Samuel Merritt Fall 2023 BSN Program

Nursing Students School Programs

Updated:   Published

Hello all! I have been anxiously searching forums for the past 2 months. I have been reading over previous applicants and their experience during the waiting period. I thought I might start a thread for those of us who have applied for the fall of 2023 cohort. Looking forward to the next few weeks of waiting with those who have applied! 

If anyone here has submitted their $350 deposit already, did it only give you options for 2021 under the period? 

Snowls said:

If anyone here has submitted their $350 deposit already, did it only give you options for 2021 under the period? 

Jk figured it out 

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Specializes in Medical Assisting/Phlebotomy.
Snowls said:

If anyone here has submitted their $350 deposit already, did it only give you options for 2021 under the period? 

I submitted mine. I believe the drop bar is towards the bottom for fall 2023 selection

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JYAC said:

I submitted mine. I believe the drop bar is towards the bottom for fall 2023 selection

Thank you I was looking at the wrong drop down menu LOL 

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Specializes in Medical Assisting/Phlebotomy.
Snowls said:

Thank you I was looking at the wrong drop down menu LOL 

I did the same thing ! LOL. It takes a day for them to update the checklist. Once your payment goes through it will tell you the next steps for admission

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Dolphin71 said:

I also received that email! Does anyone remember when they extended the application due date "due to the amount of increased applications" or something like that LOL. I wonder if that was true bc if there's a lot of applications you would think they would want to close it right? LOL I'm just hoping they were lying so I can ease my anxiety and hope there weren't too many applicants LOL 

They told me it was because they want to improve the quality of their application pool, and that sometimes they extend it out when they don't feel they had enough applicants. "Their words not mine".

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Specializes in Medical Assisting/Phlebotomy.
FutureNP90 said:

Hi! First off, congrats to those applying to nursing school, its a huge feat and you will do awesome! Im sure you all will become great nurses regardless of which program you decide ?

Hello current student!  I do have a few questions for you. Which campus did you attend? Did your program offer preceptorships? Have you heard any rumors of preceptorships ending at Samuel Merritt? Thanks in advance for any information you share!

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JYAC said:

Hello current student! I do have a few questions for you. Which campus did you attend? Did your program offer preceptorships? Have you heard any rumors of preceptorships ending at Samuel Merritt? Thanks in advance for any information you share!

Hey! Im at the Oakland campus, I am already in the Master's portion of my program, so I am not a part of the preceptorship issues going on. I fully expected to be in the group clinical because I didn't hear back while all of my colleagues were sharing their spots. I got lucky and got a preceptorship (Im pretty sure I was one of the last students to get one because I received mine like two days before classes started). Unfortunately, about half of my cohort did not; instead, they did a group clinical at a nearby hospital. I'm sure they made the most of it, but Im positive they would have preferred a preceptorship. One of my close colleagues actually had a preceptorship all agreed to between the school and the hospital; everything was set up in MyClinicalExchange and then had it removed "because the hospital isn't taking students" ... ? BOMBASTIC SIDE EYE.

I don't work in SM administration or the BON/BRN, but from what has been going on, it does appear that preceptorships are not going to be offered at SM anymore. From my understanding, speaking to higher-ups in the nursing field - I've worked in the medical sphere before going to nursing school, this may be the direction of things, and this may at some point be something that is going to happen all over the country (possibly) because of the current climate that we are in, and SM is just one of the first schools in CA to go through this change. This way, hospitals can promote new grad programs to increase retention (signing on for two+ years instead of 3-12 months). Don't quote me, but I think this is already starting to be rolled out in New York.

Do I think this is good? Absolutely not. I can say from experience that I greatly benefitted from my preceptorship and got a taste of what working as a nurse may be like, and I wish that all my colleagues had the opportunity I had.

IF you have the opportunity to go to a school that does not have preceptorship issues, pick that! But I would also ask if there may be changes to that in the near future that may affect your preceptorships and clinical experiences. Unfortunately, I didn't get a Psych clinical due to Covid, and instead of Critical Care, I got a "higher acuity" MS clinical because the hospital we were at did not want students in the ICU during Covid. I was really upset about this and reached out to other nursing students on Allnurses from other programs in the Bay Area, and they told me the same thing - they were all having issues with clinical placements and had to complete vSIMS or projects to make up the clinical hours. That made me feel a little better that it wasn't just SMU but a Bay Area issue. All that to say, we are still in a pandemic, long covid symptoms are disabling people, and our healthcare system is in a crisis, and I think this is just the way that schools and hospitals are trying to deal with it at the expense of their students (because you are going to pay that tuition anyway). Is that fair? Especially when this is costing us a fudgeton of money and loans; heck no, but you are all doing your due diligence by doing your research on here so you can make the best decision for yourself.

If I sound a bit blazé about it, it's because I am past my prelicensure, and I've already come to the realization that I needed to suck it up and finish instead of fighting the school with every inconvenience that I and my colleagues have. Also, compared to some of my colleagues, I have had a pretty unproblematic experience so far, but I have always rallied with them because what happens to one of us happens to all of us.

I also want to add that all the posts you see from current students in the forums are definitely VALID; I have heard, seen, and read the proof of everything those students write on here. Does that mean it's everyone's truth? No. But don't dismiss what they are saying as them just being disgruntled; I've seen a comment that eludes to this on one of the forums and I didn't like that.

Anywho LOL sorry for the long post! I hope this helps, let me know if you have any other questions! Here to help ?

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Specializes in MA/Cardiology.

Has anyone gotten off of the waitlist yet? 

1
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Anyone that was in between choosing schools make a decision? 

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Dolphin71 said:

Anyone that was in between choosing schools make a decision? 

I payed the deposit and then ended up getting accepted to sjsu last minute and accepted it and I emailed SMU to tell them I'm actually not coming in hopes of them giving my spot to someone on the waitlist and they never emailed me back

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Hey guys! I got off the waitlist. I finally got accepted into the program :) I just wanted to know if anyone else was in the same spot?!

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jennmargar said:

Has anyone gotten off of the waitlist yet? 

I have! 

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