Yale GEPN 2021

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Hey all! I am reapplying and wanted to create this for everyone applying. I won't be as involved as I was last year, but good luck to everyone! I know they're having seminars and allowing people to schedule one on one consultations for applications.

Specializes in PMHNP Student.
7 hours ago, CPMtobeCNM said:

Hi Flying nurse! Lovely to meet you. Fingers crossed for Vanderbilt.

I heard there were very few spots for entry with an RN/BSN sadly (I enquired b/c I was tempted for a while to get my ADN and go that route).

I had the option to keep my letters from last cycle on the app, I think I asked and Jana said that was fine but they'd like to see at least 1 new letter. I ended up hearing that one of my recommenders did write a letter that wasn't strong. That did sting a lot, as she had said she'd write me a great letter and I didn't see it coming at all (I had others options and I felt terrible about it for a while). Anyway, I had 3 great letters this time around and it worked. 

My advice is to make sure to keep in touch with Jana and ask for her feedback. She wants you to do well and will let you know, she knows the process 100% and is super helpful.

Did anyone have advice about how asking/guiding a reference letter writer? I am not American and so I don't really know the process (in my country, 3 short lines confirming they know you and you didn't burn the place is seen as a great letter-- I felt terribly ill equipped about the whole process!)

Good luck Flying Nurse!

When it comes to writing letters, I never ask if they can just write me a letter, but a STRONG letter of recommendation. Most professionals/academics understand this to mean that you need more than just a generic letter. If they accept, then I would send them a copy of my CV and any personal statements I have written for the program. This allows them to talk up your accomplishments and make the letter a bit more personal. 

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8 hours ago, CPMtobeCNM said:

Hi Flying nurse! Lovely to meet you. Fingers crossed for Vanderbilt.

I heard there were very few spots for entry with an RN/BSN sadly (I enquired b/c I was tempted for a while to get my ADN and go that route).

I had the option to keep my letters from last cycle on the app, I think I asked and Jana said that was fine but they'd like to see at least 1 new letter. I ended up hearing that one of my recommenders did write a letter that wasn't strong. That did sting a lot, as she had said she'd write me a great letter and I didn't see it coming at all (I had others options and I felt terrible about it for a while). Anyway, I had 3 great letters this time around and it worked. 

My advice is to make sure to keep in touch with Jana and ask for her feedback. She wants you to do well and will let you know, she knows the process 100% and is super helpful.

Did anyone have advice about how asking/guiding a reference letter writer? I am not American and so I don't really know the process (in my country, 3 short lines confirming they know you and you didn't burn the place is seen as a great letter-- I felt terribly ill equipped about the whole process!)

Good luck Flying Nurse!

I didn’t know that RN/BSNs can also apply to this program. That’s pretty awesome. How would their first year differ since they already have an RN? Can they skip the first year and pay less? 

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1 hour ago, PinkFreud said:

When it comes to writing letters, I never ask if they can just write me a letter, but a STRONG letter of recommendation. Most professionals/academics understand this to mean that you need more than just a generic letter. If they accept, then I would send them a copy of my CV and any personal statements I have written for the program. This allows them to talk up your accomplishments and make the letter a bit more personal. 

This is what I did too. My writers also told me when they’d be writing it (ex, “Saturday” or “tomorrow night”) so I made sure to stand by in case they emailed or texted me with questions they wanted to know so they can add to my letter. Asking for a strong letter is key and I think you can gauge who can write you a strong letter. I had one obvious choice for a writer but actually didn’t use them because I knew writing just wasn’t their thing. When I got accepted, 2/3 of my writers sent me their drafts and it actually made me cry both times. They were both strong as hell. Like, 3 pages single spaces and everything. 
 

yale accepts 3 letters, but I asked 5 people so that I can pick and choose and take my time to decide which to send. I didn’t get to read them before hand but it was a safety net for me 

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6 hours ago, PinkFreud said:

When it comes to writing letters, I never ask if they can just write me a letter, but a STRONG letter of recommendation. Most professionals/academics understand this to mean that you need more than just a generic letter. If they accept, then I would send them a copy of my CV and any personal statements I have written for the program. This allows them to talk up your accomplishments and make the letter a bit more personal. 

That is wonderfully helpful, thanks so much!

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Quick question about LORs - how are they submitted? Are the recommenders emailed a link to submit the LOR?
Also, when does the application cycle typically open? Just wanted to know when it would open for gepn 2022

thanks!

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Hi,

When you apply they’ll ask for the LORs information. They’ll be sent a link via email to submit the letter as well as asked a few questions. The application usually opens around June. 

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On 2/10/2021 at 8:11 PM, CPMtobeCNM said:

 

Did anyone have advice about how asking/guiding a reference letter writer? I am not American and so I don't really know the process (in my country, 3 short lines confirming they know you and you didn't burn the place is seen as a great letter-- I felt terribly ill equipped about the whole process!)

Good luck Flying Nurse!

I applied to the PMHNP specialty and was admitted (but will not be accepting). During my interview, the interviewer commented that my letters were very strong. Ideally, your LORs will be fairly recent and from people who know you well and can speak to your strengths/abilities in various capacities that translate to nursing. More important than how recent they are or how good a fit they seem is getting letters from people who know you very well and can write a STRONG letter. For instance, I graduated in 2014 and chose to get my academic reference letter from my former Italian professor/major advisor. I chose not to ask any of the science/psych professors I’ve since come into contact with while taking nursing school prereqs, even though a few of them were awesome. Why? Because I knew them from one or two classes that I took and earned an A in. Even a well-intentioned letter from them would not have been as strong as a letter written by my Italian major advisor/professor from 7 years ago, who I took many classes with and earned As in, who approved my academic transfer from the beginner track straight to the advanced track, who saw the strong work that I did in my internship abroad, who selected me for a departmental citation award, and who I’ve since kept in touch with via email. My other two LORs were from professional references. One was a former research supervisor who I worked with for 4.5 years. My current work supervisor/director of programs offered to write me a letter but I didn’t take her up on the offer because my former research supervisor has known me for longer and is a Stanford researcher with a PhD. This was a strategic decision because I knew that he could simply write a better letter. Lastly, I work with a few psych NPs but one of them really likes me and offered to write my letter. The fact that she offered signaled to me that she would have lots of great things to say. I could have chosen to get all my letters from psych NPs which would seem to make sense but ultimately would have been a disservice to me. The point is that your choice of letter writers should be strategic - the most obvious choice isn’t always the best choice. 

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I was also denied even an interview last year. J mentioned a few different things but said ultimately the LORs and my GRE math score were what did me in (I was above 80th percentile in both verbal and essays without even studying luckily). Anyhoo, as some people have stated already I decided to take a much less laid back approach when it came to my LORs the next year. She said they loved a letter I got from an old supervisor so I just had them keep that one. I got two new letters since she said they were not strong enough. I got a new professional and a new academic letter. I believe the terms are if you graduated 2 years ago or less, they want two academic letters and one professional.  If you graduated 2 years ago or more, they want two professional and one academic. Since they denied me the first time, this cycle let me to being in the 2+ years category. I preferred that anyway because I was dealing with a lot of things in college (working, taking care of family) and it impacted my academics. I was above a 3.0 but high enough.  So as someone said, I knew I had to be strategic. I asked another supervisor from the same job I got my other letter from. I did this because she also saw my performance and made various positive comments about it in the brief time I was there. Despite not having worked there in over a year, I felt more confident they could speak to my clinical and professional skills than my current positions. I also asked to read all my letters BEFORE. Up until that point, I've always chosen not to look beforehand and trust whatever the person would say. However, it's a good thing I did insist on reading it because the other supervisor's first draft was terribly generic even though it was positive.  So I emailed her and asked could she please be more specific and even listed traits that would be great if she referred to them. She did not consult me in the drafting of the second letter but she did send it to me and it was sooooo much better.  My academic letter, I reflected on professors I actually developed some type of relationship with and tried to focus on professors from courses where the material was difficult so it would back up the idea that I can tackle and excel in accelerated graduate level work. I emailed them in August and it's a good thing I did it way ahead of time as it turned out some were on Sabbatical and didn't get back to me for a little while. Luckily, they eventually looked and remembered me so they were willing to take time out to speak with me despite it being so long since I last saw them and despite being on Sabbatical. I ended up choosing a public health professor over another professor because I could tell she had more specifics about my academic performance in her letter before she even sent it to me. She also spoke to the kind of material covered in class to further cement the idea that I could tackle math courses and dense reading material (we did both in the public health class). 

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1 hour ago, Psychmeout2 said:

I was also denied even an interview last year. J mentioned a few different things but said ultimately the LORs and my GRE math score were what did me in (I was above 80th percentile in both verbal and essays without even studying luckily). Anyhoo, as some people have stated already I decided to take a much less laid back approach when it came to my LORs the next year. She said they loved a letter I got from an old supervisor so I just had them keep that one. I got two new letters since she said they were not strong enough. I got a new professional and a new academic letter. I believe the terms are if you graduated 2 years ago or less, they want two academic letters and one professional.  If you graduated 2 years ago or more, they want two professional and one academic. Since they denied me the first time, this cycle let me to being in the 2+ years category. I preferred that anyway because I was dealing with a lot of things in college (working, taking care of family) and it impacted my academics. I was above a 3.0 but high enough.  So as someone said, I knew I had to be strategic. I asked another supervisor from the same job I got my other letter from. I did this because she also saw my performance and made various positive comments about it in the brief time I was there. Despite not having worked there in over a year, I felt more confident they could speak to my clinical and professional skills than my current positions. I also asked to read all my letters BEFORE. Up until that point, I've always chosen not to look beforehand and trust whatever the person would say. However, it's a good thing I did insist on reading it because the other supervisor's first draft was terribly generic even though it was positive.  So I emailed her and asked could she please be more specific and even listed traits that would be great if she referred to them. She did not consult me in the drafting of the second letter but she did send it to me and it was sooooo much better.  My academic letter, I reflected on professors I actually developed some type of relationship with and tried to focus on professors from courses where the material was difficult so it would back up the idea that I can tackle and excel in accelerated graduate level work. I emailed them in August and it's a good thing I did it way ahead of time as it turned out some were on Sabbatical and didn't get back to me for a little while. Luckily, they eventually looked and remembered me so they were willing to take time out to speak with me despite it being so long since I last saw them and despite being on Sabbatical. I ended up choosing a public health professor over another professor because I could tell she had more specifics about my academic performance in her letter before she even sent it to me. She also spoke to the kind of material covered in class to further cement the idea that I could tackle math courses and dense reading material (we did both in the public health class). 

Wow, you’re brave for requesting to read them beforehand. Did you get any pushback? I didn’t ask to read my letters beforehand but I definitely sent the letter requests along with bullet points of what to write/mention so I just had to hope that they followed “my guidelines”

 

PS. If it helps anyone to know, I got 50th percentile in both math and verbal on GRE and got in. I guess it’s true, the GREs don't weigh heavily 

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Sorry for the delayed response to everyone!! Thank you all so much for the amazing and helpful responses about the LOR. It gave me a lot of perspective and I can definitely understand that 2 of mine most likely came across pretty generic (although positive) and wouldn’t have been persuasive enough to be competitive. I am 14 years out of school. I have a dusty Biology degree and also my BSN, which I did through an accelerated program. It has been too many years out of university to use previous professors as options. I have my private pilot’s license and used my flight instructor as a reference for the academic requirement since he was also a ground school instructor and I have spent over 100 hours with him in the plane and in the classroom learning a new skill. One of my other recommenders was a charge nurse but I think she sadly lacked the writing enthusiasm to make it pop. The other one was a manager I had worked with at two different NICUs in my career and she pretty much just regurgitated my resume. I felt like I wrote them really thoughtful emails when I requested the recommendations. I took the time to explain why I was making the pivot from NICU to mental health and why I was choosing Yale’s program. However, next time I will truly connect with the people I choose to see if they’re able to provide both a strong and personal submission. That is a great suggestion to outright ask if it will be strong, not just positive. I have to admit, most of my connections with supervisors and charge nurses have been pretty brief as a traveler. And now, I have a full time telehealth job where I interact with patients via zoom and never interact with upper management. I will do some deep thinking though! I think I partially felt bad “bugging” some of the other charge nurses I’ve had over the years that have already been used as references for various work contracts but it truly is worth it now that I know it weighs so heavily. Jana did give me positive feedback on my essays, saying no points were deducted and they were “great.” I have an OK GPA (3.5 ish) and over 80 percentile in both the writing and verbal but the math was a cool 50 percentile haha. She stressed that it doesn’t mean much. I do volunteer in a group that provides support to moms experiencing perinatal mood disorders and I lead support groups with that. I could use the next few months to add more experiences in mental health. Although, I felt like they weren’t necessarily looking for more psych background/experience. If I don’t get into Vanderbilt or perhaps decide to delay school another year, I will absolutely apply to Yale again. She did make it seem like they would have more spots for BSN applicants next year with COVID not affecting clinicals as much. Is there anyone on this thread that is going to be starting the Psych/Mental Health direct MSN entry in the fall? If so, any chance you’d like to stay in touch via email with me? I’d love to hear what you think of the program as I consider possibly applying again. Thank you all so much, especially those that applied again with success. You give me hope! 

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2 hours ago, FlyingNurse said:

Sorry for the delayed response to everyone!! Thank you all so much for the amazing and helpful responses about the LOR. It gave me a lot of perspective and I can definitely understand that 2 of mine most likely came across pretty generic (although positive) and wouldn’t have been persuasive enough to be competitive. I am 14 years out of school. I have a dusty Biology degree and also my BSN, which I did through an accelerated program. It has been too many years out of university to use previous professors as options. I have my private pilot’s license and used my flight instructor as a reference for the academic requirement since he was also a ground school instructor and I have spent over 100 hours with him in the plane and in the classroom learning a new skill. One of my other recommenders was a charge nurse but I think she sadly lacked the writing enthusiasm to make it pop. The other one was a manager I had worked with at two different NICUs in my career and she pretty much just regurgitated my resume. I felt like I wrote them really thoughtful emails when I requested the recommendations. I took the time to explain why I was making the pivot from NICU to mental health and why I was choosing Yale’s program. However, next time I will truly connect with the people I choose to see if they’re able to provide both a strong and personal submission. That is a great suggestion to outright ask if it will be strong, not just positive. I have to admit, most of my connections with supervisors and charge nurses have been pretty brief as a traveler. And now, I have a full time telehealth job where I interact with patients via zoom and never interact with upper management. I will do some deep thinking though! I think I partially felt bad “bugging” some of the other charge nurses I’ve had over the years that have already been used as references for various work contracts but it truly is worth it now that I know it weighs so heavily. Jana did give me positive feedback on my essays, saying no points were deducted and they were “great.” I have an OK GPA (3.5 ish) and over 80 percentile in both the writing and verbal but the math was a cool 50 percentile haha. She stressed that it doesn’t mean much. I do volunteer in a group that provides support to moms experiencing perinatal mood disorders and I lead support groups with that. I could use the next few months to add more experiences in mental health. Although, I felt like they weren’t necessarily looking for more psych background/experience. If I don’t get into Vanderbilt or perhaps decide to delay school another year, I will absolutely apply to Yale again. She did make it seem like they would have more spots for BSN applicants next year with COVID not affecting clinicals as much. Is there anyone on this thread that is going to be starting the Psych/Mental Health direct MSN entry in the fall? If so, any chance you’d like to stay in touch via email with me? I’d love to hear what you think of the program as I consider possibly applying again. Thank you all so much, especially those that applied again with success. You give me hope! 

You seem like such a lovely person. I wholeheartedly wish you luck, whether you are still waiting to hear from programs or decide to reapply next year. Above all, nursing school candidates should be passionate and you clearly are. 

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On 2/13/2021 at 8:55 AM, Rouge_bbase said:

Wow, you’re brave for requesting to read them beforehand. Did you get any pushback? I didn’t ask to read my letters beforehand but I definitely sent the letter requests along with bullet points of what to write/mention so I just had to hope that they followed “my guidelines”

 

PS. If it helps anyone to know, I got 50th percentile in both math and verbal on GRE and got in. I guess it’s true, the GREs don't weigh heavily 

No I didn't get any pushback requesting to see them and in fact, one of them wanted me to see them. I think if you have good grades in math and science classes or other ways to show you are capable, it helps to outweigh the GRE

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