UTHSCSA 2018 Spring Applicants

AdAstraPerAspera · Feb 14, 2018

Hi all! I am currently at UTHSCSA and just wanted to share some advice with y'all since I know I was in your shoes not too long ago and would have really appreciated any inside perspectives and advice.

To be honest my cohort and all other cohorts I've spoken with (both traditional and accelerated) are extremely unhappy and disappointed with UTHSCSA, to say the least. The school puts so little effort into slapping together classes and has made it clear they hold little regard or respect for you as a student.

They flat out lie about the costs of attendance. If you go forward with the program anticipate spending thousands (no exaggeration) beyond what they quoted you. Also, be prepared to not have financial aid cover everything. UTHSCSA limits how much you can borrow in student loans and caps it far below the actual cost of attendance. They claim this is "for your own good", but witholding my loans that are in MY name is ridiculous and I've never had such a terrible experience with financial aid. They will also "forget" to disperse scholarships and QUEST payments every single semester and you will have to waste your time speaking with financial aid over and over and over again to argue for your money that they have no right to keep from you in the first place. They also lie about available scholarships so don't hold your breath hoping for much. The first semester of the accelerated program they will tell you all the scholarship money ran out so only a few students are awarded and their awards are minimal (~$200-500). Very few students get awards second and third semester. Fourth semester they will tell you the same thing, scholarship money ran out. The amount of scholarships available that they will quote you is from the pool that is split between your program and about five other programs (NP, MSN, ABSN, TBSN (both cohorts), and PA).

I'm not saying any of this to scare you or bash UTHSCSA - I am simply being upfront and honest, which is something severely lacking from the administration in the school of nursing.

As a student you can also expect for complete chaos and disorganization when it comes to just about anything. We literally didn't have teachers hired to teach our classes until 2-3 weeks into the semester, multiple times. The school promises to provide SI (supplemental instruction), which is like a group tutoring session which has potential to be extremely helpful, especially first semester. However, our cohort was screwed because they pulled the plug on all SI sessions for us and the only thing they provided was a graduate student who does an horrendous job, doesn't teach the content covered in class, and is extremely rude and condescending. We still paid a ton of money out of tuition and dues for SI sessions that were never provided. The SI we were provided has terrible reviews and is only attended by one or two students. It's basically a half-assed attempt at pretending they held up their promises of supporting students.

Expect to survive all classes on your own/with your classmates and not to be supported by UTHSCSA what-so-ever. Also, don't be surprised when the administration is incredibly rude, patronizing, dishonest, and lazy when it comes to addressing any questions, responding to students, or providing anything they promised. Especially Dr. ONeal, who is THE worst.

You will also get no graduation if you are in the accelerated program, something they fail to tell you until students figure it out themselves by talking to previous cohorts. They care so little about your hard work, tuition, and accomplishments that they actually refuse to allow you to have a graduation even if your cohort raises enough money on their own to plan a ceremony. They literally refuse to allow accelerated students to have a ceremony. You still have to pay a $100 graduation fee to be able to pass fourth semester, but you will not get any graduation.

All in all, it's your choice to attend UTHSCSA and especially if you're interesting in the ABSN program your choices in San Antonio are limited. UTHSCSA knows this and will take full advantage. Be prepared to have extra money ready to go for all the unclaimed and unforeseen costs, they add up like you wouldn't imagine. Be prepared to have no support from your school and for UTHSCSA to actually work against you when it comes to succeeding in the program. Also be prepared to seek your own clinical experience outside of school because UTHSCSA will fail you here as well. I hope this honest and straight forward inside information helps you prepare and understand what you're getting into. You can absolutely succeed and the program is doable, just brace yourself for disappointment and understand that attending UTHSCSA is more like a necessary evil to passing your NCLEX rather than providing the support and foundation you'd expect from a nursing program.