Yale GEPN 2016

Nursing Students Post Graduate

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Hi all!

I didn't see a Yale GEPN 2016 thread, so I thought it would be good to start one! Does anyone know the average GPA and GRE score for the 2015 entering class?

Also, I would really encourage all of you to take some time to research (if you haven't) how they come up with the rankings and the controversies surrounding them. I got a bit caught up in it last year and took a hard look at how they do their data. You're going to be spending a ton of money on your education--go to the place that feels like it fits you.

Thanks DoulaMe! Do you know what US News changed about their ranking criteria to make Yale drop to 22? What was it ranked before? Are there rankings every year? (I heard it was every 4 years)

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I have been lurking for awhile. I am also trying to decide between Yale and Vanderbilt for the AG-ACNP program. I just found the FB group and sent in a request to join. I am literally floored at how lucky I was to get into either program, let alone both.

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Let me just go through and list the questions so I don't miss anything.

How did you feel about the GEPN year?

I am currently in my GEPN year and I actually, for the most part, love it. There have been some organizational/scheduling issues that I haven't loved, but they weren't horrible and I expect (from talking to friends in other programs) that I would have gotten them with any program. When I came to the program I thought that GEPN would be something that I had to suffer through to get to specialty (and I know some students do feel that way) but I have actually found a lot of value in this year of being with floor nurses and doing RN nursing. I feel like I've learned a lot that, even though it might have very little to do with midwifery, is going to make me be a better practitioner in the long run.

Do you feel prepared to take the NCLEX?

Well, I could not take it tomorrow but Yale has an extremely high first time pass rate so they must be doing something right. Here's the thing--you would not have gotten into all of these wonderful schools if you did not have the ability to be someone who can prep for an exam. Yale will give you the tools (they do mock NCLEX questions, ATI testing, etc) to pass NCLEX. Between that and all of the things you are going to do to prepare for the test, you will be fine.

How do you feel about the quality of the education in general? The professors I met during interview day seemed amazing.

I mean, it's Yale. We call everyone by their first names and we have professor's cell phone numbers. Everyone is very invested in making sure that you are part of the nursing school family. That vibe you got on interview day is really how it is as far as how teachers and students interact. We have world renowned experts as guest speakers coming into our classes. Just yesterday we had someone from infectious disease talking to us about Zika virus. You have the opportunity to work on clinical teams with med students and PAs so you are in interprofessional teams from the get go. LH has her whole Looking is Not Seeing and Listening is not Hearing series. You have the opportunity to work with actual cadavers (which is not common for many nursing schools) in anatomy lab. There are a lot of really amazing opportunities available to students at Yale.

Where did you find housing?

Craigslist. I live in Hamden. I have a family so I needed a house with a yard, If I did not I would probably live in New Haven. I don't know if I would have picked East Rock because even though it's gorgeous, it is expensive. I have a friend who has an apartment down on the Yale side near the medical campus. That probably would have been really convenient for all the times we are down there for clinical rotations and anatomy labs. If you are going to venture out of East Rock without being here to look at apartments/houses, I would definitely contact MP and ask her about areas of any place you are considering. Do that anyway, because sometimes places will be listed as "East Rock" when they are maybe not what is traditionally thought of as East Rock.

Did you use loans or savings for your living expenses?

My husband pays the rent and feeds us. A LOT of the students snagged the NIH nurse corps scholarships which are really generous. I am a Tillman Military Scholar and that's helped a lot. Definitely be applying for scholarships NOW if you aren't already.

Also, one of the biggest questions I have is about the extra year. is a two year program while Yale is three. Do you think the extra year will be worth it in regards to preparing you better for practice after graduation?

I am going to be honest, I don't know how you could do it in two years. I know Yale is trying to shorten their program too and the students were not happy with the idea. I think a lot of the shorter programs come with the expectation that you will do some kind of residency when you are done, depending on your specialty (and I don't remember yours, but I know this is very true for Acute Care). When you get here you are going to realize how much you don't know. Just being able to put that check in the box for clinical hours, births attended, etc so you can sit for board exams is great for schools because they are making more money the more students they put through. Even Yale is feeling that pressure and is trying to shorten the program. It looks great on paper, but it's terrifying as a student to think that you will be doing ADVANCE PRACTICE nursing in two years. You are going to have someone's life in your hands. If you're an acute care APRN and someone is coding, they're calling you. If you're a midwife and you get a mom with a hemorrhage, that's all you. Take a minute and sit with that responsibility. I mean, sometimes shorter isn't better. Also, we have more time to decompress, volunteer, get involved, etc. We have time for outside experiences that make us better clinicians.

Are there any other factors that you'd like to share that influenced your decision?

Sure. I was not a philosophical fit for Vanderbilt, so that made it easy for me. Yale's commitment to "better healthcare for all" is something that really resonated with me. I like the idea of the leader servant and really being involved community service. I was also not sold on how Vandy does clinical placements and I just felt more at home with Yale. There is also a name recognition that I have found opens doors (as distasteful as that might be). As far as Columbia goes, most of their midwifery faculty seemed to come from Yale and they just felt very big and impersonal to me. Not getting to have an interview day or much contact with them played against them. I felt like Yale was a place I could build relationships with studetns and faculty and that's been true for me so far.

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Thanks DoulaMe! Do you know what US News changed about their ranking criteria to make Yale drop to 22? What was it ranked before? Are there rankings every year? (I heard it was every 4 years)

It was top five, I believe. They added a bunch of data categories and use stuff like average GRE score now whereas before, from what I remember (this was a year ago so I really encourage you to look it up because I could be remembering wrong) it was based on nominations.

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Can you expand on the differences of clinical placement process between Yale and Vanderbilt?

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I am going to be honest, I don't know how you could do it in two years. I know Yale is trying to shorten their program too and the students were not happy with the idea. I think a lot of the shorter programs come with the expectation that you will do some kind of residency when you are done, depending on your specialty (and I don't remember yours, but I know this is very true for Acute Care). When you get here you are going to realize how much you don't know. Just being able to put that check in the box for clinical hours, births attended, etc so you can sit for board exams is great for schools because they are making more money the more students they put through. Even Yale is feeling that pressure and is trying to shorten the program. It looks great on paper, but it's terrifying as a student to think that you will be doing ADVANCE PRACTICE nursing in two years. You are going to have someone's life in your hands. If you're an acute care APRN and someone is coding, they're calling you. If you're a midwife and you get a mom with a hemorrhage, that's all you. Take a minute and sit with that responsibility. I mean, sometimes shorter isn't better. Also, we have more time to decompress, volunteer, get involved, etc. We have time for outside experiences that make us better clinicians.

I can't speak for other specialties, but I am pretty sure that at least for nurse-midwifery, Vanderbilt and Yale have the same number of semesters in the program. The difference is that Yale does not have a summer term in between year 1 and 2 and thus finishes after the second spring; however, does have a summer semester and finishes after the second fall term. So while it could be valuable to have the summer to decompress, volunteer, work, etc., both programs have the same number of semesters to learn the material. Something to consider about getting out a semester earlier is that you can start working that much sooner and earn money to pay back loans ;)

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Hi prenursing15, I don't know how to pm you! Can you pm me? Would love to discuss.

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quick FYI - Yale is not shortening their program anymore.

Differences between Yale and Vanderbilt clinical placements - if I remember correctly - is that you have to find your own with Vanderbilt. They have a list of sites but I believe it's the students responsibility to set up sites. That could be either good or bad, depending on how you feel about doing that leg work. Yale places you with clinical sites, so there is no extra leg work. I can't speak to Vanderbilt's midwifery program, but the 2nd year specialty students spend their last semester fully integrated into a clinical placement. No school (I'm pretty sure about this, not in this specialty), just clinical practice.

I would not devalue the importance of having a summer off, or just even having extra time to pursue other interests. While you may think you'd like to go straight through now, being in nursing school is mentally taxing, and it's exhausting to be in school all the time. Having the summer off allows many students to pursue other opportunities to strengthen their resumes, through different fellowships or traveling aboard and working in different global health projects.

Also, rankings should not be taken too seriously. I have friends that have gone to schools ranked higher and had terrible experiences, with some even dropping out of the program altogether and choosing to go to programs that aren't even ranked.

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Our last semester at Yale in midwifery is also spent on integration. I didn't know if had changed their program. I thought the poster literally meant that you got through RN and specialty in two years. If you're talking the difference between December graduation and May graduation without summers off, that's a different story. You do have to consider how you're going to deal with expenses if you'll be living off loan money with Yale's summer off. I'm glad to have that summer because it allows me to pursue a project with another GEPN in Ghana. There's definitely pros to either way of doing it.

My issue with Vandy's clinical schedule was having to move so many times and go to so many sites. When I interviewed it was three separate sites all over the country/world for midwifery. There are pros and cons for that kind of experience. I have kids so I did not relish the though of moving so often.

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quick FYI - Yale is not shortening their program anymore.

Differences between Yale and Vanderbilt clinical placements - if I remember correctly - is that you have to find your own with Vanderbilt. They have a list of sites but I believe it's the students responsibility to set up sites. That could be either good or bad, depending on how you feel about doing that leg work. Yale places you with clinical sites, so there is no extra leg work. I can't speak to Vanderbilt's midwifery program, but the 2nd year specialty students spend their last semester fully integrated into a clinical placement. No school (I'm pretty sure about this, not in this specialty), just clinical practice.

I would not devalue the importance of having a summer off, or just even having extra time to pursue other interests. While you may think you'd like to go straight through now, being in nursing school is mentally taxing, and it's exhausting to be in school all the time. Having the summer off allows many students to pursue other opportunities to strengthen their resumes, through different fellowships or traveling aboard and working in different global health projects.

Also, rankings should not be taken too seriously. I have friends that have gone to schools ranked higher and had terrible experiences, with some even dropping out of the program altogether and choosing to go to programs that aren't even ranked.

This is not correct----Vanderbilt sets up all clinical placements and preceptorships for its students. I asked this in my interview, and it was confirmed to me by the two faculty with whom I spoke. They allow you say in where you'd like to be placed, but, ultimately, they place you.

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Specializes in Mental Health.
quick FYI - Yale is not shortening their program anymore.

Differences between Yale and Vanderbilt clinical placements - if I remember correctly - is that you have to find your own with Vanderbilt. They have a list of sites but I believe it's the students responsibility to set up sites. That could be either good or bad, depending on how you feel about doing that leg work. Yale places you with clinical sites, so there is no extra leg work. I can't speak to Vanderbilt's midwifery program, but the 2nd year specialty students spend their last semester fully integrated into a clinical placement. No school (I'm pretty sure about this, not in this specialty), just clinical practice.

I would not devalue the importance of having a summer off, or just even having extra time to pursue other interests. While you may think you'd like to go straight through now, being in nursing school is mentally taxing, and it's exhausting to be in school all the time. Having the summer off allows many students to pursue other opportunities to strengthen their resumes, through different fellowships or traveling aboard and working in different global health projects.

Also, rankings should not be taken too seriously. I have friends that have gone to schools ranked higher and had terrible experiences, with some even dropping out of the program altogether and choosing to go to programs that aren't even ranked.

I am currently at Vanderbilt in my second year. I'm not sure where you are getting your info from. Vanderbilt definitely places you with clinical sites and preceptors. It's only if you are a distance student that you have to do the work yourself. If you are local and live in Nashville then they do the work for you.

I got into Yale but chose Vanderbilt because it's much shorter and cheaper for my specialty (psych). Yale is an extra year which comes out to at least $150k extra in terms of tuition and income lost from not working for that year. Also the PMHNP program was having problems where the director was being fired so I didn't feel like dealing with that. I'm sure it's fine now and both are good programs. It all depends on where you want to live (I'm biased but Nashville is awesome and warm) and how much time you want to spend in school.

Best of luck to you all

BTW I see some people talking about midwifery. I have several friends currently in Vanderbilt's midwifery program. If you'd like me to connect you to them just PM me

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Congrats everyone! I hear they changed the criteria for ranking recently, hence the drop. It's also not super accurate- it's something about people in the various school's administration offices replying to stock questions, and the number of replies can have an effect on ranking... (or at least that is how it was explained to me... who knows!) Last year, I put a lot of stock in the US News ranking system, then I got to YSN and realized it doesn't really mean anything. My advice is pick the program where you envision yourself. I honestly think incoming students are the only ones looking at those rankings. Employers are not. So do not worry about the ranking. NO one will care if you went to Yale vs. Penn vs. Vanderbilt vs Columbia - they are all great programs!! Congrats again!

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