Yale GEPN 2020

I have been lurking in this website for a while and so glad to find a thread about yale gepn 2020!

I am a current undergraduate with double majors in Biology and Psychology, and I am going to apply for the mental health track.

I took the GRE during my junior year and got 85% on both V&Q, but I don't think scores matter that much! I got letters from my organic chemistry professor, psych professor and my research lab PI.

Because I live far away from New Haven, I, unfortunately, cannot make any of these info sessions, and I hope they can hold one online. ?

Looking forward to discussing more during the next few months and good luck to everyone.

Please feel free to post your questions. Those of us who are current students do monitor this thread and we will do our best to help answer your questions.

Good luck with your applications!

Hi think34,

Thank you for starting this thread. I signed up to one of the information session days, however I was not able to attend. I called the department and asked them if they would have any info sessions in the Fall. I was told that the person I talked to needed new staff to be able to organize info sessions. If the department doesn't hire anyone, then there will be none. I am planning to visit the campus and department in the Fall semester by myself and wondering if you could share some more about what the info session was like?

Thank you so much again!

Hi!

Thank you for getting this thread going!

I am like you jules in that I was unable to attend an information session. I left a message with Sandra Esposito today hoping to schedule a telephone advising session, but given they are needing new staff I'm not sure that it will happen! In other words, I'd love to know more about the info session as well.

Questions for current students:

Are there any classes or aspects of the clinicals that you are finding most beneficial? Any that you wish you didn't have to take?

@ohm 108, thanks for lending a helping hand.

@Jules and JessB, I will be dropping what I could from the information session in bits. I attended the information session that was held on 07-10-2019, it was anchored by Joseph Korevec. @JessB, Sandra retired from the YSN effective 08-01-2019.

What they look for in a candidate is their fit with the program and they determine fit by looking at the entire application package. The most important item in that package is your personal statement. We were told to highlight our accomplishments and not undersell ourselves as some folks tend to. Get conversant with the YSN themes and proofread your essays before submission - you shouldn't inadvertently be talking about John Hopkins or Columbia in a YSN essay.

On the GRE, his words were "don't stress but prepare." A 50+ percentile in Q, V, AWA is okay. The essay is now waved for masters degree holders. The three LOR should highlight different aspects of your accomplishment. There was an extensive talk on funding and scholarship.

If selected to proceed, a zoom interview will be conducted. The highest scholarship from the YSN is the merit-based one with an award of $15,000, the mission and need-based scholarship is worth$10,000 each.

I'll keep updating as I have additional information.

Thank you for creating this thread. Support through this process will be helpful to us all! I was also at a recent information session and am applying to the MSN CNM program as I already have my BSN.

Even though it is still almost 2 months before the deadline I am fairly new to my interest in Yale's program. I had not looked into it much in my previous research, but based on comments from current students about the support I am now intrigued. Plan on spending the next few days deep diving into Yale nursing and editing essays. I already have one from another school that asks very similar questions but now must customize it to Yale as well as cut it from 685 to 600 words. Editing is so nerve wracking to me because I want to be concise, fully answer the questions, and not undersell myself. Thanks for creating this thread!

Does anyone know if Yale helps students get matched with preceptors?

On 9/7/2019 at 11:47 PM, laurynd said:

Does anyone know if Yale helps students get matched with preceptors?

Yes, they do. We do not have to find our own preceptors.

On 9/4/2019 at 6:52 PM, JessB said:

Hi!

Thank you for getting this thread going!

I am like you jules in that I was unable to attend an information session. I left a message with Sandra Esposito today hoping to schedule a telephone advising session, but given they are needing new staff I'm not sure that it will happen! In other words, I'd love to know more about the info session as well.

Questions for current students:

Are there any classes or aspects of the clinicals that you are finding most beneficial? Any that you wish you didn't have to take?

Clinicals are chance for you to practice the didactic skills and theoretical book work that we learn in class so I have always enjoyed my clinicals overall. I don’t think there is clinical that we wish we didn’t have to take for GEPN year. It is more accurate to say that some of us look forward to certain clinicals a little bit more than others. Maternity and Pediatrics are two that come to mind. There are others that really looked forward to their community health placements in palliative and hospice care.

19 minutes ago, Ohm108 said:

Yes, they do. We do not have to find our own preceptors.

Clinicals are chance for you to practice the didactic skills and theoretical book work that we learn in class so I have always enjoyed my clinicals overall. I don’t think there is clinical that we wish we didn’t have to take for GEPN year. It is more accurate to say that some of us look forward to certain clinicals a little bit more than others. Maternity and Pediatrics are two that come to mind. There are others that really looked forward to their community health placements in palliative and hospice care.

Thank you so much for a quick response. That is definitely another thing I have appreciated looking over Yale's material. They offer a variety of unique classes and clinicals so even though we have selected a specialty, we will still get our feet wet in other areas. Maybe I feel that way because I am interested in a bunch of areas in some form or another, but I honestly think it's good to step outside the comfort zone.

Hello,

I'm happy to have found this thread/forum as I'm sure I will have more questions over the next 2 months. So thank you in advance to fellow applicants and current students.

Currently, I do have a few questions that someone might be able to help me with. In terms of the admissions process, applicants are required to apply to a chosen clinical specialty, but doesn't this make the applicant pool vary greatly per specialty? Theoretically, wouldn't one have a better chance of getting in if they choose a less popular specialty than the majority? Maybe YSN is only looking for individuals dead set on specializing in one field? But, if you were to be denied in one field, and think you might have comparable desire for another, wouldn't it be beneficial to be considered for both? Just food for thought...

I plan to apply to the dual Nurse Midwife/Women's Health Nurse Practitioner track and was wondering if there are or have been any men in that speciality. Do any current students have a feeling of how that might be received amongst the fellow students (or even the admissions committee)?

Lastly, I worry about my candidacy in regards to experience in and around medicine. I initially started doing pre-med in college and have a fair amount of those courses under my belt, but I ended up pursing a career in dance and have been performing professionally for the past 12 years. Simultaneously I have worked as a bartender and bar manager. I think my career experience can translate to health care well, but it is not immediately obvious on my resume that nursing is the next step. It's a clear career shift for me, and I'm wondering if that is something other students have seen or experienced? Have there been people accepted/enrolled who come from what might be commonly perceived as a completely different career path?

Thanks!

1 hour ago, Daeron said:

Hello,

I'm happy to have found this thread/forum as I'm sure I will have more questions over the next 2 months. So thank you in advance to fellow applicants and current students.

Currently, I do have a few questions that someone might be able to help me with. In terms of the admissions process, applicants are required to apply to a chosen clinical specialty, but doesn't this make the applicant pool vary greatly per specialty? Theoretically, wouldn't one have a better chance of getting in if they choose a less popular specialty than the majority? Maybe YSN is only looking for individuals dead set on specializing in one field? But, if you were to be denied in one field, and think you might have comparable desire for another, wouldn't it be beneficial to be considered for both? Just food for thought...

I plan to apply to the dual Nurse Midwife/Women's Health Nurse Practitioner track and was wondering if there are or have been any men in that speciality. Do any current students have a feeling of how that might be received amongst the fellow students (or even the admissions committee)?

Lastly, I worry about my candidacy in regards to experience in and around medicine. I initially started doing pre-med in college and have a fair amount of those courses under my belt, but I ended up pursing a career in dance and have been performing professionally for the past 12 years. Simultaneously I have worked as a bartender and bar manager. I think my career experience can translate to health care well, but it is not immediately obvious on my resume that nursing is the next step. It's a clear career shift for me, and I'm wondering if that is something other students have seen or experienced? Have there been people accepted/enrolled who come from what might be commonly perceived as a completely different career path?

Thanks!

Most direct entry nursing programs with an NP component will require that you pick a specialty prior to joining their program. One of the reasons is logistics, if you had an entire class of prospective Psych NPs as an example, there just isn't enough clinical sites in CT to be able to accommodate so many people. You can either have a very small cohort of only Pysch NPs or a larger cohort with people who want to go into different specialties. Secondly, as you progress in your education and obtain graduate degrees, the expectation is that you do become more specialized in your field before becoming a subject matter expert in your field when you have obtained a doctorate which is the terminal degree for most areas of study.

Yes, you will have a better chance of getting into a specialty that isn't as popular with applicants but that is offset by the fact that those specialties accept a smaller number of students. This is true regardless of which program you apply to.

The important thing that all applicants need to understand when you apply to this or any other direct entry nursing program is that you need to have a clear idea of why you want to go into the specialty that you have chosen. The expectation is that you have explored and researched your chosen specialty prior to applying and know why this specialty speaks to you as a future provider over all the other specialties. If you do not have a clear idea which specialty you would like to practice in, take some time to explore other specialties prior to applying. Shadow a provider in the area you are interested in, volunteer, calling friends of friends who are in similar programs. Leverage your network if possible.

Not knowing or being sure of why you have chosen your specialty is the second most common reason not to be accepted. Alternatively, the Physicians Associate programs might also be an option for you since as a pre-med student you might already have the classes necessary to apply but you might still have to retake the classes since it looks like some time has passed since you took them. But they might be easier for you to complete since you have previous knowledge to leverage upon. PAs come out as generalists and might be a better choice for individuals who do not know what they want to specialize in. It is the nature of being an APRN that we specialize and it is reflected in how graduate NP programs are structured.

There is always a portion of direct entry nursing programs with students who have had very long, varied, and diverse experiences in other careers. But the proportion of these individuals are small compared to the rest of the class. The average age of the current incoming 2019 cohort is 25 so the majority of individuals in this year's cohort either have had 2-3 years of work experience or they just graduated with their bachelors. It is rare at least in the programs that I have looked at to have individuals who have more than 5 years of pure work experience in another field. When you start looking at individuals with more than 10 years of experience, it is almost non-existent. Like you, I also had a long career in another field prior to applying and being accepted into Yale's program. It is looked upon favorably by the faculty and the admissions committee to be an older student with experiences in fields other than STEM. We have people coming from backgrounds in finance, scientific research, and the arts but that is more the exception than the rule. Most of the individuals who apply and are accepted have some background in the sciences like neuroscience, biology, health sciences, psychology, public health etc.

I can tell you that there have been a few individuals with a dance or art background who have applied and been accepted into Yale's program over the last few years so you are in good company with your 12 years of dance and professional experience. Yale does value individuals with different and unique experiences and you have that coming from the arts.

Re midwifery - I would suggest that if you want to go into this specialty and this is the area you want to specialize in, that you try and obtain some birth-related work or work with babies and children prior to applying. Volunteer birth doula, postpartum doula, MA on an L&D floor, tech on a postpartum floor, nanny etc are all possibilities. The admissions committee would like to see that you took some time to explore and be sure of your specialty prior to applying as I discussed earlier. It also gives you a chance to explore if this specialty is for you as well. Perhaps you didn't know that you didn't like amniotic fluid prior to working with birthing mothers or that baby breast milk regurgitation causes you to be nauseous or that laceration repair is just not for you.

Lastly, I repeat again that all applicants need to have a clear vision of why you want to go into your specialty especially the CNM/WHNP specialty. This specialty after FNP is probably the hardest specialty to get into so have a clear understanding of what a midwife does, what their job entails, the population that they focus on, and the types of procedures that they perform.

There is a lot more that I can say but hopefully, this will help you get started thinking about your application.

Good luck to you.