pinksnowflakes

Illinois

I wish ours did.... 76.9% = F Thankfully this hasn't affected me yet [emoji16]

Thank you for the advice. Hopefully I can be a competitive candidate!

Thanks for the advice!!! I'm so excited to apply, but so incredibly nervous! I know the essays are worth a majority of the points, so I hope I can make mine good enough :) I have a near perfect GPA and a lot of nursing student organization involvement, different health organizations, honor societies, and jobs. However, I don't work as a CNA so that may be my downfall

Public Health is the most popular major to switch to at my college because many of the prerequisites are similar

I'm planning on applying as well Brooke! :) I'm so nervous because I've been dreaming of this externship for so long, but I know how competitive it is

From what I have seen in my area, NICU is one of the hardest areas to get into if you are a new grad or have no NICU experience. If you have NICU experience, I believe it would be much easier to find a job. However, it is a very desirable speciality. I know that new grad programs for NICU are very selective and competitive. That's just my 2 cents. I don't have statistics or anything like that :)

Headaches Period cramps Faking illness to go home

At my school Dean's List is done semester by semester. You must get a 3.75 semester GPA. However, I know that the norm is usually a 3.5 GPA, and some schools do Dean's List by the year rather than by the semester:

I've definitely heard this phrase before. However, the professors about my college say "Be an A nurse, not a C nurse".

4 year BSN Program (with 5 semesters of actual nursing classes) 1st Semester: Simulation Lab & Health Assessment Lab 2nd Semester: Med Surg 1 & Psyc 3rd Semester: Med Surg 2 & OB 4th Semester: Peds & Community Health 5th Semester: Geriatrics & Capstone Clinical

You are correct! However, they take 100 students for the fall and 80 students for the spring.

I'm really enjoying the program so far- just an update :) Pretty scared for the two HESIs we take at the end of the semester though!

I'm currently in my first semester of NIU's program. I'm 20 years old, and many of my friends are 19. I would say that the instructors don't try and intimate us. We have a wide range of ages (from age 19 to 50), and our maturity is what we are judged off of. I love NIU's program so far, although it's challenging. I can answer questions you may have about first track!

1. Coffee 2. My significant other 3. My nursing major friends 4. Practice NCLEX questions 5. My computer 6. Saying "only 2 more years" all the time

Update on the transfer thing. For a cohort of 80, they take 50 internal applicants and 30 transfers. That's what the head academic advisor told my cohort.

You will receive a letter in the mail the first or second week of April

I was just about to post the same thing... Very sad. Her parents still believe she's alive.

Ahhh gotcha. At my school they don't allow you to re-take classes unless you got a D or lower. So many students who got B/Cs in class's would go to the local community college & retake them there. I wonder if they would deduct points if you did that? Anywho, I highly recommend researching a variety of schools! Some places will let you retake classes until your GPA is better, and then they'll take your efforts into consideration when you apply for the nursing program :)

It depends on the school.... I definitely encourage you to research many options, and to talk to an academic advisor. Find a variety of schools and ask if you should retake classes. Many times For the schools in my area you need a 3.6 to be looked at and a 3.8 or higher to be a good candidate.... My school said "You have to have a 2.5 to apply" But the lowest GPA they took was about a 3.7

I honestly don't mind it. I figure that it will help me be a nurse in one way or another. If there's even a 1% chance that learning something like that could allow me to help a patient someday, I'm willing to learn it :)

March of Dimes Dance Marathon (for Children's miracle network) Student Nursing Organization Work at the campus daycare Create your own organization & raise money for a children's cause :) I hope that helps! I highly recommend starting a campus March of Dimes chapter!

That's so exciting!! May I ask where your externship is at??

I 100% agree!

How common is it to get hired by Peds with no experience? Honestly it depends on how competitive the job market is, your connections, if you work as a CNA/PCT in Peds currently, and a whole lot of luck. So I would say it's relatively uncommon. Not impossible, but definitely not common. If you're willing to move anywhere in the country, it would be probably easier. How good does adult look instead? I would say not really great. Peds is very different from adults. If I was hiring a new grad in Peds I would want one who had a Peds externship over an Adult externship. Overall, it just depends. Would you be willing to work with adults for a few years until you could get in Peds? If so, maybe take the offer closer to home. Or are you burning to start in Peds? Then I would take the Peds externship. I'm located around Chicagoland. It's a competitive job market. So what you can to make yourself stand out :)