Everett’s College Choice
Long time readers know that I did this type of piece when Nolan was choosing a college back in 2024. So, I thought it was only fitting to bring this back and do it for Everett. So, here it is, some of my original blog post from 5/2024, but updated for Everett’s college choice…
As an advisor, I’ve helped plenty of clients out with their child’s college choices before. However, I haven’t had to do it myself in about 30 2 years. Being the first in my family to go to college, my parents were great in pushing me in that direction, but we really had no idea where/how to start. So naturally, I started with what was my number one priority at that time, baseball. Several years later, after paying off lots of student loans and not making it as a Division 1 baseball player, I realize there is a much better way.
Flash forward to 2024 2026. I have a another high school senior! He’s going to college! Where did we start? This time we started with the money(of course). We had a discussion with Nolan Everett about how much college costs. We talked about what kind of funding we were willing to provide for him. If you haven’t looked in a while, you might be surprised to see that lots of big-name schools are charging upwards of $80k per year. Yes, that’s $320k for a four-year degree.
Alright, I do not want to repost the entire piece from 2024. You get the picture. So here is where their paths diverge. Nolan wanted a school where he could study animals. Everett wants to go to school to become a nurse. Anyone who knows Brooke and I, probably would guess that two career business people really do not know much about nursing school. But guess what, we learned quite a bit, and fast.
For starters, it’s really competitive. It makes sense, nobody wants your nurse to not be intelligent, but to get into a good school for nursing, you need to have very good grades and test scores. The next thing is that schools handle it differently. Some schools require you to apply directly to nursing as a freshman, and you either get in or you don’t. If you don’t get accepted to nursing as a freshman, you cannot just show up there and hope to get in later. Other schools require you to apply after your sophomore year, but with no guarantees to be accepted into the program at that point. So you can attend there for two years with the possibility of not getting into nursing school.
Another thing we learned, nursing classes are often capped at fairly low numbers per incoming class. Some of the schools Everett applied to had an incoming limit of 50 students for their nursing program. Other schools had as many as 200 seats available. The reason for the small class size is the clinical requirements for nursing students at local facilities and/or hospitals.
The last thing we learned (and kind of knew) is that nurses are in high demand. As a business major (like me), you kind of chugged along and hoped to find a great job in your field someday. As a nursing major, they are literally recruiting you out of school with high paying jobs and signing bonuses. I was pleasantly surprised by the employment prospects for a nursing graduate with a four-year degree.
So, we are very happy to say that Everett appears to have found a good fit for him. He’s heading off to the University at Albany in the fall. He was accepted directly into their nursing program as a freshman. He will know soon if that is the career for him, as he will be starting clinicals at Albany Med, a level one trauma center, this September. And much like Nolan, if he graduates in four years, his parents will have the tab fully covered. I’m glad we started with the money conversation. You should too.
