Samuel Merritt ABSN worth it or not?

U.S.A. California

Published

Hello all,

I have been bouncing back and forth on this question several times a day. As you know, there are many options here in the Bay Area for NS. SMC's 12months program is very attractive for it is short, but is it worth 50K? I'm having a hard time justifying the cost when you can get the same degree for much less elsewhere. Especially now that it is hard to find a job as a new grad, it scares me to death to think about ending up with 50K(tuition alone so prob. more) in debt and without a job.:eek:

On the other hand, it takes at least one extra year if I went to another school and there is no guarantee I'd get in. Any recent new grads, any advice? Please help!:sniff:

iluvmusak:

I have a question about the clinicals. i guess anyone else's answer would be good too. Can you request to get certain clinical days or locations? I know some schools will put out clinical days/locations at the end of the previous term and ppl can try to get dibs on the ones they want. The reason I want to know is that I go to church on Saturdays and I was wondering if there was any way to get my clinicals schedueled on any other day than that.

When I was in the program we chose our clinical sites (which come with prearranged days) based on alpha order priority. Pretty much, if your last name was A-H you got first priority first time chosing, I-? first choice 2nd time chosing and ?-Z first choice third (and final) time chosing. It wasnt exactly fair, but that was the way they did it then (I graduated in 2007). Unfortunately, chances are you will end up with weekend clinical at least once, if not more than that the good thing is they are only for 5-6 weeks at a time... I realize church is VERY important to many people, but I think your god will understand if you cannot make it for a few weeks because you are training to become a nurse. Afterall, some people say we are doing God's work...

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Our clinicals assigments were based on the process that Nurse Salt described. There are 3 alphabetical groups, and each group gets a chance to be 1st during one of terms. The registrar sends out a list of the clinical sites and times, and can request your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice. Even though you are in the first priority group, you may not get your 1st choice if it's really popular clinical site. The registrar randomly pull names from your alphabetical group, so even if you are in the 1st priority group you are still competing w/ 16 (or so) other people for the choice spots.

All that being said, I've heard they may revise the process for next year. The ABSN director talked with us a few months ago and said it will be changed but they haven't worked out the exact details yet. \

You will most likely have a weekend at some point in time. Like Nurse Salt said, most clinicals are only for 5 weeks. This time 2 of our back-to-back clinicals were weekends, so that's why I'm stuck w/ 10 weeks of weekends. Anyways, time goes by fast so it'll be over before you know it.

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Thank you for all the valuable information.:bow: It really helps me get a picture of what it would be like. iluvmusak, what you said about "not learning the materials in depth...wished to have gone to CC instead" comment kind of bothers me. Do you feel like the program is not good enough for what you paid for?

Another thing I read in another thread. Has anyone got a kaiser loan forgiveness program and actually worked for them for 2 years? I read that you sign up at the beginning of the program and towards the end, they come in and say "We are not doing that anymore b/c no more shortage." I don't know how they can do that. It sounds like a ripoff to me. Of course, you are not guaranteed a placement, so maybe not. But you could have gotten a better rate anywhere else...

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The Kaiser Loan Forgiveness Program ended in 2007. It was replaced with a number of $25,000 Kaiser Scholarships given to nursing students in exchange for 2 years of employment. Kaiser has vastly cut back its recruiting incentives, and at a luncheon meeting with them last week, I was told that they are cancelling many of their New Grad Training Cycles for early 2009 (usually Jan/Feb). Kaiser has a hiring freeze on.

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Also, out of the 48 students in each cohort this year they awarded the 25K scholarship to only 5 students.

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In Oakland and San Mateo, each cohort was awarded (10) $25 scholarships out of 48 students. The financial aid person told me that SF only had 5, and at the time I wondered why, since all the cohorts have the same number of students.

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Iluvmusak, Why does that NOT surprise me? SF Cohorts seem to always get the short end of the stick. Wait till my classmates hear about that!! LOL

MBA: How frustrating about the hiring freeze; I keep hearing different things cuz my DH has heard from 3 different Kaiser employees that they (Oakland, Richmond and San Rafael) are still hiring new grads. I know of new grads that got hired in San Fran and Oakland this summer/fall, unless they just initiated the hiring freeze just recently.

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iluvmusak:

I have a question about the clinicals. i guess anyone else's answer would be good too. Can you request to get certain clinical days or locations? I know some schools will put out clinical days/locations at the end of the previous term and ppl can try to get dibs on the ones they want. The reason I want to know is that I go to church on Saturdays and I was wondering if there was any way to get my clinicals schedueled on any other day than that.

hurleygrly: I agree with Nursesalt that you will (at least in SMC's ABSN) most likely have a rotation that includes weekends. How they did it in our group was that there were considered 3 terms. You put in your preference and if you got your preference the first round, there's a chance you will not get your first pick the second time. And if you didn't get your first pick the first term, you more than likely (not guaranteed) would get your first pick the second term. So it all evens out in the end.

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Thanks Rianna and Iluvmusak:

That sounds fair regarding the clinical rotation assignments.

On another note, regarding the forgiveness loan that some of you said was awarded 10 or 5 to a campus. Is the Sacramento Campus included in this? Also is the scholarship something from SMC and do you apply for it once you're accepted or before or when?

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For us, the loan applications were due before school started. I can't remember the exact details, but we must have known we were accepted first because you have to apply for the loan specific to your campus. If you decide to transfer campuses after you apply for the loan, they will not transfer your loan application. This happened to me. Each campus has their own application deadline so you should call the Financial Aid office to find out the specifics. I couldn't see anything listed on their site.

Now it's coming back. I think we received an email from Financial Aid informing us of the loan, the applicaton URL, and the deadlines. You have to write an essay and get 2 letters of rec. If you get the loan, they want you to do your clinical rotations at Kaiser hospitals. (Although not everyone does that.)

Good luck!

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check out http://bhpr.hrsa.gov/dsa/ the California Dept of Health has quite a few loans. I received a scholarship from them (did the BSN at SMC) and they paid for everything plus a monthly stipend. Your EFC has to be zero though on your fafsa to qualify, which is easy if you are single with kids. Also look at their repayment to work in underserved area after grad (they are all over, here near oakland, all kaisers, sutters, john muir qualify). Also google scholarships, nursing and anything else that singles you out. I paid for my entire 4 years though scholarships, it was tough and I had to search things out, but you can do it if you want. Library books have info too, as do many web sites.

As for samuel merritt, even their Oakland site is unorganized. and going there does not guarantee you a job - as alot of us found out.

still I am glad I did it.

take care.

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Hi All,

Great input from all of you. 3 questions:

1) How did you save money on books? I heard that you could rent them.

2) What do you wear to class? Any specific color of scrub & shoes for clinical?

3) Is/Was it hard to get good grades since the pace is so fast?

BTW: I'm applying for June '09 San Mateo campus.

Many Thanks.

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