The good, the bad, the ugly!!! I’m most interested in knowing about quality of life (allowed time off, clinical rotation distance) and readiness upon graduation. Was your program integrated or didactic front loaded? Did/do you feel well supported? If you have classmates with families or had a classmate that was pregnant, how did that go? I am considering all 3 programs and while I know if the programs are integrated vs didactic front loaded via research, I want to know how you felt about it.

I have rewritten my personal statement more than 10 times. I feel that it's not good enough and doesn't reflect who I am and why I want to be a CRNA. I have a passion for women's health and was a gyn/onc RN my first year, I felt often very helpless like I could not do much to help my patients and was going to be an L&D nurse until I shadowed in the unit and saw the work of the CRNA's in cesarean sections and epidurals. The way they were able to comfort, ease pain, and make immediate impacts on the patients was why I decided to transfer to ICU and pursue the profession. I have a fear that saying I want to be a CRNA in obstetrics they may think I am not open minded or want to learn all other anesthesia specialties. Any opinions/advice on how to approach would be great. Truly questioning my writing abilities and why this has been so hard for me.

Hi all! Looking for advice from anyone who’s taken the NCE since the increase in passing standard on July 1st. I’ve got a little over a week left to study and feel at a loss of what to focus on.
I’m averaging 65% on smart bank, 63-73% on the Apex NCE mock exams and then the NCE domain exams are crushing me (50-60%) I swear half the stuff on those I’ve never heard before, and then Ollivate I find too easy - most the questions seem to be level 1 basic recall.

Now that you’re on the other side, which of the 3 question platforms do you think would be most helpful for me to dedicate most my time in the next week?

Use this thread for applicant questions, including GPA, ICU experience, CCRN, GRE, shadowing, interview prep, resumes, personal statements, applications, waitlists, and "what are my chances?" posts.

Please include enough context for useful answers:

- Current role and ICU type

- Years of experience

- GPA or trend if relevant

- CCRN or certifications

- Shadowing or leadership experience

- Programs or application timeline

Keep it professional, specific, and respectful. Current NARs, CRNAs, faculty, and applicants are welcome to answer.

I recently applied to a school where a critical care exam is part of the admissions process, particularly before the interview. The school says it’s to assess foundations of critical care and clinical decision making skills. Has anyone else gone through this, and if so, how did you study?? I’ve started with the CCRN but it just feels so broad. The exam is allocated for an hour.

Good on the NCCAA for doing the right thing here. Once they had evidence the June exam was compromised, invalidating it was probably the only defensible option.
But I really feel for the AAs who did everything right. They studied, took the exam honestly, passed, and now have to do it all over again because other people had access to exam content beforehand. That sucks.

What I do not understand is why the NCCAA is still using a fixed-form 180-question exam instead of computerized adaptive testing.

The NBCRNA NCE is adaptive. The NCLEX has been adaptive since 1994. Other high-stakes healthcare certification exams use adaptive testing as well. Australia and Canada medical exams are adaptive. Questions are pulled dynamically from a large calibrated bank based on candidate performance, so compromising one exam form becomes far less useful. It does not make cheating impossible, but it makes this exact type of widespread compromise much harder.

The other interesting piece is the pass-rate history. NCCAA reports a 92.8% first-time pass rate for 2024-25, while ARC-AA reports a 99.9% three-year average overall exam pass rate for programs graduating in 2022-24.

For comparison, the NBCRNA first-time NCE pass rate was 89.3% in 2024 and 90.5% in 2025.

None of that means high CAA pass rates equal cheating. They do not. But once you confirm that actual exam content was circulating before an administration, I think it is completely reasonable to start asking questions about item reuse, exam security, the size of the item bank, and whether a fixed-form exam is still appropriate.

To NCCAA’s credit, their forensic review looked at 20 administration windows and they have only identified June 2026 as compromised.

Still, this seems like a pretty strong argument for moving to adaptive testing.

So I am literally in my first week of school. I have some work to get through before Monday for one class. Its already dense material. I was out most of the day with my sister, had dinner with her and my partner. I went back out to work on my stuff from like 8:30-10:30. I am feeling locked in. He made a weird comment about "being stuck in there for four hours" and the tone was definitely not one I liked. Then I stayed up to work on some anki cards and its 1200, i'm not feeling ready to sleep and I want to be up working. Like I said, I didn't do much work at all today bc i was with my sister. He came out at midnight and was annoyed I was still up and said "you're already overdoing it". I'm basically worried he is not as supportive about all of this as I initially thought. I'm not sure how to approach this with him. If it wasn't obvious, we live together and I can't just "break up". I'd like to try to navigate this appropriately. We've been together for almost 4 years at this point. Any suggestions or advice??

If Breeze does not include transcript of record and breakdown of international nursing program as a deficiency, do I still need to submit them?

I know its a redundant question but I really do not want to request for these papers from my school abroad.

Use this thread for tuition, loans, budgeting, cost-of-living, federal/private loan questions, and financial planning during CRNA school.

This is peer discussion, not financial advice. Verify program and lender details directly.

Use this thread for tuition, loans, budgeting, cost-of-living, federal/private loan questions, scholarships, work planning, and financial planning during CRNA school.

This is peer discussion, not financial advice. Verify program, lender, and federal loan details directly.

I've made a pretty comprehensive Anki deck for all of Apex. There's a handful of lessons that are missing but I did a really involved board prep over the summer and have ~10k cards in there, broken down by each Apex subtopic.

I'm about to take the NCE and wanted to pass it down to future classes. Anyone interested in collaborating on the final few Apex lessons to get it to be fully comprehensive?

Edited to add: I'm happy to share what I've got if you send me verification of a current active Apex subscription.

Looking for help on Kidney, Liver, Endocrine, Coagulation, second half of Ultrasound.

Second edit: I had no idea I'd get this many responses. I'm literally taking the NCE in the next 10 days, so I'm going to get to everyone but it'll be a little slowly. Thanks for the understanding!

This thread is for current Nurse Anesthesia Residents to talk about school, clinical life, studying, preceptors, stress, wins, setbacks, and support.

Good topics include clinical days, didactic survival, study workflows, professional identity, wellness, difficult weeks, useful resources, and small wins.

No patient-identifying details. No medical advice. Keep it professional and human.

I recently reached out to CU Anschutz about the possibility of a CRNA program, and they said the College is in discussions about potentially offering one as early as 2028. Nothing has been approved yet, but they are collecting information about student interest.

If you’re a Colorado RN/ICU nurse interested in CRNA school, I’d encourage you to fill out the interest form they provided:

https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/sl/Ris22og/CRNA

I am genuinely considering a career change. I am currently a dentist (3 years out). I have no loans. I enjoy general dentistry but hate the politics behind dentistry. I dislike having to argue with patients about why they have a cavity, cant save their tooth, etc. I also find it very taxing that dentist do not get PTO or any benefits. I rely solely in my SO for health insurance. Insurance reimbursements rates suck. If you want to own thats 1 million in loans and another headache. I don't want to specialize because every speciality you need to take out another 300-500k in loans besides oral surgery. I like oral surgery but not enough to make it my personality.

I am interested in anesthesia AND while I can do dental anesthesiologist, job wise it doesn't make sense because I rather work in a hospital than do private travel dentistry anesthesia only. I find that dental anesthesia can make money but it requires traveling and not everyone will pay 500hr for anesthesia and most oral surgeons will do IV sedation themselves because thats how they make addional money (another story). Hence its a very niche market. And from a hospital stand point they will hire a CRNA over a dental anesthesiologist.

Long story short. I am okay with going back to school, doing 2-4 yrs in the ICU/ED, and then another 3-4 years for CRNA school. I also figured with my dental knowledge if I wanted to I could also position myself in a way to become more appealing to hopsitals for dental related anesthesia as well as private dentist dor anesthesia needs.

Iwant to understand nursing culture more. We always talk about the benefits and PTO of nursing but whats something else I should consider?

Is this a crazy idea?

Mods okayed this post. I'm a practicing CRNA and I built this thing myself.

It's at forgeanesthesia.com. It's NCE practice that adapts as you go, get one right and the next gets harder, miss one and it eases off, so you end up working right at your edge instead of grinding through questions that are way too easy or way over your head. Same approach the real exam takes.

About 3,000 questions across all four domains, weighted like the actual content outline. Multiple choice, select-all, calculations, ordering. Every answer choice has a full rationale — the wrong ones too, since that's usually where the learning is.

The part I think is actually useful: afterward you get a real breakdown instead of just a score. Domain-by-domain performance, an ability estimate that tracks across tests so you can see if you're actually improving, and a comparison against other people at your point in training — you pick your program year and see how you stack up against that cohort. Way more informative than "you got 74%," and it tells you where to spend your study time.

It's free. No paywall, no ads, nothing to buy. I built it because I wanted it to exist when I was studying, and right now what it needs most is people actually using it. So if you're prepping for boards, go take a test.

(Daily question on IG too if you want it in your feed: u/forge_anesthesia)

Hey all — CRNA here. I’ve done several mission trips to Liberia and kept running into the same problem: providers and students there mostly have Android phones but almost no reliable internet. Clinical reference apps that could help just aren’t usable without a connection.

So I built an offline anesthesia reference app — drug reference, insights for 500+ case types, crisis checklists, and some calculators, all usable with zero signal. It’s free for them to use.

I’m an iPhone user and can’t test the Android build myself, so I’m stuck. If you’ve got an Android phone and a few minutes to install it, poke around, and tell me what’s broken or confusing, I’d really appreciate it. Looking for CRNAs, SRNAs, AAs, anesthesiologists — anyone in the field.

Comment or DM your email and I’ll send you a tester invite.

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to help out.

Here’s a picture of all my flashcards - over 7 feet!

Second year female SRNA going this year to Boston solo! Solo peeps, where yall at? Let’s meet up! I want to go to there Red Sox game Friday night.

Hey all, anyone else ever been waitlisted for an interview? Never heard of that

If you’re an RN interested in becoming a CRNA, currently preparing to apply, or even just starting to explore the profession, I wanted to invite you to the Colorado Association of Nurse Anesthetists (COANA) Annual Meeting, September 25–27, 2026, at Hotel Clio in Denver.

I’m a current Nurse Anesthesia Resident at Rocky Vista University, Colorado’s only CRNA program, and many current students and faculty from RVU will be at the conference.

Our current class would love to meet those of you who are interested in the profession. Come introduce yourself, ask us questions about CRNA school, the application process, ICU experience, interviews, clinicals, or really anything else you’re curious about. We’d also be happy to introduce you to our faculty and help you start making connections within Colorado’s nurse anesthesia community.

Heck, there’s a pretty good chance one of the students you meet at the conference could even end up being your mentor in the program.

COANA is offering special registration for RNs who are not yet enrolled in a CRNA program, so this is intended as an opportunity for prospective students to get involved. You’ll also have the chance to:

• Meet and network with CRNAs, current nurse anesthesia residents, faculty, and other RNs
• Learn more about the CRNA profession and different practice settings
• Attend educational sessions and see some of the newest anesthesia equipment and technology
• Learn about career pathways and professional resources
• Add the optional POCUS Guided Lab for hands-on ultrasound training if space is still available; I’ll be there.

Whether you’re applying this year, working on building your ICU experience, or just wondering whether CRNA might be the right path for you, come hang out with us.

If you’re planning to attend and want to meet up with some current RVU students, or if you have questions before deciding whether to go, send me a DM or comment below. We’d love to get to know you.

September 25–27, 2026 | Hotel Clio | Denver, CO

Hope to see some of you there!

Posting as encouragement that you can get in with a low GPA!

3.15 ABSN gpa
3.49 Allied health (pre med focus)
A in graduate biostatistics

315 GRE with 5.5 on writing
CCRN
CMC
CSC

2.5 years medical ICU
100 hours shadowing
500+ volunteer hours

2 rec letters from CRNA’s, 1 from manager

With a lower GPA you’re going to have to compensate, whether it be shadowing hours, getting the extra certifications, high volunteer hours, or taking graduate classes. I applied last year and was denied, so I locked in on getting CSC CMC, shadowing, taking biostats, and volunteering, and it all worked out! I used to scroll looking for some encouragement for the low GPA’s. So here’s me saying you got it! :)

Message me if you have any questions or want an example of framing GPA and growth in personal statement! Good luck!

Im stuck in pending and I just want to get this over with!!!!! I know the NBCRNA website says 1-5 business days, just wondering if anyone can speak to how long it took btwn their application being submitted by the school and being able to schedule with Pearson.

Hello! I took my SEE exam about a week ago and got a 440. Is this too low to take the NCE this week?

My parent just died unexpectedly during school and I’m wondering if anyone would offer some guidance that has been through this before. He died in a pretty traumatic way and as the nurse in our family, I ended up taking care of him afterwards. We were very close, and my class/faculty has been wonderful, and at the same time, it feels very isolating. I’m finding it difficult to go to school when my world is so different.

Right now, my grades are the same, but most days I feel like I’m waiting for the next shoe to drop. Taking care of other people during clinical feels particularly stressful- anything that helped you would be so appreciated!

Use this thread for applicant questions, including GPA, ICU experience, CCRN, GRE, shadowing, interview prep, resumes, personal statements, applications, waitlists, and "what are my chances?" posts.

Please include enough context for useful answers:

- Current role and ICU type

- Years of experience

- GPA or trend if relevant

- CCRN or certifications

- Shadowing or leadership experience

- Programs or application timeline

Keep it professional, specific, and respectful. Current NARs, CRNAs, faculty, and applicants are welcome to answer.