What school do you go to? how many people get accepted by your school?

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so, hearing many stories about how hard it is to get into nursing school, i became curious as to how difficult it is in other regions that differ from my own. i was also curious to hear how many people get accepted to other schools that differ from my own, and would also like to know how many schools are in a 365 mile radius from you.

i live in alaska, which is about half the size of the lower 48 (land mass wise), and there is only one program. so imagine for a second, if you lived on the east coast, or west coast, and there was only one school you could go to in a 365 mile radius, that is what my scenario is like.

a little bit about the school i go to is in order... here it goes:

i go to university of alaska fairbanks (uaf), it is part of a distance learning program that comes from the university of alaska anchorage (uaa), which is accredited. you can only obtain an associates degree in the fairbanks program, but if i lived in anchorage (365 miles away), i could go for my bsn. uaa only accepts 16 people a year from fairbanks. no joke. when my pre reqs are over with and i apply for nursing school, i will be applying to uaa, but my school/lectures/clinicals will be here in fairbanks.

and... no i cannot move, i have a house that will be paid off in 7 years, i also have three children. i would love to go for my bsn, and i do plan on getting it... but it is not in the cards as of now.

i am curious what school you go to, how many people are accepted yearly, and how many schools are in a 365 mile radius of you?

me: university of alaska fairbanks, 16 people accepted a year, and 1 school near me.

"aim for the moon. if you miss, you may hit a star." w. clement stone. this is how i feel about my personal situation

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I have no clue. There are somewhere between 50 to 100 million people living within a 365 mile radius of where I live and there are probably hundreds of schools. Within a 50 mile radius of me, there are probably 20 not including the for-profit ones. I also have a mortgage and I'm willing to move if needed.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Capacity/Bed Management.

I live in NJ, attend Muhlenberg School of Nursing (ASN/Diploma) which accepts about 80 students. I can name at least 25 different nursing schools around me both BSN/ASN.

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I live in the Texas panhandle and I have applied to a school that accepts around 100. There are at least three other schools around me that I am aware of. Good luck!!

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Specializes in Primary Care; Child Advocacy; Child Abuse; ED.

I am in Missouri, my school accepts 40 students twice a year. Over 850 students applied. I am happy to be one of 40 accepted. I drive two hours to this school. There are four schools in the area but I only applied to my school. I found out what they required and found out what prior students minimum accepts were. I made well over that and got accepted. Good luck to you!!!

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I live in California, about an hour from Los Angeles so there are a lot of schools around me. There is only one school in the town I live in and the next closet school is about 35 minutes away. When I was in the program my school accepted 80 students. That has now been cut from 65 to 40. They are hoping to get back up to 80 soon though.

I had to wait a year to get into the program. This proabably the shortest wait time around me. Some schools have a 2 year plus wait!

Good luck!

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I live in California too. I live in the Los Angeles region. Its a blessing because there are so many options for schools. I would like to say it's my fault for not getting accepted to a BSN program because I applied too late to schools. I only had the oppurtunity to apply to a community college that is 10-15 min away from my house, and luckily I got accepted. That was the only school I applied to. I was not nearly as suprised that I got in because my G.p.a and teas scores were average. I am sure if I applied to other schools or programs, I would have gotten accepted.

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Specializes in Forensic Psych.

I live in the Houston area and have 40 people in the program, and it only admits once a year...the smallest program around, I believe.

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Btw; how competitve is jobs in Alaska then?

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Specializes in Neonatal Nurse Practitioner.

Where I live, there are 5 RN schools immediately around me. Then another 7-10 within an hour or so of me. The school I'm at accepts 100 students a semester for the traditional BSN program.

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Jobs are super competitive here in Alaska. You almost have to know someone to get an interview or have done the clinicals at that specific site. It is a very tight knit community, and a very "spread out" population. In the year 2000, University of Alaska Anchorage was only graduating 70 people a year from the nursing program, associates and bachelors combined. Health professions in Alaska are Alaska's "hot jobs" market right now.

Since 2000 they have stepped it up to help the situation, UAA have 11 communities that go through a distance learning program. With 2 or 3 more scheduled for later opening dates, in the next few years. The ultimate vision from UAA is to graduate 250 nursing students a year, which is about the number of positions that open up on an annual basis here in Alaska. The RN program at UAA is looking for people that really enjoy Alaska, and want to be here for years to come. I'm not saying UAA doesn't accept people from out of state, but their main goal is to educate Alaskans that plan on being here for the long haul.

In Anchorage, providence hospital's new hires are 90% UAA RN graduates, through UAA or the other 11 communities. Right now there are a ton of jobs in Alaska for a RN, literally TONS! The problem is though, there are very few hospitals, clinics, and what not. The majority of the RN jobs that are posted are in the "Bush" (very, very small and isolated communities, that are only accessible by four seat, single engine airplanes) Some of the areas that come to mind are Nome and Barrow. It will easily get -60 to -80 degrees with wind.

There is no road access to 90% of the communities in Alaska, and in the middle of winter you only see the sun for a couple hours a day, for 8 months of the year. This place is not for everyone. I can say that in the 30 years I have lived here, 2/3rds of my life has been in cold and darkness literally. Considering 8 months of the year it is nothing but that cold and dark. Right now rent for a 2 or 3 bedroom is between $1,600 and $2,000 a month (thank god I own a house), but even then heating fuel for my house for 8 months is hovering around $4,000 annually.

Alaska is awesome, and even though they pay good up here, no one should expect to make bank, the price of living in Alaska is crazy. I live a stones throw away from a refinery, and pay $4.47 for a gallon for gas. Some people that live in the "bush" pay almost double for that same gallon of gas.

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