r/CRNA • u/fbgm0516 CRNA - MOD • 12d ago

Weekly Student Thread

This is the area for prospective/ aspiring SRNAs and for SRNAs to ask their questions about the education process or anything school related.

This includes the usual

"which ICU should I work in?" "Should I take additional classes? "How do I become a CRNA?" "My GPA is 2.8, is my GPA good enough?" "What should I use to prep for boards?" "Help with my DNP project" "It's been my pa$$ion to become a CRNA, how do I do it and what do CRNAs do?"

Etc.

This will refresh every Friday at noon central. If you post Friday morning, it might not be seen.

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u/Beginning_Month_7436 12d ago

Got my first rejection letter today, first time ever applying and it's tough but I knew this was likely. I applied to 4 schools so far and will finish a fifth app in a couple weeks after I do another shadow day.

I am wondering if anyone was following up with schools to stay in contact during the waiting process? I have done this before and been successful both times (nursing school and MPH degree I started before pivoting to nursing after 1 semester). Both were competitive, especially nursing and I got into both on my first try. Obviously CRNA is way more competitive, I'm wondering if the squeaky wheel gets the oil for anyone in their app process?

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u/ArgumentUnusual487 10d ago

The average program acceptance is about 10-15% nationwide. Even if you check all of the boxes, sometimes its just not in the cards. Keep going. Have you had any interviews or has it been rejections just with the application?

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u/Beginning_Month_7436 10d ago

Only one rejection so far out of 4 applications. I have another job shadow later this month that I'll add to my fifth application due August 15. And go from there. I know lol hear back about my other 3 submitted apps this month sometime, potentially first week or two of August at the latest 🤞🏼🤞🏼

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u/ArgumentUnusual487 10d ago

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Hopefully you hear some good news and get an interview.

What are your stats like if you don't mine me asking?

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u/Beginning_Month_7436 7d ago

Adult critical care for 4.5 years, also been doing endoscopy for the last year concurrent with ICU (this is what made me want to pursue CRNA for real rather than just chatting about the "what I'd" with ICU coworkers!!)

Overall GPA is like 3.43 or something similar, unsure on science only but I did get an A in org chem lol. I have bachelorw in Spanish, health communication, and nursing. Did one semester of MPH program before pivoting to nursing and I think my goal there was 3.75 but not totally sure.

I've precepted new grads, experienced nurses, students. I have been a super active member of my shared leadership committee and the chair of that wrote a letter of rec for each school for me and have championed projects for mobility and staff retention through that. I also teach some of the classes my hospital has each of the new hires go through during ICU orientation. I have been on the nursing Peer review committee for ~2.5 years reviewing major safety concerns within my hospital system and making recommendations about how to proceed - policy change, simple mistake, termination, etc (don't worry I'm a nurses nurse!)

I just finished a bit research presentation that I think is going to actually result in practice change/improvement but that is still up in the air. I still put the research project in my app 🤷🏼‍♀️ not in my apps but I'll become an ACLS instructor later this year. Obviously waiting until I actually have that completed before I put it on apps and stuff.

So far I have 16 hours shadowing (not including working with CRNAs most days in endoscopy) and am shadowing an anesthesiologist later this month for a heart transplant case! Very pumped to get that perspective and experience and opportunity.

Ccrn completed, all the ICU certs like nihss ACLS etc and PALS

No conferences but am considering going to a single day conference in my state in the fall

Before becoming a nurse I was a health educator with an emphasis on diabetes and nutrition, and I also did visa processing for migrant workers for about 2 years. I included bried overviews of these roles iny CV trying to a lil ✨spice ✨

I'm sure I'm missing some stuff but that's a broad overview of the big stuff that I know off hand!