Nursing School 101 Series

                                                        

                  "It Costs How Much?!??!!!": The nursing school process exposed!

Hello All! As I move through the next phase of my life/career, I thought it would be a great stress reliever to write about my nursing school application process. Not only will it help me decompress, but I hope that you all will be able to gather valuable information you can use if you want to be a nurse, or you can share with someone who may be lost in their own process. So get your notepads out, class is in session!

                      

About $500. That is how much I spent on transcripts. This does not include the cost of gas driving to all these campuses and the hours poured into making sure every “i” was dotted and “t” crossed. There were 9 schools on my list. Out of the 9, I have applied to 4 programs. It would have been more, but I recently got a job and that hinders my availability to go to campuses and talk to nursing counselors. Applying for nursing school has been one the most stressful processes I have ever voluntarily put myself through. There were many moving parts and I thought I would share the major ones with you. Hopefully it will help someone out as they go through the process.

Part One: Let's get started!

Figuring out where to apply

There are a lot of schools to choose from, especially in California. There are diploma and degree programs to consider. Some are, most are, impacted if you are leaning toward community colleges. You could go the private route, i.e. West Coast University, Loma Linda or American Career College, among others. I went onto the Board of Registered Nursing website for the state of California and pulled up the NCLEX (national licensing exam for nurses) passing rates. From there, I chose how far I was willing to travel or move to go to school and picked the programs with the highest passing rates. I already had all of my core prerequisites done, so I was able to make my list with confidence. My advice: make sure you have your classes done. It takes away some of the anxiety.

I made a spreadsheet

Every school requires a certain number of transcripts to be sent to them. Sometimes you have to send them to two separate offices (like with Los Angeles Pierce College). Every school pretty much has the same requirements, but there is some variation. Schools like El Camino/Compton Educational Center require two extra classes. These courses fill up very, very fast. If you don’t already go to that school, your registration date may be so far out that you will have to attempt crashing to class. Some schools have chemistry as a requirement, or use it to make up for lack of units. I went on each website, printed out information on the schools I wanted to apply to and made a folder for easy access. I made a spreadsheet of how many transcripts each program wanted versus the schools I took the prerequisite at and put the mailing address on there as well.

I suggest you start with this. If you are just beginning the process, I think choosing the schools you want to apply to and preparing this spreadsheet is a great way to start your nursing school journey. Come back next week for the next installation of our series! Have a great weekend!

xoxo, 

Amanda

Websites that may help:

www.rn.ca.gov

www.brn.com

www.allnursingschools.com

www.atitesting.com