U of Calgary Degree holder route Winter 2014

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Just wondering if anyone else also applied for the winter 2014 admission to UofCalgary? I am just a little bit scared of not being able to get in, because my first degree was taken on a really part time basis (over 6 years, including a 1.5 year break). And my CGPA was really low (About 2.7). However, after taking another full course at UofT and taking the physiology/anatomy requirement online at Athabasca university, my transfer GPA over the last 5 full courses/10 half courses is about 3.59. So theoretically, I think I should be able to get in. However, i'm wondering if anyone knows how schools look at people who take a really long time to finish undergrad (with a really average GPA) and whether this will affect their chances of admission?...

Any information would be greatly appreciated

Thanks so much to all!

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Hello! I have also applied for the Degree Holder route for winter 2014. I am not sure how they look at your gPA etc, however there is something called the diverse route for applying, where you write about your experience, etc, and that is for people who may have a lower average. They talk about it in one of the other forum conversations.

Just so you know!

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As far as I know the U of C just looks at GPA. I'm just finishing up the Transfer program now and when I was admitted that was the only admission criteria they looked at (although I don't know much about the diverse route for applying, but that would be worth looking into if you think it might help). The one thing about U of C is, at least around the time I applied, they might not let you know if you're in until November or so. Hopefully their process is better now, but don't worry too much if you don't hear in the next little while!

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How was the program? I have read a lot of not so great things about it in the past, but have no idea what it is like now that they have changed it around a bit. Would you mind sharing your experiences with it?

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also do you have the opportunity to do a lot of different clinicals in a variety of areas, including pediatrics?

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As far as I know the U of C just looks at GPA. I'm just finishing up the Transfer program now and when I was admitted that was the only admission criteria they looked at (although I don't know much about the diverse route for applying, but that would be worth looking into if you think it might help). The one thing about U of C is, at least around the time I applied, they might not let you know if you're in until November or so. Hopefully their process is better now, but don't worry too much if you don't hear in the next little while!

Awesome, thank you so much for the information! And congrads on finishing your program =) All the best!

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Hello! I have also applied for the Degree Holder route for winter 2014. I am not sure how they look at your gPA etc, however there is something called the diverse route for applying, where you write about your experience, etc, and that is for people who may have a lower average. They talk about it in one of the other forum conversations.

Just so you know!

Hey! All the best on your application! Hope we both get in, so we can see each other in class =D All the best to you! Have you applied to anywhere else? Because I have only applied to UofC.

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Hey! No I have not applied anywhere else as of yet. If i don't get into Calgary i will be most likely applying to UBC and Toronto. Do you know of anywhere else that has a January start time for the accelerated nursing?

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The program has had its ups and downs but I think you're going to run into that no matter which school you attend. I've generally been happy with it. Terms 3 & 4 were a bit hard to get through as it is all community health (with some maternity and psych thrown in) and maybe not as interesting, although there were a lot of people in my cohort that ended up really liking community health. In terms 5 & 6 the placements were generally in med-surg (cardio, neuro, etc.) or mental health - there was a lot to learn given that it was our first time in acute care and we were technically third years, but it was manageable. I believe there were also some peds placements in Terms 5 & 6. In Term 7 you get to choose an area of interest and this year the options were palliative care, peds, perinatal nursing, oncology, and aging adults. Term 8 is your final practicum and you put in preferences for what area of nursing you want to do Term 8 in - a lot of people seemed to get their first choice. How much you learn really seems to depend on your clinical instructor, but 5/6 of my instructors so far have been good and a couple have been amazing. The good thing about this program is they seem pretty open to making changes to certain things based on our experiences, so a lot of the kinks have probably already improved. The one thing I will say is that Term 5 can be a little frustrating and intimidating when you go into the hospital and the nurses and other staff expect you to have much more acute care experience than you do... but by the end of Term 6 that feeling was mostly gone. I have had several instructors say that they either don't notice a difference between us and the Mount Royal students by the end of Term 6 or that we are doing better in terms of critical thinking, etc. Overall I would recommend the program - I'm graduating in 3 months and I feel like I will be adequately prepared for beginning nursing practice by that time.

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Forgot to add that one thing I found strange about the program is that I (and quite a few others) never got a true peds placement - many of the community placements were in daycares or schools and apparently that counted. They didn't really cover any peds content in Terms 3-6 either, so I have absolutely no theoretical or practical knowledge about peds nursing, which I will need to brush up on for the CRNE. That said, I didn't put peds as a high preference for either Semester 7 or 8, so if you are actually interested in peds the chances of that happening is probably low. The same goes for perinatal - there are a few community placements with this population, but other than that you're only going to get experience in maternity nursing if you choose it for Term 7 or Term 8. A lot of people wanted to have a perinatal placement too and didn't end up getting placed in that option.

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thank you so much for all of that information. It is so so helpful. I am pretty set on going there, so hopefully i will like the program as much as you did!

Mount Royal does not have an accelerated program correct?

so you mean that if i put in a Peds preference for terms 7 or 8 i would most likely get that? Or no one at all seemed to get one? I am glad you feel like you are prepared! That is very reassuring. Do you know how many people are accepted into the program?

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thank you so much for all of that information. It is so so helpful. I am pretty set on going there, so hopefully i will like the program as much as you did!

Mount Royal does not have an accelerated program correct?

so you mean that if i put in a Peds preference for terms 7 or 8 i would most likely get that? Or no one at all seemed to get one? I am glad you feel like you are prepared! That is very reassuring. Do you know how many people are accepted into the program?

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