Is an Ivy-League Nursing school even worth it? Plus I need some advice too

[dfrecore]

Go the cheapest route possible - in-state tuition, preferably at a CC.

[sanantone]

No offense, but does anyone care where a nurse went to school? Nurses with associate's and bachelor's degrees aren't primary or mid-level care providers. Paramedics are just a notch below nurses, and no one cares where they went to school. The same goes for respiratory therapists, surgical technologists, X-ray techs, etc. I can only see employers having a problem with Excelsior because of its lack of clinicals.

[clep3705]

As is my habit, I advise nursing questions to be redirected to allnurses.com where there are hundreds of thousands of nurses. Important life choices need more qualified opinions that what are found here. Just to clarify, I include myself as part of the group that you need to go outside of. There are relatively few nurses posting here.

One of my master's degrees is from one of those prestigious nursing schools where the name is a single word immediately recognizable. My other nursing degrees are from a state university in the top 5% nationally.

Don't spend your money on an extremely expensive private nursing school. Or a state university with expensive out of state tuition if you are out of state. The advice about going the cheapest route possible is wrong. It makes good sense to go to an affordable, good university affiliated with a large medical center.

You need to have good clinical experiences. There are very clear differences in clinical experiences. It works kind of like this. The top rated universities in a large city have their students working the day shift at top tier hospitals. The second tier universities have their students working the night shift. The night shift has somewhat of a tendency to limit the clinical experiences because the goal is to have the patients sleep. The community college students might not get any clinical experiences at the top hospitals. They are unlikely to see the most complex and varied cases.

If I'm interviewing a new graduate, I care about the school only because it tells me about the experience. If I'm interviewing an experienced nurse, all I care about are the clinical experiences at work.

Clinical experiences matter. Get the best clinical experiences from an affordable public university.

[sanantone]

As is my habit, I advise nursing questions to be redirected to allnurses.com where there are hundreds of thousands of nurses. Important life choices need more qualified opinions that what are found here. Just to clarify, I include myself as part of the group that you need to go outside of. There are relatively few nurses posting here.

I used to think this was reasonable advice until a couple of people here reported that allnurses.com members aren't very helpful. I've read the Student Doctor Forum more than I've read the allnurses.com forum, so I can only speak of SDF. They often have no clue of what they're talking about. You have psychologists saying that PsyD programs don't require dissertations (most of them do). You have physicians and other healthcare professionals who have never taken online courses and think that "online" is stamped on people's transcripts. You also have people making incorrect, sweeping generalizations about state laws. But, most importantly, the people there are rude and unhelpful. Instead of answering people's questions, they'd rather have debates among themselves. It's like DegreeInfo.com but with more than 10 active members. 

This reminds me of when this cop who was an IT instructor got annoyed when I challenged him on telling students that they can become a peace officer in Texas without going through the police academy if they earned a bachelor's in criminal justice. Texas had gotten rid of that option years ago, and the requirements for becoming a peace officer are clearly laid out on the TCOLE website and in the Texas Administrative Code. Then, there were the officers who looked at me crazy when I told them that they no longer had to work as reserve officers to keep their licenses active; they just needed to stay up to date with their continuing education requirements. Once again, that's clearly stated on the TCOLE website. 

In short, just because someone works in the field does not mean that he or she is up to date in the field. The best veterinary services my dog has received have been from younger veterinarians. Older veterinarians tend to be way behind, and it's evident that they don't keep up with new research and medical treatments. In every field, a lot of people don't know what they're talking about when it comes to online education or higher education in general. I had a guy tell me that I would never get a job with the federal government with an online master's degree from an unranked school. Guess what! I work for the federal government in a job that I wouldn't have qualified for without my master's degree.

[dfrecore]

As is my habit, I advise nursing questions to be redirected to allnurses.com where there are hundreds of thousands of nurses. Important life choices need more qualified opinions that what are found here. Just to clarify, I include myself as part of the group that you need to go outside of. There are relatively few nurses posting here.

One of my master's degrees is from one of those prestigious nursing schools where the name is a single word immediately recognizable. My other nursing degrees are from a state university in the top 5% nationally.

Don't spend your money on an extremely expensive private nursing school. Or a state university with expensive out of state tuition if you are out of state. The advice about going the cheapest route possible is wrong. It makes good sense to go to an affordable, good university affiliated with a large medical center.

You need to have good clinical experiences. There are very clear differences in clinical experiences. It works kind of like this. The top rated universities in a large city have their students working the day shift at top tier hospitals. The second tier universities have their students working the night shift. The night shift has somewhat of a tendency to limit the clinical experiences because the goal is to have the patients sleep. The community college students might not get any clinical experiences at the top hospitals. They are unlikely to see the most complex and varied cases.

If I'm interviewing a new graduate, I care about the school only because it tells me about the experience. If I'm interviewing an experienced nurse, all I care about are the clinical experiences at work.

Clinical experiences matter. Get the best clinical experiences from an affordable public university.

First, I've been to allnurses.com, and it is the WORST!  Ugh.  If anything will make you not want to be a nurse, it's the thought of working with people like that on that forum!

Second, I live in a large city (San Diego), and I can tell you that our public 4yr universities do not offer RN's; the BEST and cheapest way to get an RN or ADN in CA is through a CC.  Here in SD, we have 3 public universities, and NONE of them offer an RN; but each of the community college districts offers an RN/ADN on one of it's campuses, so there are 5 options.  We also have private schools that offer an RN, but they are VERY expensive; the CC's charge about $5000 start-to-finish, while the private schools are closer to $45,000.

So, while you may say that you should go to a 4yr school, that may not be the best option, depending on where you live.  I agree that clinical experiences are important; but just because a school is a CC does NOT mean they don't offer great clinical experiences (our CC's all offer daytime clinicals only).

[cookderosa]

My advice is that you're a lot of classes and a lot of clinical hours away from worrying about your BSN - whether or not you'll even pursue it let alone WHERE you'll pursue it. When you get to that point, you'll have a lot more experiences behind you, and a lot of networking available to decide what kind of nursing you'd like to specialize in (if at all) and the education required to do that. Pretty sure everyone is shooting for the CRNA on day 1. By day 2 most people are just shooting for the RN. Do your best, the rest will follow.

[clep3705]

It's after the first test that RN becomes the goal along with C for Continue.

[Rustydroid]

The local community college where I study may be affiliated with my job. I'm not sure how but the Allied Health Building is the same name as the hospital where I work at. However the name is of a local family who were/are a prominent in the community. I see the students from the community college at my job often.

[cardiacclep]

Today my counselor at CC , printed me out a list of schools that I could transfer and I noticed that she highlighted certain schools like : NYU , Emory and Boston College. When I asked why she told me that the better the name of the school the more money you make when it comes to nursing. . I'm sorta confused because isn't the material at an ivy league school similar if not identical to one at a community college or state university.  As crazy as it seems I'm mostly leaning towards a nursing school with connections to a good hospital and possibly somewhere where it's warm and entertaining and diversified. Ivy League seems desirable but all I can truly think about is the student loans piling up. 
When comes to how you selected schools what traits were important or desirable to you? Also , um how can I truly break free from my controlling dad whose trying to follow me to college?

I have worked in healthcare and some top 10 academic hospitals with many nursing friends for a long time. Short answer: get your RN and BSN as cheaply as possible as no one cares about nursing school rankings. If your school gets you eligible and helps you pass the RN license exam then that is all that matters. Go to a cheap state school and get experience as experienced nurses are in need. 

Once you have some experience you will be in a better place to make an educated decision for a masters. You could go the clinical route and get your NP or CRNA etc. You could go the business route and get an MBA or MHA. If you are smart, you could get the hospital you are working with to pay for your masters.

And with all things in healthcare do it for the correct reasons. Many nurses leave the profession from burnout or it’s  not how it looks on the outside once you get there. Odd hours, odd smells and odd personalities under one roof. Some people thrive in the chaos but shadow as much as possible in various departments. The ICU is much different than ER and ER is much different than special procedures etc. I love my subspecialty but I would be out of healthcare all together if I had to work in other areas of the hospital. Healthcare self selects certain personalities which gets filtered in the various departments as you will find. 

As suggested above, please check nursing forums and healthcare forums for their perspectives as well. 

Good luck.

[cookderosa]

Healthcare self selects certain personalities which gets filtered in the various departments as you will find. 

Good luck.
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Totally random, but what a wonderful research topic this would be!!