I have an LPC & MA in Professional Counseling; thinking about going back for BSN? Help?

[Mrslpc27]

I’m not sure if this is the exact place in the forum for this question; but I have an LPC and a masters in Professional Counseling. However, I only make about $55,000, and won’t ever make a whole lot more. I have always been interested in nursing and pretty much wish I had gone that route. However, I am trying to find out if it would be worth it to take the six Pre-requisite courses I would need and then apply and complete two years of nursing school—-as far as would I make more as a nurse? It has to be worth it, financially, to put time and money into it...

I live in South Texas...how much could I expect to make as a nurse, AND how good is the job market? It would take me four years to do the Pre-req’s (because I have to go slow due to family commitments) and then to finish the BSN program.

I would need to be able to get a job upon graduation (hospital is what I would want, not nursing home, and not a clinic), AND make more than i currently would, with room to increase more.

I’m trying to decide, do I stay with what I have, or do I purse this?

Also, I would most likely work on becoming a NP afterward, if I did this; but also I have concerns about this becoming saturated...thoughts on that too? (That would be about 8 years into the future for NP)

Thank you.

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[pamac]

Not all areas of the country pay sky high nursing wages. I feel pretty good about how much I made as an RN, but rural locations can be lacking. For the most part, though, I think you can count on a BSN netting you more money in a given location than your job as a counselor. If you go on to get a Psyche NP, you’ll be likely to have a lot of interest in hiring you. The thing about being a Psyche NP is that here is a lot of interest in hiring you all over the country.... hands down. You’ll be pursued relentlessly by recruiters. But.... it’s conditional. There is certainly a ceiling for how much a place will be willing to pay you. But I’ve found that ceiling to be very high when compared to other nurse practitioner disciplines, including CRNA. I had more interest in recruiters, and literally more off the cuff job offers than my CRNA friend. And recruiters that really understand the market know they have to compete hard.

RN work can be hard though, but mostly in hindsight.

So consider your age, and how much you want to be an RN. I always suggest to folks to imagine themselves as an RN for several years, because even with the NP dream, you could easily find yourself stuck as an RN for quite some time if things get off track. As far as saturation, sure, it could be a factor to some degree, but my solution to that for the individual is to suggest that they work to be better than the other NPs so they stand out. Excellence never gets watered down... it stands out from among the mediocre. My friends who are PAs (most PAs are pretty sharp, I’ve found) and excellent NPs tend to get noticed. We end up with the right friends, and their friends end up hearing about us that way. We get the good jobs and the good referrals. Plan to be that kind of NP.

 

[phagocytosis41]

I’m not sure if this is the exact place in the forum for this question; but I have an LPC and a masters in Professional Counseling. However, I only make about $55,000, and won’t ever make a whole lot more. I have always been interested in nursing and pretty much wish I had gone that route. However, I am trying to find out if it would be worth it to take the six Pre-requisite courses I would need and then apply and complete two years of nursing school—-as far as would I make more as a nurse? It has to be worth it, financially, to put time and money into it...

I live in South Texas...how much could I expect to make as a nurse, AND how good is the job market? It would take me four years to do the Pre-req’s (because I have to go slow due to family commitments) and then to finish the BSN program.

I would need to be able to get a job upon graduation (hospital is what I would want, not nursing home, and not a clinic), AND make more than i currently would, with room to increase more.

I’m trying to decide, do I stay with what I have, or do I purse this?

Also, I would most likely work on becoming a NP afterward, if I did this; but also I have concerns about this becoming saturated...thoughts on that too? (That would be about 8 years into the future for NP)

Thank you.

Im not sure about the salary, but if you are committed to working hard, studying hard, sure you can get that BSN. But an NP gen requires 1-2 years of work experience and decent BSN grades to gain admission.

NP is pretty much a PA, except they are somewhat more restricted in what specialties they can practice. Its not easy to get into NP school though.

Good luck.

 

[Mrslpc27]

Thank you both very much-and anyone else who can reply.

 

[pamac]

I know quite a few people who have gotten into NP school directly after finishing their BSN beige they had much experience at all, including folks that were in my NP class, and also including NPs that I know personally that went to other programs. I also know folks right now that are going to NP school that got in very quickly after they got their BSN and are now new RNs working and going to school. Many places won’t accept you until you have your BSN in hand, but there doesn’t seem to be a common requirement for anything like two years of experience.

It’s not really that hard to get into NP school if you have decent grades. Most BSN and RN programs have GPA requirements to stay in a program, and you go on probation if you fall below that, so that pretty much keeps all graduating RNs up to the level that most NP programs will accept. For instance, you would essentially fail a course that you scored below 75% in at my program, and in addition, all tests needed to average above 75% to pass the class. Since the tests were in the style of the NCLEX, the effect of that was to prep us for passing the NCLEX, which is what nursing schools all want to gear students up for. My program had a perfect NCLEX pass score for their students most years, and that’s because any of the poor performers either failed out and coughs take the test, or upped their game to the pin t where they did great.

So no... health care experience isn’t a requirement to the point where it’s a dealbreaker most places. PA school, on the other hand, is ridiculously competitive, to the point where folks with great health care experience, but not perfect GPAs, are weeded out in favor of non experienced bookworms. The exception are at legacy programs that have a stated mandate to take on folks with higher HCE levels, and even then, you better be above 3.4 or more to not have your application round filed. Additionally, the applicant pool for PA school is going to have a lot of folks with non healthcare related degrees and physician wannabes that just wouldn’t cut it for medical/dental/optometry/physical therapy/pharmacy/DO, etc, plus every other major you can think of that decided to take (or ended up with) the handful of prereqs for PA school. An example also might be like my art major friend who breezed through their art classes, and had plenty of time to take one PA prereq science class every semester and ace it. After 4 years, they had a 4.0 and a 4.0 science GPA, and walked right into PA school with minimal effort because the numbers were in their side. There are literally armies of applicants like that applying for PA schools, leading to at least 6 applicants for every seat offered at a typical program, with some programs getting 10 applicants per seat.

I will say that the typical NP applicant that I know has at least 4 years or more of RN experience, despite it being possible to go straight to NP school after graduating as a BSN. I think the stats I’ve seen show the average NP has even more experience than 4 years, but I don’t really mind a new grad starting NP school straight out of BSN because I know that they will probably have at least 2 years of RN experience by the time they obtain their NP degree, which these days is still better than being a scribe or a CNA before going to PA school as far as prior health care experience.

 

[phagocytosis41]

I know quite a few people who have gotten into NP school directly after finishing their BSN beige they had much experience at all, including folks that were in my NP class, and also including NPs that I know personally that went to other programs. I also know folks right now that are going to NP school that got in very quickly after they got their BSN and are now new RNs working and going to school. Many places won’t accept you until you have your BSN in hand, but there doesn’t seem to be a common requirement for anything like two years of experience.

It’s not really that hard to get into NP school if you have decent grades. Most BSN and RN programs have GPA requirements to stay in a program, and you go on probation if you fall below that, so that pretty much keeps all graduating RNs up to the level that most NP programs will accept. For instance, you would essentially fail a course that you scored below 75% in at my program, and in addition, all tests needed to average above 75% to pass the class. Since the tests were in the style of the NCLEX, the effect of that was to prep us for passing the NCLEX, which is what nursing schools all want to gear students up for. My program had a perfect NCLEX pass score for their students most years, and that’s because any of the poor performers either failed out and coughs take the test, or upped their game to the pin t where they did great.

So no... health care experience isn’t a requirement to the point where it’s a dealbreaker most places. PA school, on the other hand, is ridiculously competitive, to the point where folks with great health care experience, but not perfect GPAs, are weeded out in favor of non experienced bookworms. The exception are at legacy programs that have a stated mandate to take on folks with higher HCE levels, and even then, you better be above 3.4 or more to not have your application round filed. Additionally, the applicant pool for PA school is going to have a lot of folks with non healthcare related degrees and physician wannabes that just wouldn’t cut it for medical/dental/optometry/physical therapy/pharmacy/DO, etc, plus every other major you can think of that decided to take (or ended up with) the handful of prereqs for PA school. An example also might be like my art major friend who breezed through their art classes, and had plenty of time to take one PA prereq science class every semester and ace it. After 4 years, they had a 4.0 and a 4.0 science GPA, and walked right into PA school with minimal effort because the numbers were in their side. There are literally armies of applicants like that applying for PA schools, leading to at least 6 applicants for every seat offered at a typical program, with some programs getting 10 applicants per seat.

I will say that the typical NP applicant that I know has at least 4 years or more of RN experience, despite it being possible to go straight to NP school after graduating as a BSN. I think the stats I’ve seen show the average NP has even more experience than 4 years, but I don’t really mind a new grad starting NP school straight out of BSN because I know that they will probably have at least 2 years of RN experience by the time they obtain their NP degree, which these days is still better than being a scribe or a CNA before going to PA school as far as prior health care experience.

wow no idea. when I tried to do NP, they basically threw my application in the trash since I was a new RN grad.
... Well it all worked out in the end though .

 

[pamac]

wow no idea. when I tried to do NP, they basically threw my application in the trash since I was a new RN grad.
... Well it all worked out in the end though .

I’m sure it did. If you had the drive to become a physician, I’m sure you’d have still felt the call even if you had become an NP, and would have just wasted your time there instead of following the path you were meant for.

I think it’s entirely a matter of the specific program. There are literally over 200 NP programs or more, and not all of them have the same philosophy. Another things might be that standards are changing. NP schools make money, and they make more money with more students, and more students with a bigger applicant pool. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that there are more NP seats these days than applicants, so that changes the dynamic. Literally, more NPs are being churned out every year than physicians. There has been a turning point in that regard. My school turned people away, but my sense is that there literally is almost one seat for every applicant each year on the whole nationwide. With that being the case, I don’t know that many NP programs want to miss out on an applicant by telling them to wait 2 years when that applicant can easily just find a program that won’t make them wait. I also think there is a difference between turning away qualified applicants because I’d a lack of seats vs turning folks away because there is a lack of qualifications. The folks I know who have gotten turned down for a particular NP school were not quite up to par on their grades, vs many of the PA applicants I know were candidates that would have done just fine in PA school and had decent grades, but there just was too much competition. The same could be said for a lot of medical school candidates. We all know folks who would have thrived, bit didn’t come in ahead of someone else in the beauty contest. It’s like saying that a woman isn’t beautiful because she isn’t a Victoria Secret model. Well, there are far more beautiful women than there are spots for Victoria Secret models.

 

[phagocytosis41]

I’m sure it did. If you had the drive to become a physician, I’m sure you’d have still felt the call even if you had become an NP, and would have just wasted your time there instead of following the path you were meant for.

I think it’s entirely a matter of the specific program. There are literally over 200 NP programs or more, and not all of them have the same philosophy. Another things might be that standards are changing. NP schools make money, and they make more money with more students, and more students with a bigger applicant pool. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that there are more NP seats these days than applicants, so that changes the dynamic. Literally, more NPs are being churned out every year than physicians. There has been a turning point in that regard. My school turned people away, but my sense is that there literally is almost one seat for every applicant each year on the whole nationwide. With that being the case, I don’t know that many NP programs want to miss out on an applicant by telling them to wait 2 years when that applicant can easily just find a program that won’t make them wait. I also think there is a difference between turning away qualified applicants because I’d a lack of seats vs turning folks away because there is a lack of qualifications. The folks I know who have gotten turned down for a particular NP school were not quite up to par on their grades, vs many of the PA applicants I know were candidates that would have done just fine in PA school and had decent grades, but there just was too much competition. The same could be said for a lot of medical school candidates. We all know folks who would have thrived, bit didn’t come in ahead of someone else in the beauty contest. It’s like saying that a woman isn’t beautiful because she isn’t a Victoria Secret model. Well, there are far more beautiful women than there are spots for Victoria Secret models.

You would think those PA applicants should then try the nursing route and become NPs if they are impatient or can't get into PA school.
If thats the case, that there are that many seats and fewer applicants, maybe more people will be applying to the NP route in the future.

 

[pamac]

You would think those PA applicants should then try the nursing route and become NPs if they are impatient or can't get into PA school.
If thats the case, that there are that many seats and fewer applicants, maybe more people will be applying to the NP route in the future.

I’ve seen a little bit of that. I’d personally suggest that to folks, and I’ve done that on forums where folks with lass than stellar GPAs are asking for advice. I think folks with sub 3.0 GPAs will also have a hard time getting into ABSN programs as well as many or most RN programs out there because that field also tends to be competitive and have lots of applicants too, but when you have folks with 3.5 GPAs that can’t land seats in PA programs, I’d surely take a hard look at nursing and then NP school. And overall, anyone who is taking into consideration the aspect of debt, or looking at the fact that NPs tend to be independent in roughly half of all states would find NP appealing. I could have gone to either PA or nursing school, but nursing school didn’t involve the drawn out application timeline. I was getting PA school interview invites the same week that I got accepted to RN school, and I’d be halfway through RN school before I even started PA school. Then I was making $75, 000 per year while I went to NP school. My RN and NP programs combined were less than half what PA school would have cost, and I’d be making money as I went. The question I had to ask myself when I got my RN school acceptance was if I wanted to risk going to PA school interviews and not getting in, and having to wait another year to gamble on it all over again, or should I just go to RN school. I know folks that have applied to PA school so many times that if they had just done nursing, they would be an NP before they even got in.

The PA market is being flooded. It’s a buyers market. There are so many FNPs and PAs that it’s now a matter of several new grad applicants per job vs what it used to be, which was several jobs per applicant. Does someone want to be a PA with a restricted license, lots of debt, and no fallback in that kind of environment, or would they rather be an NP that can work as a nurse in a great paying job until they find the right NP position, and little or no debt. When I went to NP school, I was networking and paying bills with money I was making. If I had gone to Pa school I’d have been making no money in some other state from where I wanted to work. I had jobs waiting for me in places I had vetted as sites I potentially wanted to work. Those sites spent time looking at me, and I spent time looking at them. In a tight job market, I had plenty of options and plenty of takers. So yeah, folks should be looking hard at nursing even if they have good grades.