the wait...

I submitted my nursing school application to Florida State College of Jacksonville (formerly Florida Community College of Jacksonville, fyi) on October 1 and was told I should expect to know something within 6-8 weeks from that date. They admit 120 students and the Dean of Nursing (who seems to be a gigantic beyotch) informed me that they receive over 600 applicants. They accept on a point system, meaning that they total up selected points for my pre-requisite nursing courses, add them to my score from the Nursing School Aptitude Exam and stick that number on a piece of paper with my social security number and the first 120 with the highest score get in. Yes, I have good grades and a good Nursing School Aptitude Exam score, but the things is is that so does everyone else and I applied a semester early to the program. You can still apply while you are enrolled in Microbiology, but if you do then the points for that class (a 4 credit class) won't count towards your overall points. So I am a possible 16 points (4 credit course x 4 points for an A = 16 points) lower than all the other competitive applicants. So my chances of getting into FSCJ are really pretty low for this semester. IF I don't get in I will reapply in February and will start the process all over, but hopefully by that time I will be much more competitive with all of my points being factored in. I am working on a Plan B - I've registered for another chemistry course (CHM 2045) for next semester that I will need as a pre-req for the RN-MSN bridge program at University of North Florida, and I'm registered for the pre-req to the EMT program at FSCJ. I'm thinking about registering for a spanish class too.

I submit my application to Jacksonville University's nursing program December 1, but it is a private school that is so freaking expensive ($30K for the accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program...a 16 month program!!) and also competitive.

And I submit my application to University of North Florida in early January but they are so bleeping competitive - only accept 23 students A YEAR - and I don't even meet their GPA requirement. It's basically pointless, but I figure I have to apply anyways because otherwise I would never know.

So for the past year I've been sorta embarrassed about the community college thing. Thinking what a joke it is, and how I already have a "real" college degree and am perhaps a little smarter than everyone else and how surely I will get into UNF or JU. Well, it turns out that humble pie is pretty crappy to eat because reality has hit that everyone and their sister is applying to nursing school and all these other applicants are all pretty damn smart with great grades and holy crap I might not get into nursing school at ALL and when it all comes down to it I would be GRATEFUL to get into a community college's nursing program now.