RN to MSN online programs

NAURN · Feb 17, 2011

I am applying to Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing (FNP). They are highly thought of... It is all online, however there are 3 required trips to campus (in Hyden KY) You can take the program full time or part time except for the bridge work, which has to be done full time (2 classes per term for 4 terms which is one year). I was at first against this school because of the required campus visits, but after looking at how happy people were with their program, I changed my mind. No MAT or GRE is required if you have at least a 3.0 GPA. The tuition is not bad at all IMO (around $30,000 for the whole RN-MSN).

HOWEVER, you do not receive a BSN, so if there is a chance you might quit, you lose both the BSN and MSN by not completing the program. To me, this is a good thing, as #1 a lot of course work is eliminated by not having to do a whole bunch of general ed stuff that is required on top of what we took for an associates (saving money and time) and #2 it is an incentive for me to NOT quit. I can see my self once I get a BSN "take a break" and I don't want to have that option.

It is "front loaded" with all the didactic courses in the beginning and ALL of the clinical work at the end. This means that all the 600+ hours of clinicals will be completed in 1-2 semesters. I am not sure how this would work working full time (I guess I will see). I will possibly need to cut back hours, or cut to PRN, which I am willing to do in order to get all my clinical time in. This works for this program, as the last trip to campus is an 8 day "Clinical Bound" trip that teaches procedures, etc... skills needed in the clinical setting. A lot of other programs having clinicals throughout the program, this one saves them for the end. I kinda like that personally because I will be prepared in everything that I need to know before I do clinicals. Plus if I do need to cut back hours to in order to get my clinical time in (I work during the week) I can do this in my last semesters as opposed to from the beginning.

There is no PNP however. It is also pretty hard to find 100% online NP programs that require NO campus visits. I have done A LOT of research. I am sure they exist but at the same time I understand the need to go to campus at least a couple of times to be able to learn skills that you just can't learn on a computer.

My opinion on FNP vs PNP is you will be more marketable as a FNP... and you can work with ANY kind of patients with that, instead of limiting yourself to Pediatrics if you were to change your mind down the road, it would save you the cost of a post master's certificate. Of course if all you want to do is Peds, you can still do that with the FNP... In the end its a personal choice