For Penn, I was lucky enough to talk with Sheyenne! If you are planning on studying nursing in college, her advice will DEFINITELY help you! Her tips are so specific and have answered every question I had in mind! Thank you so much Sheyenne!
What makes Penn so special to you? Was it your first choice and your dream school?
"I love Penn because of how I feel when I’m there, when I’m in class, sitting in my dorm, or around Philadelphia. I just feel like I am exactly where I am supposed to be. I love how diverse the school is in all aspects of the word (especially the FGLI kids representation!! I’m FGLI) I also love how it is situated in Philadelphia; it’s still in Philly, but we are our own campus. I think being in nursing adds to my experience because we are a tight knit community as our school is rather small. I’ve made great friends in and outside of nursing, though! To be honest, I don’t think I even had a “dream” school. I just knew I wanted to go into the medical field and preferably at a good college. I applied to Penn on a whim, thinking I wouldn’t get into an Ivy. When I got the acceptance email I was elated and a whole new dream sprouted before me."
What kind of classes would you highly recommend students to take in high school before going off to college if they’re interested in nursing?
"If you can take AP chem, any sort of microbiology class, anatomy and physiology, or any sort of policy class (especially health policy), then this would prepare you a lot for classes you will encounter in nursing! I really don’t think these classes are very necessary though; of those I just listed I only took AP Chem and I’m doing just fine. At least at Penn, we dive hands in pretty quickly too so you will get a lot of experience under your belt before you know it. Taking those difficult APs/ college level classes will look great on transcripts of course, but it all depends on where you want to go. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. I feel like nursing focuses more on other aspects of applications like essays, rather than just hard classes and GPAs. They’re important, but not the only thing."
How would you describe the weather at Penn? Does it frequently snow? What would advise students to bring when coming to Penn?
"I’m from Connecticut so Penn is slightly more mild to me! I love the weather most of the time. You get a taste of all 4 seasons here during the school year. It really doesn’t snow much in the city, but occasionally we’ll have a nice picturesque snow day. Campus will flood when it rains, especially in some spots. Bring. Rain. Boots. Nothing fancy—I’ve used a pair of $10 long rain boots from Walmart the past two years and been fine! It gets chilly of course here, so a good winter coat will go a long way. It’s still a milder winter than I’m used to in Connecticut though! I feel like there are a lot of warm and sunny days in early fall and spring that even it all out though. And now I believe all dorms will have air conditioning, so you don’t have to worry about the nice inevitable 90 degree heat wave in the beginning of the year!"
What is one advice you would give for high school students determining where they want to apply? What would you want them to do research on that you wish you did before you went to college?
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"One piece that I found super helpful was on collegeboard. For each school under “paying” there is financial aid by the numbers. Look at “% of need met”. For anyone that doesn’t happen to have enough money lying around to pay for their entire 4 years (lol), this number is important!! The percentage means how much financial aid the schools will give based off things like FAFSA. If the percentage is 100% or closer to it that is amazing! It means you will probably get a generous financial aid package and not go into immense amounts of debt. Barely any schools have a high % other than ivies usually, but just know the higher this number the better! This is super applicable to people who are concerned about paying for college/parents don’t make a lot of money to support. Sticker prices on colleges sometimes mean nothing, so do your research!"
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"Unfortunately if your parent(s) make a lottt of money then you may not qualify for much aid but hopefully this can help a lot of ppl."
Were you able to take most of your first-choice classes?
"I have actually had no problems getting the courses I wanted. Me being in nursing probably plays a slight role in this as we don’t have much wiggle room in which classes we take, (3/4 of our schedule is pretty laid out for us) but as long as you sign up during advanced registration I haven’t heard too many complaints!"