I am a Xavier graduate (12/2012) and my husband is a graduate as well (12/2014). I LOVE Xavier. I am a huge Xavier fan. The students & professors are nice. The school isn’t Catholic. I mean…it’s “Catholic…” but the Church (Bellarmine Chapel) is the second to most liberal Catholic Church in the city, besides University of Cincinnati’s (and it may be even more so than that). We attended for awhile post graduation but my husband strongly encouraged us to attend elsewhere do to some homilies not quite in line with the Churches teachings. I love the community at Xavier. I love the community at Bellarmine.
Another thing, about the nursing (& other health programs in general) at Xavier is that there are some major weed-out classes that are very difficult. I can’t speak about other schools, but the A&P classes a freshman nursing major take are rough. I transferred to Xavier from another Catholic college in town (Mount Saint Joseph University, which actually has a fantastic nursing program but is a really small school) and the classes at Xavier were loads harder. The A&P class was near impossible. The lab teachers were great & helped all they could but in the lecture (which were still small-max class size of about 50), class average on tests were like 60%. People would leave crying from exams. They try really hard to weed out in the OT & nursing programs through those classes. (I was a psychology major, so I took A&P with them).
The other thing to consider is tuition & such. If your daughter can get a scholarship, and even with it, it can be pricey. I don’t know of any tuition reimbursement programs for nursing in Ohio (my sister is a nurse & had to pay off her own loans). Just something to consider. I graduated in 3.5 years, and had my first 1.5 years completely covered in (mostly) scholarships. I still graduated with 40k in debt. My husband has over double the debt I have. This is majorly effecting our lives now. We have one baby girl, who is two & we can’t have more children until he makes enough money to cover all of our bills. (We live modestly, still in Cincinnati).
The atmosphere at Xavier is great. I can’t recommend it enough. The students who live on campus absolutely love it. There are loads of parties & way too much alcohol for all students, of age or not (I’m sure this happens at every college but I was unprepared for it.) I didn’t drink but never found a great group of people at XU that didn’t (I was only there for two years). I joined the pep band & we traveled a lot and it was fantastic. We still go up to Xavier & walk around. It’s a gorgeous campus. The faculty & staff are great, class sizes are great, just don’t expect Catholic out of it. You have to take “theology classes” but none of them are Catholic. The head of the theology department, when I graduated, was, in fact, Jewish. (I don’t think that they are teaching outside the line of Catholicism, but I can only speak for the classes I had). Of course, you can find good Catholic groups on campus. You can find good, strong Catholic friends, but, you can, also, find the opposite! (This is all to say that my husband & I have mixed feelings on recommending Xavier. As a good University & stuff, absolutely. For the cost? Not sure. If you have the money to cover it to not saddle her in debt, yes. As a school to primarily consider because it’s Catholic? Not sure I can recommend it for that.) I’m happy to answer any other questions you may have!
