nursing school prerequisites

[cookderosa]

Has anyone attended at UTA online? I'm now seriously considering it: I was prepping for Wayland Baptist, but this is less than half the price and has far less prerequisites. The only trade off is that the HESI is required, and I know nothing about that yet.

Also, is anyone from San Antonio considering this program? Apparently, they admit by cohorts and there must be enough people accepted from a given city to be able to do clinicals there.

I took the HESI. Absolutely a joke. It's not hard at all. I could pull mine out/score report if you want more details.

[clep3705]

The HESI is 8th grade math and 10th grade reading.

One of the math questions has you add about 10 numbers. A calculator is provided. No I'm not making this up.

They have questions such as find the largest number:

0.7
0.08
0.009

Convert 12 or 14 or 15 or similar number to a Roman numeral.

When you take the HESI, you should take all sections including critical thinking. I took it three times because each successive school required additional sections. I should have just taken all sections the first time and been done with it.

[cookderosa]

The HESI is 8th grade math and 10th grade reading.

One of the math questions has you add about 10 numbers. A calculator is provided. No I'm not making this up.

They have questions such as find the largest number:

0.7
0.08
0.009

Convert 12 or 14 or 15 or similar number to a Roman numeral.

When you take the HESI, you should take all sections including critical thinking. I took it three times because each successive school required additional sections. I should have just taken all sections the first time and been done with it.

Yes, mine had metric too. Also know that SOME colleges include science, others don't. Mine included biology. I think you could do a search, I might have posted feedback on that test when I took it.

[clep3705]

Has anyone attended at UTA online?

There are two different answers depending on how the question is interpreted.

1. You can attend UTA online as a general student or as a prenursing student not yet in the nursing program as an official nursing student. Excellent way to fulfill prerequisites that are transferrable elsewhere.

2. You can attend UTA partially online as an officially admitted nursing student who made high enough on the HESI to be admitted.

As a UTA nursing student in the Academic Partnership (AP) BSN program, you take online classes instead of physically attending lectures. But since this is a real RN program, you have a large clinical component which must be done in person. The clinical component consists of three parts:

1. One long day per week in the clinical laboratory at the partner hospital.
2. One long day per week at the partner hospital actually seeing patients and doing things to them.
3. One partial day per week taking proctored exams. This takes 2-4 hours.

You have absolutely no flexibility whatsoever on when those three days per week take place. They tell you what those days are and you show up. They may change those days temporarily or permanently.

The AP-BSN program is new. In some cities it is brand new or not even started yet. You have to ask yourself if you are willing to be the first student in a new program in a particular city. Some people like being pioneers, some people prefer well-established programs.

They offer just about every course a prenursing student needs. They also have an extremely liberal credit by examination policy for a brick and mortar university.

Quoting from Credit by Examination - University College - The University of Texas at Arlington

“There is no limit to the amount of credit earned by examination.”
“Credit by examination on a transcript from another institution of higher education is considered transfer work and will transfer to UT Arlington”

They take a few DSST exams and many different CLEP exams.

[Vandon]

This post/poster seems to be what I am looking for. I am currently a teacher in San Antonio and I want to take prereqs. I have no idea how to get started. I have a bachelor's degree that has nothing to do with math and science. Does anyone think that it would be a good idea for me to take chem, microbio, etc online? I need to get this done quickly so I can apply by November 1st! Any information would be greatly appreciated!

Every prerequisite for nursing school can be taken online. The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) has something called an Academic Partnership program that offers all of their nursing school prerequisites online. All of them, including chemistry, microbiology, and anatomy and physiology. Courses are not offered on rigid, traditional semester schedules. They're offered throughout the year at many different times. You can't beat it for flexibility. You end up with credits from a real university that will transfer anywhere.

First you must apply and get admitted to UTA. Apply at https://www.applytexas.org

After getting admitted to UTA, then apply to the Academic Partnership nursing program. University of Texas at Arlington Academic Partnerships

When you are admitted to the Academic Partnership nursing program, you are NOT a nursing student. Don't call yourself that. You're eligible to take the Academic Partnership classes, that's all. To be a nursing student, you must apply to the nursing school when you are in your last semester of prerequisites.

Some nursing schools require nutrition, philosophy, or ethics as prerequisites. UTA does not, so they don't offer those courses online through their Academic Partnership Program. They might offer those courses as regular courses on the normal semester schedule.

Or you could take those at any major community college or junior college that offers online courses. Houston Community College and Lone Star College are two of the largest two year colleges anywhere. The advantage they have for online courses is that there is plenty of information about their instructors on Rate My Professors - Find and rate your professor, campus and more - RateMyProfessors.com, so you can easily chose an instructor you won't regret.

People who don't live in Texas have to pay the higher out of state tuition rates, but it's probably cheaper than a for profit school such as the University of Phoenix.

The Academic Partnership at UTA does have a full nursing degree, a BSN, for students admitted to the nursing program. Recorded lectures are online at your convenience. You do have clinical hours, as many hours as you would attending a real university in person. Clinical hours are done in person at a hospital. Some people don't understand that nursing is actually learned in the clinical component. You can't become a competent nurse by only taking online courses.

UTA's policy on CLEP and DSST tests is about the same as any other major, legitimate, four year public university.

Online courses are fine, but at a certain point, if you want to be a nurse able to practice anywhere and actually get hired at a top hospital, you're going to have to do clinical hours in person.

[GoodYellowDogs]

I'm curious. Since you have a bachelors degree are you going to do a BSN or are you going through a masters program for entry level nurses?

This post/poster seems to be what I am looking for. I am currently a teacher in San Antonio and I want to take prereqs. I have no idea how to get started. I have a bachelor's degree that has nothing to do with math and science. Does anyone think that it would be a good idea for me to take chem, microbio, etc online? I need to get this done quickly so I can apply by November 1st! Any information would be greatly appreciated!

[GoodYellowDogs]

Jennifer, are you going to nursing school next?

I would discourage it. I was accepted into 3 nursing programs this year.

[clep3705]

If you take online science courses from UT Arlington, you could have a problem with other schools accepting them. That you have to research on your own.

The only good BSN-RN (do not confuse with RN to BSN which is different) program at UT Arlington is the brick and mortar version in Arlington, TX. If you really want to know about nursing, visit allnurses.com. This is the wrong place to be getting deep into nursing school questions.

If you're considering nursing, there is no nursing shortage. You will have difficulty finding a job as a new grad. This is not a joke - it is an accurate representation of reality: new grads and the nursing shortage - YouTube

[GoodYellowDogs]

Actually there are some of us who do know about nursing and actually hire nurses. In addition, it depends on where you are and what type of nursing you want to do, as to whether you can get hired quickly out of school. There are new grads hiring in at $80,000 a year - how do I know - I was hiring them.

I do recommend that you get information from more than one source.

If you take online science courses from UT Arlington, you could have a problem with other schools accepting them. That you have to research on your own.

The only good RN-BSN program at UT Arlington is the brick and mortar version in Arlington, TX. If you really want to know about nursing, visit allnurses.com. This is the wrong place to be getting deep into nursing school questions.

If you're considering nursing, there is no nursing shortage. You will have difficulty finding a job as a new grad. This is not a joke - it is an accurate representation of reality: new grads and the nursing shortage - YouTube

[cookderosa]

Jennifer, are you going to nursing school next?

No, I've decided NOT to pursue that road. I am interested in human biology, and very interested in all things related to pregnancy/postpartum, so I had considered nursing school --> midwifery school for a career change. Through my prereqs and job shadowing (to prepare for my application) I decided I would also apply to med school --> OB/GYN.
Now, with respect to nurses, please don't flame me for saying this- but if I didn't get into med school, nursing school was my back up. By "back-up" I mean that I had already been accepted to several schools, nothing more.
While I do believe I could have gotten accepted into some med school somewhere (was even considering applying to one of the big 3 Caribbean options) I decided that I wasn't willing to make the sacrifices to do so. For "me" I should have done it when I was younger. And I mean that VERY SPECIFICALLY to MY life- not as in "you're too old." In fact, I don't believe I'm too old in number, I simply mean I'm already too committed in other things that I just don't want to stop doing. It was a personal thing. There is still a part of me that would LOVE to apply, just for fun. But, I'm not going to. Instead, I'm pursuing nutrition, which is a good blend of my existing career (culinary) and human biology. It definitely is the more logical choice for ME.

I encourage anyone considering nursing or med school to jump in!