Samuel Merritt ABSN Fall 2023

U.S.A. California

Published

Hi everyone. I wanted to start a discussion about the ABSN Samuel Merritt program for Fall 2023. I have applied to the Sacramento campus and hoping to get accepted. has anyone else applied? or be in the program I would love to hear more about it. 

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I would not recommend this program to anyone unless you have no other choice. The administration is horrible, I don't understand where our $90k is going. They had over 1.5 years to figure out a solid plan for senior synthesis since they knew they were going to get rid of preceptorship and to this day, there is still no set plan as to how they want to run that class. Everything is last minute with this program. The admins won't communicate with students and on the rare occasion they do, they lie to us, lead us on, and gaslight us. They told us one week that they will get us into the hospital for senior synthesis. Someone asked if there was a back up plan and the Dean said "this will work, there is no back up plan". The next week we were told they can't get us into hospitals anymore but we can look for our own preceptorship. Two weeks later, we are told that we can't look for our own preceptorships anymore and those that have already sent their potential preceptor's contact information in had their emails ignored. No one in my cohort feels prepared at all.. please look into more reviews before you apply to this school. It's not just the ABSN program that's a mess. I was told the doctorate students had to go find their own preceptorships. I haven't met a single helpful or nice admin, they are all horrible. 
 

The professors I had are amazing but they are overworked and also trying to leave because admin is horrible to them too. 

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@Absnnursingstudent123 thanks for starting the thread. I have applied to the San Mateo campus. Let's hope for the best. ?

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I just submitted the application yesterday. I am super nervous about it. I read what people from previous cohort wrote, and I think we won't know the decision until mid June. 

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@caajs_ which campus did you apply to? 

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Absnnursingstudent123 said:

@caajs_ which campus did you apply to? 

San Mateo is my first choice. Did you apply to any other school other than Samuel Merritt?

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caajs_ said:

San Mateo is my first choice. Did you apply to any other school other than Samuel Merritt?

No just Samuel Merritt did you?

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Absnnursingstudent123 said:

No just Samuel Merritt did you?

Yes I did. Applied to 6 schools all over the country. Will probably apply for more, total of 10 should be enough I think LOL. I realy want to just go to Samuel Merritt, but I am really nervous about the acceptance rate too. 

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caajs_ said:

Yes I did. Applied to 6 schools all over the country. Will probably apply for more, total of 10 should be enough I think LOL. I realy want to just go to Samuel Merritt, but I am really nervous about the acceptance rate too. 

Wow that's great! Hopefully everything will work out. We just have a long wait ahead of us haha

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SMU ABSN cohort Fall 2022 representative here. Can attest to @coffeebeans assessment for the current state of the program. We just had a meeting to go over "alternatives to preceptorships" where they just had a Stanford hospital recruiter state that they do not require preceptorships for their applications. In other words, this was SMU's attempt to show that hospitals, in general, don't require preceptorships, which is a true statement. However, what wasn't stated is that most hospitals in the BAY AREA require at least 1-2 years of experience for most entry-level positions besides new grad programs. New grad programs are out there, but they are highly competitive. Using Stanford's example, they had 300 applicants for their new grad program and they could only accept 72-82 applicants. Of those applicants, about 14% were SMU new grads.

We just learned that the main reason preceptorships have been removed is due to "equity" reasons. Of the remaining hospitals currently affiliated with SMU, only 20% still have a preceptorship program. Since not everyone can have a preceptorship, then SMU decided no one can have it. Furthermore, students cannot go out to look for their own preceptorships. I'm speculating, but this is most likely due to issues with hospital affiliations (the hospital must be affiliated with SMU) and liability reasons. Any further inquiries from the students regarding finding preceptorships have been shut down by the school.

In terms of administration, there appears to be a lack of cohesion and communication. The CEO has been largely absent from discussions surrounding this issue, which is odd considering how big of an issue it is from the student perspective and tuition being the majority of profits that currently fund SMU. We are left with talking to the dean and program directors who have been trying to damage control with townhall meetings, and doing a poor job of it. For example, in our first townhall meeting, we wanted more SIMs (simulations) in place of losing preceptorships. We were told that this would be looked into as a possibility. At least for my cohort, all SIMs were subsequently removed in our next section and we were not given a reason. We had to piece it together with the SIMs instructor (outside contractor) and with our current professor. Turns out, a professor had left the program abruptly, leaving our current professor to teach more than this professor's assigned classes. We need our professor to run some of the SIMs, and since the professor could not and due to "equity" reasons, everyone in our cohort lost the SIMs for our section.

In the second townhall meeting, the dean made a statement that they were "working behind the scenes" to get us more opportunities to practice critical thinking skills and used more SIMs as an example of how they would accomplish it. When we notified the dean about that the SIMs were cancelled for our cohort, the dean didn't know it happened! The dean said they'd look into it and make sure it doesn't happen again. For the amount of $$ we're paying, this kind of leadership behavior is unacceptable.

However, looking at the big picture, what can we do about this? Currently, SMU is the only ABSN program that exists on the West Coast that is able to expand and offer additional seats for students who want the fast track into the nursing profession. All of the ADN programs are backed up and use drawing/point systems for applicants. The other ABSN programs are run by state universities, so are capped in terms of applicant acceptance with no outlook of expanding. SMU is currently in a unique position to expand and capture the oversupply of applicants that are currently being waitlisted by other institutions. AND THEY KNOW IT AND ARE CAPITALIZING ON IT. They just got approval for a $139 million bond at the start of this year (Jan 2023) to build their flagship campus in Oakland City Center, and plans to utilize $120 million of its own reserves to complete the facility. Honestly, it's a smart move and can bag on em for it.

What does this mean for you? Know what you're getting yourself into. If you're hoping for a high-end education experience and expect the school to tailor to your needs, you're gonna be disappointed. If you understand that you're gonna be dropping $100k (with rates most likely going to continue to rise) for a sub-par community college experience where you're gonna be self-studying 100% and have to fight for your experience at clinicals, then  SMU is for you!
 

My wish is for SMU to get their shiz together and just be transparent for they are. I personally would'nt trip if they said out the gates to applicants "Hey we know you don't got any other options, so we'll give you a crappy one at this rate...take it or wait for a better school". All this pretending they care when they don't and holding onto their old prestige is definitely hurting their image.

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I can confirm and agree with everything @gsg92 has posted. This individual is not a one-off disgruntled student having a unique experience at SMU. Their post is an accurate reflection of what is currently happening at this school. If you have options other than SMU, I strongly encourage you to consider them.

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Here's an update on how incompetent the admins at this school is: the April cohort is supposed to started senior synthesis this upcoming Monday 3/20. Professor E opened up the canvas page to the course in the beginning of Feb in order to give students a chance to prepare for the course. 2 weeks ago, the canvas page was taken down. Students thought this was so she can update the class. This week, the cohort reps emailed her asking her what's going on with canvas since class starts soon. She replies: "Please reach out to Drs. Doolan and Stanley because I'm no longer with SMU at this time.” So the cohort reps emailed them on Monday March 13 and Doolan replies with: "Yes, there will be an instructor change. Professor E is still with SMU but is leaving for a promotion elsewhere. Further info to follow". The cohort reps followed up with 2 emails since then asking for an update and there is still no update as of today Friday March 17. Class starts on Monday lmao 

 

side note: some CIs knew about this professor quitting 2 weeks ago and hinted it to the students which is why the cohort reps reached out to this professor. the admins DID NOT reach out to students to let them know. Students don't know if their graduation date will get pushed back bc SMU can't hold onto their professors. professors are leaving left and right, other cohorts don't have professors lined up and some had clinical canceled bc SMU couldn't find them a clinical instructor 

 

Apply here at your own risk. From my own personal experience, I would never recommend this school to any of my friends. SMU admins are doing nothing to improve/preserve its reputation and I wouldn't be surprised if the entire nursing program shuts down in 5 years.

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