11th grader has decided to pursue Nursing...help?

[Sue G in PA]

My 11th grade dd just told me she thinks she might want to pursue Nursing. We have not been real heavy on the sciences here...she has taken Phys. Science, Bio and is now doing Environmental Science at our co-op and slowly making her way through Apologia Chem. She has never been a real science minded child. I need some advice on how to plan the next 1/2 year and her senior year to make her a strong candidate for a Nursing degree. She also isn't very advance in math. Partly my fault, but she re-took Alg. 1 b/c Saxon just wasn't cutting it for her and I didn't figure that out until mid-year. :/ She is now in Geometry and will start taking Alg. 2 simultaneously when we start back up on the 7th. Thanks for any advice you have. She has really thrown me for a loop here! LOL.

[Dana]

I'd be checking the requirements at the school she might go to.

 

Our cc has a nursing program. Admission is very tough. I don't know if it's easier or more difficult at the 4-year school nearby. Our cc gives preferential admission to students with certain skills or prior work. You might check that out.

 

Math is a weed-out course. They keep raising the requirements for the nursing students. The students I've taught who I've seen in the field have all been solid, solid A students. Anatomy/Physiology is also a major weed-out course. But students have to have a certain level of math to get there.

 

So best advice I have is to check the school and see what they require. That'll give you some good ideas for what needs to be done. If she hasn't taken any courses at the cc yet, you could have her take the placement test there. That may give more info as well. Placement testing doesn't require her to take classes.... :)

[Luckymama]

I know the state university "strongly suggests" that nursing applicants have taken two years of chemistry (regular chem, then either AP or Chem 2) iand one of biology, in addition to the other requirements.

[G5052]

She basically needs as much science and math as she can get, with science being the most important. If she starts at a school that has developmental (pre-college) math, she can make that up but she has to be able to pass the pre-college courses and reach college algebra. Doing really well in the college science courses is critical. If she isn't science-oriented now, that will need to change. Nursing is a science major.

 

At the community college where I work, the students admitted to the nursing program have almost all A's and maybe a few B's. Needless to say, the majority who start out as pre-nursing majors don't get into the program.

[gingersmom]

Would she consider doing an extra year to get more math/ science credits?

 

My 10th grader is planning on attending a 4 year college to get her BSN in nursing. There are some programs that enroll you in nursing major as a freshman and others make you apply for junior year. Either way we hear the competition is fierce.

 

My daughter is currently taking honors algebra 2 and I think next year is planning on calculus. I think senior year is statistics. She will also have bio, cell bio (honors), chemistry, anatomy/physiology and one more science senior year.

 

I would definitely have your daughter start checking out schools and seeing their requirements.

[Sue G in PA]

She is deciding this so very late in the game. :/ Up until today she wanted to be a teacher. So, for this next semester she will have to double up on Geometry and Algebra 2, continue through the summer and move on to Advanced Math. For Science, she will have to move rather quickly through Chem and then take 2 Sciences next year...Anatomy/Phys. and Adv. Chem perhaps? She is a young junior (just turned 16 in Nov.) so we DO have some buffer room. She could "graduate" with her co-op seniors but still take another year to perhaps do some dual credit in some of these Science courses? Any feedback to these plans? I'm really at a loss. Only thing going for me is our co-op director is a nurse and her second oldest daughter is in a Nursing program at our local cc. Hoping they have some advice for me! Thanks!

[Twigs]

I tutor Biology (including A&P) and Chemistry at the local cc especially for those entering nursing and allied health fields.

 

A&P is definately a weed-out course. I always suggest to students that before they take A&P to take Medical Terminology. You could have your daughter work thru a Med.Term book such as The Language of Medicine by Davi-Ellen Chabner. This workbook goes thru the body systems one by one, essentially giving a mini-anatomy course. Then when she takes A&P, she will understand the terminology during lectures.

 

Best wishes.

[Lori D.]

Here's a thread from a year ago on this same topic that may be helpful with requirements for heading towards nursing.

 

 

she thinks she might want to pursue Nursing... She is deciding this so very late in the game. :/ Up until today she wanted to be a teacher.

 

 

[boldface above added by me for emphasis] This suggests to me that the FIRST thing to do is actually find out if this is a career DD *really* is interested in, or if it was just the *idea* of nursing that sounded good. ;) You really don't want to drastically re-write the last year-and-a-half of DD's high school in a way that would require a HEAVY course load and a LOT of work to make sure to earn high grades -- just for a sudden whim... You want to make sure this is the real deal to be worth the work everyone will have to put in to make this happen.

 

 

Discuss the realities of nursing -- long hours, night shifts, dealing with sick people, administering needles and other painful procedures, often poorly treated by physicians... Does DD have a heart for to help hurting people? Or is it some other aspect of nursing that appeals to her?

 

Discuss what *exactly* appeals to her about nursing:

- working with people? what age -- geriatric, adults, children, all ages...?

- medical research?

- emergency care?

- overseeing specific medical tests or treatments?

- facilitating rehabilitation?

- teaching people how to be healthy or teach about medical matters?

- missionary work and health care?

- labor and delivery? (maybe work as a doula or midwife?)

- can her specific interest be fulfilled better through a related but different occupation?

 

 

Schedule DD to "shadow" nurses of different types: clinic or doctor's office; hospital; home-health care; etc. Have DD "interview" the nurses with a list of questions DD writes up in advance about work conditions, pay level and advancement, how to best prepare for the schooling and job, what are the good parts and bad parts of the job, why did that person go into nursing, etc....

 

Explore other medical areas that might be a stepping stone to nursing, or be of more interest to DD. For example, these require only a Certificate or a 2-year Associate's Degree, and several are high-demand jobs (though, none pay that well):

 

- EMT or paramedic

- medical assistant

- home health/personal aide

- nursing home worker (nursing aide, orderlie or attendant)

 

 

Other high-demand medical-related occupations requiring only a 2-year degree that DO pay well include:

- respiratory therapist

- radiation therapist

- radiologic technologist

- cardiovascular technologists and technicians, and vascular technologist

- diagnostic medical sonographer

- nuclear medicine technologist

- medical lab technician

 

 

BEST of luck in your career explorations! Warmest regards, Lori D.

[Freckles]

I graduated with my BSN almost 17 years ago. I'm sure some things have changed.

I was required to take college Algebra and a statistics course for nursing. Your dd must understand the metric system and how to convert to be competant in dosage calculation. There are quizzes on line to work with dosage calc. practice.

I took 2 years of chem and lab

Biology/lab

microbioloy/lab

pathophysiology

A/P with labs

I believe it was 21 credit hours in Science alone. I would suggest getting a CNA cert while getting pre-recs finished for nursing school. It would give your dd some real life experience on the not so glamorous side of nursing. Best of luck!

[Janice in NJ]

At our state's big uni, there are 1,200 applicants for 40 slots in the nursing program. Yes, 30 kids for each slot.

 

When the director released that info at Open House, the back of the room quickly cleared. "That always happens," she commented.

 

Part of the issue is the state-mandated teacher/student ratio in the actual junior/senior year nursing classes. The other issue is locating enough sites for the clinical rotations.

 

You can imagine how they sort applicants. First of all, you need certain math and science courses (including bio and chem). Don't have it? Round file. Right away. "A student-employee does that. I don't even look at those."

 

Then test scores. She announced the average SAT/ACT test scores of admitted applicants after she told the room about the 1,200/40 fact. Another group of folks got up and left. "OK. Now let's see. Would some of you like to move forward for the rest of this presentation?"

 

"After that we are going to look at your grades and the rigor of your coursework. I give this presentation multiple times a year, and I still get 1,200 applications. So don't think you're going to get a slot just because you passed the first two rounds and are still sitting here."

 

Our CC is worse. They offer a pre-nursing exam and just take the students with the highest scores on the exam. (You can't take the exam unless you already have the required courses.) "We have way too many qualified applicants to do it any other way. Grades don't really matter; you can't get a tippy top score on this exam unless you are already an A student. The exam is the fairest way to choose from a large pool of extremely qualified applicants."

 

Please do your research. Sure, anything is possible if the student is very motivated. If your daughter is serious about this, get thee to an open house. Visit your local CC; ours has multiple career nights every year where they discuss what they offer and what you have to do to get into the programs. For my dd, talking about competition was one thing. But when she found herself sitting in an ENORMOUS room full of eager kids whom she suddenly viewed as her competition, it woke her up.

 

Me: So it looks like there were about 300 people there today at the open house session.

DD: Yes.

Me: Do you think you are one of the ten that will be selected? If you were making the admissions decision, what reasons could you give for picking you over the other 29 people sitting around you?

DD: *blank stare at the ground*

 

Peace,

Janice

 

Enjoy your little people

Enjoy your journey

[at the beach]

Take a look at your cc's requirements. Our cc requires a 21 on the ACT plus high school algebra, chemistry and biology (minimum C grade required in each) from a high school student. Then, you have to take A & P 1 and medical terminology (with a C average) before being allowed to take health tech courses. You also have to either place into college algebra or complete intermediate algebra with a C. Once you are in the program, you have to maintain a C average and the other science courses are A & P 2 and Microbiology. Our local cc has a very respectable program. Once you meet the requirements, you go on a wait list. Everyone is eligible as long as they meet those requirements for the prerequisites--the wait list is pretty long from what I've heard. If you get a 4.0, you don't get in faster. When you are on the wait list, I believe you take other courses to get them out of the way. This is a two-year degree, but we have lots of bridge programs locally to get your BSN.

 

If your daughter is interested in nursing, I'd have her start doing some volunteering at a nursing home or hospital.

[Chris in PA]

This suggests to me that the FIRST thing to do is actually find out if this is a career DD *really* is interested in, or if it was just the *idea* of nursing that sounded good. ;) You really don't want to drastically re-write the last year-and-a-half of DD's high school in a way that would require a HEAVY course load and a LOT of work to make sure to earn high grades -- just for a sudden whim... You want to make sure this is the real deal to be worth the work everyone will have to put in to make this happen.

 

Discuss the realities of nursing -- long hours, night shifts, dealing with sick people, administering needles and other painful procedures, often poorly treated by physicians... Does DD have a heart for to help hurting people? Or is it some other aspect of nursing that appeals to her?

 

Discuss what *exactly* appeals to her about nursing:

- working with people? what age -- geriatric, adults, children, all ages...?

- medical research?

- emergency care?

- overseeing specific medical tests or treatments?

- facilitating rehabilitation?

- teaching people how to be healthy or teach about medical matters?

- missionary work and health care?

- labor and delivery? (maybe work as a doula or midwife?)

- can her specific interest be fulfilled better through a related but different occupation?

 

Sue,

I totally agree with what Lori is saying. My oldest left nursing school after 6 weeks. She loves children and really wanted to work in a NICU. She shadowed a friend several times and thought this was the career for her. Six weeks in she hated it! She wasn't working with kids but adults (elderly and a terminally ill woman my age that really upset her). Lucky for us the nursing school she attended was affiliated with a hospital and the students were put into clinical 3 weeks into the program. She found out quickly it wasn't what she wanted to do and transferred to the local state university. She is now a psychology major with an emphasis in school counseling. It is a much better fit and she loves it.

 

So have her shadow someone in the field. Explore the reasons why she wants to be a nurse. If you have other questions, you can PM me. My dd looked into the program at HACC and she was enrolled in the program at LGH.

[G5052]

Sue,

I totally agree with what Lori is saying. My oldest left nursing school after 6 weeks. She loves children and really wanted to work in a NICU. She shadowed a friend several times and thought this was the career for her. Six weeks in she hated it! She wasn't working with kids but adults (elderly and a terminally ill woman my age that really upset her). Lucky for us the nursing school she attended was affiliated with a hospital and the students were put into clinical 3 weeks into the program. She found out quickly it wasn't what she wanted to do and transferred to the local state university. She is now a psychology major with an emphasis in school counseling. It is a much better fit and she loves it.

 

So have her shadow someone in the field. Explore the reasons why she wants to be a nurse. If you have other questions, you can PM me. My dd looked into the program at HACC and she was enrolled in the program at LGH.

 

 

Yes, I volunteered as a candy striper all through high school and had planned on medical school. During my senior year I was allowed to work with some of the tougher cases, and frankly it ended my plans for any kind of medical career. Getting to know and working with patients that were terminal or later suddenly died really bothered me. I just read to them and fed them, and it still really shook me when they were gone. Now I think I'd have a different perspective, but not as a young person.

[Lori D.]

Thanks for sharing from your DD's experience, Chris! And glad your DD so quickly was able to discover nursing was not for her -- and that your DD has found a field that is much more "filling her cup". :)

 

That's helpful for a student to realize, too -- nursing school will cover ALL aspects of medical care, all types of medical conditions, and all ages of patients and over the course of the program, some of which the student may not like at all. While psychiatric really upset one of my friends while going through nursing school, another really loved working with teens in the psychiatric ward and specialized in it.

 

However, if the student is only interested in one small aspect of nursing, that might be drowned out by all the other parts of nursing that are NOT so appealing or interesting. And like Chris' DD, the student may be much happier in a related field.

 

Or, the student may realize they really do want to do a specialized area of nursing, and it's worth it to "suck it up" and get through the undesirable parts in order to graduate and specialize in the area they DO want to do... Tough choices!

[FaithManor]

My 11th grade dd just told me she thinks she might want to pursue Nursing. We have not been real heavy on the sciences here...she has taken Phys. Science, Bio and is now doing Environmental Science at our co-op and slowly making her way through Apologia Chem. She has never been a real science minded child. I need some advice on how to plan the next 1/2 year and her senior year to make her a strong candidate for a Nursing degree. She also isn't very advance in math. Partly my fault, but she re-took Alg. 1 b/c Saxon just wasn't cutting it for her and I didn't figure that out until mid-year. :/ She is now in Geometry and will start taking Alg. 2 simultaneously when we start back up on the 7th. Thanks for any advice you have. She has really thrown me for a loop here! LOL.

 

 

Is she wanting to pursue an ADN or a BSRN? This really makes a difference in the approach.

 

DD, when she was looking at nursing, needed the following in order to gain admittance to tier 1 uni nursing departments for the BSRN.

 

Math through Pre-Calc and a minimum 27 in the math portion of the ACT and a 27 composite. They actually didn't look that hard at the science reasoning portion because it really doesn't test specific scientific knowledge.

 

Bio, chem, or physics AP - one - didn't need all three though I'm sure that would have been helpful, in order to apply for scholarships in the pre-nursing department. Actual nursing scholarships began the junior year when after all pre-reqs were completed, the student applied for admission to the college of nursing.

 

Four years of lab based sciences. Heavy emphasis on chemistry or physics was encouraged over taking advanced bio (anatomy and physiology) due to the math nature of the upper science courses in college including organic chemistry which can be a bear for many students.

 

Four years of English and Three years of Social Studies.

 

Three years of foreign language - all of the uni's she applied to accepted her two years of Latin (thought it was a great language to study for medical majors and dd said it helped her A LOT memorizing pharmacology terms, anatomy, etc.) and two years of Spanish plus her one year of sign language. She'd like to pursue more sign language because now that she's working as a medic, her limited knowledge has been handy a time or two. The hospitals will send out for an interpreter and the large hospitals often have one on staff. However, out in the field, kneeling in a ditch, tending a crash victim, there isn't time to send for anyone.

 

Electives and they preferred elective heavy in science, writing, math, and soft sciences such as psychology, sociology, etc. and then extra-curriculars and person recommendations to make the transcript competitive since there are limited spots for BSRN programs as the state regulates how many students there can be per professor and how many graduates there can be each year.

 

Those were the minimums. Now, the regional uni down the road that actually has a nursing reputation of ill repute, has lower minimums, but they also have a very poor department. So, choose and choose wisely. Had dd graduated from that school, she would have a very hard time finding work. Thankfully, she landed at U of M which has a WONDERFUL nursing college, but the requirements to gain admission were stiff! She did not end up pursuing nursing at that time though. She changed to a chemistry major and went to paramedic school simultaneously because she likes trauma medicine and well, chem! She is eventually going to complete a bridge program for medic to BSRN because she's getting married and finds medic life not to be as conducive to family planning as she'd like nor is the pay near what nurses get.

 

ADN programs are not quite so difficult to gain admittance to and often accept students who have only completed three lab sciences and algebra 2. However, a lot of hospitals want BSRN's these days so make sure that you know specifically what your daughter wants to do in nursing and where she would like to work ideally so that you plan accordingly.

 

One ADN program in our state requires prospective nursing students who did not take pre-calc, to take it in college before beginning their program as well as introductory chemistry. If they get at least a B, then they begin the program. So, there can be a delay of one semester getting started. Be sure to ask these very specific questions when checking out the programs so you know exactly what your dd needs and can find a good fit for her.

 

Faith

[FaithManor]

At our state's big uni, there are 1,200 applicants for 40 slots in the nursing program. Yes, 30 kids for each slot.

 

When the director released that info at Open House, the back of the room quickly cleared. "That always happens," she commented.

 

Part of the issue is the state-mandated teacher/student ratio in the actual junior/senior year nursing classes. The other issue is locating enough sites for the clinical rotations.

 

You can imagine how they sort applicants. First of all, you need certain math and science courses (including bio and chem). Don't have it? Round file. Right away. "A student-employee does that. I don't even look at those."

 

Then test scores. She announced the average SAT/ACT test scores of admitted applicants after she told the room about the 1,200/40 fact. Another group of folks got up and left. "OK. Now let's see. Would some of you like to move forward for the rest of this presentation?"

 

"After that we are going to look at your grades and the rigor of your coursework. I give this presentation multiple times a year, and I still get 1,200 applications. So don't think you're going to get a slot just because you passed the first two rounds and are still sitting here."

 

Our CC is worse. They offer a pre-nursing exam and just take the students with the highest scores on the exam. (You can't take the exam unless you already have the required courses.) "We have way too many qualified applicants to do it any other way. Grades don't really matter; you can't get a tippy top score on this exam unless you are already an A student. The exam is the fairest way to choose from a large pool of extremely qualified applicants."

 

Please do your research. Sure, anything is possible if the student is very motivated. If your daughter is serious about this, get thee to an open house. Visit your local CC; ours has multiple career nights every year where they discuss what they offer and what you have to do to get into the programs. For my dd, talking about competition was one thing. But when she found herself sitting in an ENORMOUS room full of eager kids whom she suddenly viewed as her competition, it woke her up.

 

Me: So it looks like there were about 300 people there today at the open house session.

DD: Yes.

Me: Do you think you are one of the ten that will be selected? If you were making the admissions decision, what reasons could you give for picking you over the other 29 people sitting around you?

DD: *blank stare at the ground*

 

Peace,

Janice

 

Enjoy your little people

Enjoy your journey

 

 

Much of what you describe is what we encountered when dd was pursuing entrance to a nursing major.

 

No pre-calc - reject.

No physics - reject

No chemistry - reject

No AP exam on any science - provisional...if all other things are in line, we'll hold this in case we need to fill a spot.

 

No volunteer work in a medical environment or job shadowing - reject....too many people drop out of the program the minute they get first hand experience of what a hospital environment is really like. They want to limit their drop outs.

 

Not enough foreign language - reject.

 

GPA below 3.5 - reject except for the CC programs and even then, 3.0 was the absolute bottom because there is so much competition for the spots.

 

As for grades in the nursing pre-reqs - B's were the minimum in all math and science courses and organic chem was the weeder class. That's a nasty and no one is going to make it that can't pull at least a B in pre-calc if the uni is a tough one. Most programs did allow a second try though it delayed getting into the junior year by a semester. But, failure to get a B the second time was an automatic bounce out of the nursing program, no mercy. My mother-in-law is a retired nursing professor from a BSRN program at a good uni. You would not believe how unmerciful she became when she made dean of the department. OH MY WORD! She could say it so kindly, but however she couched it, she was a tough cookie. That said, during her 10 years as dean, not one single nursing student failed boards, ever! 100% pass rate in a state that is considered one of the toughest for state nursing boards.

 

We did not encounter a single BSRN program that would allow less than 26 composite or in the math portion of the ACT and most were 27's - it has been 4 yrs. since we checked into it so maybe something has changed since then. Possibly it could vary year to year depending on how deep the competition is.

 

The CC's allowed entrance to the ADN programs with a 24. The BAD, BAD, BAD, BAD, uni - so bad that matriculating from there means when you apply to local hospitals they'll toss your app into the garbage as soon as you leave...that kind of bad - would allow entrance based on a composite of 22.

 

Think of it this way. Nurses do med-math all the time, on the fly, in their heads...they are often away from the computer and before they administer that dose, need to make that double check in their head...is this dose right? Etc. Do you want a nurse working with intricate technologies and administering meds who is NOT good at math and logical reasoning? The requirement for pre-calc and minimum math scores isn't there just as a weeder. Frankly, nurses are not actually using trig/calc everyday at work. It's that studying these maths and math based sciences and demonstrating proficiency tends to indicate an ability to think very logically and to be able to problem solve well. That is a trait you do want your nurse to exhibit.

 

So, knowing what I know, I would push my child to go as far and as well as he/she could in high school...to achieve the most he/she can in math and science because that will only make that student a better nurse in the long run.

 

Faith

[G5052]

Or, the student may realize they really do want to do a specialized area of nursing, and it's worth it to "suck it up" and get through the undesirable parts in order to graduate and specialize in the area they DO want to do... Tough choices!

 

This is pretty much true of any field, and is an issue I see with many college students. They balk at a particular class or focus in a class without seeing the big picture. Education is designed to give you a broad exposure, and you truly don't know at 18-20 what you'll be doing at 40. So I tell them to suck up and get through it anyway. A friend of mine told me that her DC stopped one assignment short of a degree because she thought that the term project that a professor assigned was irrelevant to her situation. So the student didn't do it, failed the class, and didn't get a degree. I know the professor and assignment, and IMHO it was a completely valid assignment with long-term vision behind it.

 

And I can't count how many pre-nursing students that I teach at the community college who moan and groan about how much they wished that they hadn't slacked in high school.

[Sue G in PA]

Thanks for all this wonderful advice! I have a gut feeling that my daughter is attracted to all the "glamorous" aspects of nursing...helping sick people, caring for little ones, working with labor and delivery, etc. and is a bit blind to all the not so glamorous aspects that you all have mentioned. I will look into having her "shadow" a few nurses. Our co-op director works in various departments at the hospital (depends on where she is needed) and has some really crazy stories to tell. It's not all glamorous! LOL. Our CC doesn't have any entrance requirements but I am fairly certain that once she gets those pre reqs out of the way and actually applies to the school of Nursing, it will be competitive and a whole diff. ballgame. I'm so appreciative that you all took the time to share your experience with me!

[Dana]

The cc may be open admission, but she should check with nursing. Ours has a long waiting list even after prereqs are done. Thus the preferential admission may be helpful. I've had students who hoped to go into nursing who would have to wait a couple of years after prereqs were done!

[rieshy]

I tutor Biology (including A&P) and Chemistry at the local cc especially for those entering nursing and allied health fields.

 

A&P is definately a weed-out course. I always suggest to students that before they take A&P to take Medical Terminology. You could have your daughter work thru a Med.Term book such as The Language of Medicine by Davi-Ellen Chabner. This workbook goes thru the body systems one by one, essentially giving a mini-anatomy course. Then when she takes A&P, she will understand the terminology during lectures.

 

Best wishes.

 

 

This book looks excellent!

[Candid]

I haven't seen this mentioned, but cc vs. full for year degree depends on the hospital she may work on and I think preference goes in cycles. Locally the big hospital had preferred cc grads as more ready to work. They would pay for finishing a for year degree if they wanted it. There was even talk of an in house program for that. Recently they've begun to send signals that they might now be leaning more towards the four year grads.

 

So if she proves to be sure, check all this out.