Which accelerated BSN/MSN program to chose??

[megandan]

]Hi!

After months of hard work filling out applications, writing essays, having interviews, and the dreaded waiting (plus the years before doing the prereqs...), I've been accepted at 2 of the 5 programs I've applied to! And I'm still waiting to hear back from the other 3, and things are looking good. HORRAY! I'm super excited!! The problem is, I'm finishing up my last year of undergrad right now and don't have time or money to go visit all of the campuses, and I don't know how to chose between the two (or more) programs I've been accepted to.

So far I've been accepted at Columbia for the midwifery/women's health NP program and Johns Hopkins for the midwifery/women's health nurse specialist program. I had an interview at Yale and it went really well, and I'm also waiting to hear back from Emory and Vanderbilt.

I would say financial aid would have a lot to do with my decision, but I think that I have to decide before financial aid packets get mailed... I thought if the deposit to hold my spot was like $200 each I might just pay it for at least a few until I had more time to decide, but it's more like $500 each, and I can't afford that.

I heard that Yale is #3 for midwifery on the US News & World Report, but that doesn't say anything about the accelerated BSN/MSN program. Any insight to the qualities of these programs would be super helpful and much appreciated!! Thanks!

[CharmedJ7]

]

I heard that Yale is #3 for midwifery on the US News & World Report, but that doesn't say anything about the accelerated BSN/MSN program. Any insight to the qualities of these programs would be super helpful and much appreciated!! Thanks!

Just a note, it does definitely say something about the accelerated program, the midwifery component is the same for GEPN and non-GEPN, GEPN is just the first year.

From trolling the boards, these are my impressions:

Columbia - intense and somewhat disorganized, but most complaints seem to center on the fact that it is very expensive. Apparently these complaints are somewhat centered around the first year, the specialty years seem to be much better, unless you're in acute care which has more complaints. A large either plus or minus is that it's located in NYC which is a great place in my book but very expensive and can be overwhelming if you're not used to large cities.

Yale - I've heard pretty good things about the program itself, people seem to really enjoy it for the most part. However, I've heard mixed things about employability after the program: there have been more than a few people who had trouble finding jobs, likely due to the fact you go straight through.

Emory and Vanderbilt I haven't paid too much mind too since I didn't apply there, although everything I've come across on Vanderbilt was positive. I don't know much about John Hopkins either other than apparently Baltimore has a disproportionate amount of crime for the size town it is - in that sense it's a bit like New Haven.

I'm not sure if that's at all helpful. Congratulations on your acceptances so far though, and good luck sorting through it all! I'm going to have to sit down with that too one of these days...