and above is an A, 87%-93% is a B, and 80-86% is a C. It is particularly frustrating in our program because all of the students in my cohort entered with a least a previous bachelor's degree, and most completed their previous degree(s) with impressive grade point averages. Exam content is often very difficult and unpredictable, and when paired with the exceptionally strict grading scale creates an "uber" competitive atmosphere/culture. I am in the midst of finals for a 17-credit spring semester course load and am literally biting my nails, praying that I am able to put up the exam scores necessary to maintain my current grades. There is so little margin for error. :-/ My best advice is to make every effort to refrain from comparing yourself to others. I have come to the realization that the only thing within my control is the amount of effort that I put in. If I put all of myself into something and I fall short, so be it. I can take some comfort in knowing that I did all that I could. Sadly, I must admit that this is a work in progress, as I am still diligently working toward changing my thought process to incorporate this mantra. :)

Good points...thank you! I honestly think the reason she wanted me to weigh the diaper was primarily due to the fact that the patient had been admitted for a fever and intermittent vomiting. Perhaps less relevant, but I also believe that my instructor is very vigilant and tends to go above and beyond in everything that she does, which is a wonderful quality. The patient did spit up a little bit (quarter size worth of spit up) while I was on the unit, but had not vomited in 24 hours. Yes, you are correct, the bins are quite large and very deep. :)