Questions to Ask CRNA Programs
Questions to ask during CRNA interviews, information sessions and open houses, for ICU nurses comparing nurse anesthesia programs. The 61 questions follow the order the decision goes: the program and its results first, then the classroom phase, clinical rotations, support when something goes wrong, cost, and getting in. A panel usually leaves time for four or five, so choose the ones that would change your decision and take the rest to current students, the handbook or the admissions office.
The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Program
Of the students who start, how many complete the program, and why do the others leave?
Why ask it
Programs publish an attrition figure, but a percentage does not say who left or why. One that can name its reasons, failed courses, clinical performance, money, health, has studied its own numbers. One that says nobody ever leaves deserves a second question.
What were your first-time pass rates on the certification exam for the last three cohorts?
Why ask it
The National Certification Examination is the test every graduate must pass to practice as a CRNA. A first-time rate counts only first attempts, where an overall rate folds in the retakes, and three cohorts side by side show whether one strong year was the class or the teaching.
What has changed in the program in the last three years, and what is about to?
Why ask it
A new director, a lost hospital contract or a rewritten curriculum each lands on whichever class is enrolled at the time. You are listening for the reason behind the change and for what was done for the students caught in the middle of it.
Where do your recent graduates work, and in what practice models?
Why ask it
An employment percentage says little when a program reports nearly everyone hired. The setting says more: care team or independent practice, large hospital or surgery center, near the program or far from it. That is what the training prepares people for, and how far the program's name carries.
How many students are in each cohort, and is that number changing for the class I would join?
Why ask it
A larger intake shares the same operating rooms and preceptors unless sites were added first. Compare the class size of three years ago with the one planned for your year, and hear which clinical sites came on to absorb the difference.
What degree is awarded, and how many months does the program run start to finish?
Why ask it
Programs in the United States now award a doctorate, a DNP at some schools and a DNAP at others. Get the total months with summers counted and whether terms run back to back, because a calendar with no breaks leaves nowhere to catch up after a bad term.
How do your students do on the Self-Evaluation Examination, and what happens after a low score?
Why ask it
The Self-Evaluation Examination is the practice run for the certification exam, sat while students are still in the program. Some programs set a score a student must reach to progress or graduate, so ask whether this one does, how many attempts are allowed and what help follows a miss.
What did your last accreditation review find, and is another one due while I would be enrolled?
Why ask it
Accreditation status is public, and the council that accredits nurse anesthesia programs lists it, so look that up before the day. The question is for what a listing does not explain: any conditions from the last visit, what was done about them, and what a review during your time there would ask of students.
How long has the program director been in the role, and is there an assistant director?
Why ask it
Small programs can rest on one or two people, and a director's departure mid-cohort changes more than a name on the door. An assistant director who knows the clinical contracts and the accreditation paperwork is the reassurance to listen for.
Classroom
Is the curriculum front-loaded or integrated, and in which month do students first enter the operating room?
Why ask it
A front-loaded program puts most of the coursework before clinical begins, and an integrated one runs the two side by side. Neither is the better design. It decides when you have to move, when the days get long and how fresh the pharmacology is when you first draw up a drug.
How is the classroom portion delivered: in person, online, or a mix?
Why ask it
A hybrid first year can let you stay in your current city for the opening terms. For anything online, find out which courses, whether sessions are live at set times, and how often students travel to campus for exams and skills days.
Once clinical starts, are there still class days, and are they on campus?
Why ask it
In an integrated program a student can spend four days in the operating room and a fifth in lecture, and the campus may be hours from the rotation site. Find out whether class days move online during the clinical phase and whether exams still mean a trip back.
How many hours a week do first-year students spend in class, and how many studying?
Why ask it
Faculty can give the lecture days, the lab sessions and how many exams fall in a typical month. The study hours are better taken from a student, and that second number is the one childcare and a commute have to fit around.
Which course do students find hardest, and what help is built in for it?
Why ask it
Advanced pharmacology, physiology and the chemistry and physics of anesthesia all have reputations, and every program has one course its students dread. Knowing which lets you review before you start. Tutoring from the class above or a weekly review session shows the faculty know it too.
What simulation facilities do students use, and how often?
Why ask it
A well-equipped lab that is rarely staffed teaches little, so the figures to get are hours per term and whether faculty debrief each session. Crisis drills matter most: malignant hyperthermia, a lost airway and local anesthetic toxicity are rare enough that the simulator may be the only place a student rehearses them.
How are ultrasound and regional techniques taught before students try them on a patient?
Why ask it
Scanning practice on classmates, needle work on phantoms and, at some schools, a cadaver workshop all come before the first real block. The detail that matters is who teaches the sessions and whether a student can book the machines to practice outside class.
Who teaches here, and how many faculty are still practicing clinically?
Why ask it
Faculty who still take cases teach the drugs and equipment in the rooms this year, and they often know the preceptors you will work under. A staff list that has turned over since the last class graduated is worth a follow-up about why.
How much of the coursework is shared with other doctoral nursing students, and can any of it be taken before the program starts?
Why ask it
Statistics, health policy and leadership courses are often taught across the whole college, sometimes online. Where a program lets admitted students finish one or two of those early, the first anesthesia term is lighter. The answer also tells you how many of your courses are taught by nurse anesthetists.
What is the doctoral project, and when is it due relative to the heaviest clinical terms?
Why ask it
Projects range from a quality improvement study at a clinical site to an evidence review, done alone or in a group. Find out when the topic has to be chosen and who supervises it. A defense scheduled in the same term as cardiac and call rotations is a workload problem you can see coming.
Where does preparation for the certification exam sit in the curriculum, and who pays for the review course?
Why ask it
Review courses and question banks are an extra bill at some programs and included at others. Beyond the money, find out whether the final term has protected study time or whether students fit it around full clinical weeks.
Clinical
How many clinical hours and cases will I complete, and how do you make sure the case mix is broad?
Why ask it
Hours alone say little if the cases repeat. Students log every case by category, obstetric, pediatric, cardiac, trauma, regional, so the program can show a recent class's totals and how often someone reached the last term short in one.
Which clinical sites do students rotate through, and how far will I have to travel or relocate?
Why ask it
A site several hours away can mean a second rent for a month or more, and at many programs that bill is the student's. The list of sites with distances and rotation lengths is the thing to leave with, along with how placements are assigned and whether any site provides housing.
Do students ever have to arrange their own clinical placements?
Why ask it
The answer you are hoping for is a flat no. If students have ever had to find a site themselves, hear how often it happened and whether anyone's graduation date slipped while they looked.
Where do students get their pediatric, obstetric and cardiac cases, and does everyone rotate there?
Why ask it
Specialty cases often come from a single children's hospital or heart program with a limited number of student slots. If only part of the class goes, find out how those places are handed out and how the rest make their numbers.
Who supervises students at each site: nurse anesthetists, anesthesiologists, or both?
Why ask it
Students are supervised throughout, so the difference is in how much the supervisor hands over. Senior students at some sites plan the anesthetic and run the case with the preceptor in the room, and at others they mostly assist, which is why the answer should come site by site.
Do students share cases with anesthesiology residents or other learners at your main sites?
Why ask it
In a hospital that also trains residents or anesthesiologist assistant students, the big cases, the blocks and the lines have more than one claimant. Ask which sites take only nurse anesthesia students and which share rooms, then put the same question to a student who has rotated at both.
How many nerve blocks, central lines and arterial lines does a typical graduate place with their own hands?
Why ask it
Watching a block and placing one are different things, so check which the figure counts. The typical graduate's number matters more than the required minimum, and it helps to know which site supplies most of them.
Is there a rotation at a site where CRNAs work without anesthesiologists?
Why ask it
A rural or CRNA-only site shows what it is like to plan and run a case with no anesthesiologist down the hall. Whether you could practice that way afterwards depends on state law and on the facility, so ask where the program's own graduates do.
Who decides which room a student is in each day, and can a student ask for a case type they are short on?
Why ask it
A run of short, repetitive cases can serve the schedule more than the student. Where a coordinator at each site reads the case logs and steers students toward their gaps, graduates finish with the mix they need and no scramble in the last term.
When does a student get the next day's room assignment, and what preparation is expected overnight?
Why ask it
A written care plan for each case, a call to the preceptor the evening before and an early arrival to set up the room are hours that never show in the clinical count. An assignment posted in the afternoon leaves time to prepare. One posted late in the evening does not.
How is call handled during clinical, and what limits apply to weekly hours?
Why ask it
The figures that matter are the weekly cap with call included, the longest stretch a student may stay in house and the rest required before the next shift. It also changes the week whether call replaces a clinical day or sits on top of one. Whether the limits hold on a busy service is a question for the student lunch.
How are students evaluated in clinical, and how soon would I hear that a preceptor had concerns?
Why ask it
Daily evaluations that the student can read catch a problem in week two, when there is still time to fix it. Ask who reviews them, whether one difficult day with one preceptor can start a formal process, and whether students evaluate preceptors in return.
What happens when a clinical site treats students poorly or a preceptor and a student cannot work together?
Why ask it
The telling answer is an example: a site that was dropped, a preceptor who no longer takes students, a rotation that was swapped. Ask who the student calls first and whether raising a problem has ever counted against the person who raised it.
How much time off do students get once clinical starts, and must missed days be made up?
Why ask it
Get the number of days per year and how holidays, sick days and days away for job interviews are counted against it. In a program with no breaks between terms, this allowance is the only room there is for a wedding, a birth or a funeral.
Support
What happens if a student fails a course or a clinical rotation?
Why ask it
Courses often run once a year in a cohort program, so one failed class can mean waiting for the next cohort or leaving. The handbook's wording on remediation, repeats and dismissal is what counts, along with what a repeated term does to the graduation date and to financial aid.
Can a student take a leave of absence and come back, and how many have?
Why ask it
Illness, a death in the family or a parent who needs care can land in the middle of three years. What matters is whether a student who steps out rejoins the next cohort with credit for the terms already finished, and how long the seat is held.
Does each student have a faculty advisor, and how often do they meet in practice?
Why ask it
An advisor who sees a student once a term by schedule will notice a slide earlier than one who is only called in after a failed exam. Check whether the same person stays with a student from the first term to graduation.
Are new students paired with someone from the class above?
Why ask it
The class ahead knows which preceptor wants the room set up a particular way and which textbook chapters the exams draw on. A formal pairing means every student gets that, including the ones who arrive knowing nobody in the city.
What wellness support is built into the program, and do students use it?
Why ask it
Look for things with a date or a budget: counseling that is free and open outside clinical hours, a scheduled day off after a block of exams, a peer support group. Students will tell you whether anyone has time to use them.
What support does a student get after a bad outcome or a critical event in the operating room?
Why ask it
Everyone who gives anesthesia meets a frightening case sooner or later, and many students meet their first one in training. A debrief with faculty, a lighter assignment the next day and a named person to call are signs of a plan. A program that has one can describe the last time it was used.
How have students who had a baby during the program been accommodated?
Why ask it
The last real case tells you more than the policy does: how many weeks away, how the clinical time was made up and whether the graduation date moved. Room assignments for a pregnant student are worth raising too, since rules on radiation and other exposures differ by hospital.
How far ahead is the clinical schedule published, and how do students with children plan around it?
Why ask it
Childcare can be arranged around a hard week but not around an unknown one. Parents in the class know how much notice they really get, how early the day starts before any daycare opens and who covers when call runs late.
If I disagreed with a grade, a clinical evaluation or a dismissal, how would an appeal work?
Why ask it
The steps are in the student handbook, so this is one to read up on or raise at an information session, not with the interview panel. Check who hears the appeal, whether anyone outside the anesthesia department sits on it and whether the student stays in clinical while it runs.
Cost
What is the total cost, including fees, travel, and housing during rotations?
Why ask it
Tuition is one line among several. The others are fees, books and equipment, liability insurance, the certification exam, and the rent and mileage that come with distant rotations. Add the nursing salary you give up, which can be the largest figure on the page.
Has tuition gone up during a cohort's time here, and is my rate fixed once I enroll?
Why ask it
A published total is usually this year's rate multiplied out, and an increase each year changes the sum. Three things to get: the rates of the last few years, whether billing is per credit or a flat charge per term, and how in-state status works at this school if you are moving for the program.
Can students work during the program, and does anyone?
Why ask it
Policies run from a flat ban to strong discouragement, and the clinical schedule often settles it either way. The honest picture comes from the class itself: whether anyone keeps a per diem shift in the first term, and when they stopped. That tells you how many months of living costs to save or borrow for.
What scholarships or traineeships do your students receive, and how many of the current class got one?
Why ask it
A named award that two students receive is different from one that most of the class shares. Get the typical amount and the application deadline, since some funds close before admission decisions go out.
Do hospitals or anesthesia groups offer your students tuition help in return for a work commitment?
Why ask it
These agreements trade money during school for a set period of work after it, with repayment terms if you leave early. Find out how many students sign one and when the offers arrive. The contract itself is something to have read by someone who knows employment agreements in that state.
What monthly living budget does the financial aid office assume, and can it be adjusted?
Why ask it
The school's cost-of-attendance figure usually sets the ceiling on what a student can borrow, and how that works depends on the school and the lender. Students with families can say whether the figure covered rent, and the aid office can say whether childcare or rotation housing can be added to it.
Is health insurance required, and what does the school's plan cost for a student with a family?
Why ask it
Leaving a hospital job usually means leaving its health plan. Ask whether the school's plan can be waived with other coverage, what it costs to add dependents and whether the premium is counted when aid is worked out.
Getting in
What critical care experience do you expect, and what counts toward it?
Why ask it
Programs differ on whether pediatric, neonatal, cardiac or emergency units count, and on how recent the experience must be. Some weigh the acuity of the patients, ventilators, vasoactive drips and invasive monitoring, above the months served, so describe your unit and hear how it would be read here.
What makes an application competitive here, and what rules one out?
Why ask it
Science grades, certifications, graduate coursework, shadowing and the interview are weighed differently from one committee to the next. The second half of the question is the valuable one: a grade point floor or an expired prerequisite found out now saves an application cycle.
What do the students who do well here have in common?
Why ask it
This one works with any panel and is easy to ask. The answer shows what the faculty prize, whether that is asking for help early, taking criticism from a preceptor or plain stamina, and you can hold it against your own habits before you accept a seat.
Which certifications and courses must be finished by the application deadline, and which only by the start date?
Why ask it
Critical care certification, life support cards, a graduate statistics course and the GRE are each required by some programs and ignored by others. A pending result counts at one school and not at the next, so check each program before you book an exam date.
Do you expect applicants to have shadowed a CRNA, and how should it be documented?
Why ask it
Some programs want a set number of hours on a signed form and others only want to hear what you saw. Ask whether a shadow day can be arranged at one of the program's own clinical sites, which also lets you see where you would train.
What does the interview involve: clinical questions, personal ones or both, and who sits on the panel?
Why ask it
Some panels quiz applicants on vasoactive drips, ventilators and hemodynamics, others keep to behavioral questions, and some do both. This is one for the admissions office or an information session before the day. Put to the panel itself, it sounds like asking for the answers.
When will I hear a decision, and how does the waitlist work?
Why ask it
Get a date, then ask whether the waitlist is ranked and how many people came off it last year. It also matters whether a waitlisted applicant is carried into the next cycle or starts again from a blank application.
If I am not offered a place, will someone tell me what would strengthen a second application?
Why ask it
Policies differ: some directors will give ten minutes of honest feedback and some programs give none. Ask too whether reapplicants are interviewed again from scratch, and whether a year in a higher-acuity unit would change the picture.
What is the deposit to hold a seat, when is it due and is any of it refundable?
Why ask it
This matters most when one program's deadline falls before another's interview. Seat deposits can be large, so find out whether yours is credited toward tuition and what happens to it if you withdraw before the start date.
What should I do between an acceptance and the first day to arrive ready?
Why ask it
Useful answers are concrete: a reading list, a chemistry or statistics refresher, staying in the ICU against cutting back hours to rest. Ask as well how late students usually keep working, since the last paychecks are part of the budget.
May I speak with two current students without faculty present?
Why ask it
Many interview days include a student panel or a lunch, and a program at ease with itself leaves the faculty out of it. Good things to raise there: what they would change, what surprised them, and whether the hours and travel matched what they were told as applicants.
Evaluating a nurse anesthesia program
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Using the list at a CRNA interview
Match each question to who can answer it
The program director and faculty can speak to the Program and Classroom questions, the clinical coordinator to Clinical, the admissions and financial aid offices to Cost and most of Getting in, and the student handbook to much of Support. Current students know the daily reality behind all six groups. Mark each question you plan to ask with a role before the day.
Bring four or five, not the whole list
A panel usually leaves a few minutes at the end for your questions, and the day's presentations will answer some of what you prepared. Choose the handful that would change your decision and keep the rest for the student lunch, the tour or a follow-up email.
Read the published numbers first
Most programs post their certification pass rate, attrition and graduate employment figures on their website. Asking the panel for a number that sits on the program's own page wastes one of your few questions. Asking why it moved between two cohorts shows you read it.
Keep the hard questions for the right room
Dismissal policy, appeals and time off are fair things to want to know and awkward things to open with. Students, the handbook and the admissions office will answer them without it coloring how you came across to the panel.
Write the answers down the same evening
After three interviews the programs blur together. One page per program with the same six headings as this list, filled in that night, is what makes the answers comparable when the offers arrive.
Verify before you rely on it
- Confirm accreditation status, and any conditions attached to it, directly with the accrediting body rather than through the admissions office.
- Check the certification examination requirements and eligibility rules with the certifying body, since they change and a program's printed material may lag.
- Ask for pass rates and completion rates in writing, by cohort, with the number of students in each.
- Confirm the licensure requirements in the state where you intend to practice, which are separate from program requirements.
- Ask for the student handbook. Progression, remediation, and dismissal policies are in there and they govern what happens if something goes wrong.
Numbers worth writing down for each program
Outcomes
First-time certification pass rate for three cohorts, completion rate, cohort size, and the number of applicants per seat.
Clinical load
Total clinical hours, case counts by category, number of sites, distance to each, length of each rotation, and the weekly hour limit including call.
Cost
Tuition, fees, equipment, insurance, examination costs, travel and housing during rotations, and the months of lost nursing income.
Time
Total months, whether terms run continuously, and how long a single failed course adds to the end date.
What to ask current students
- Did the clinical travel and housing cost match what you were told before you enrolled?
- How many hours a week are you actually in clinical, including call?
- What happens here when a student is struggling, and have you seen it handled well?
- Which rotation was weakest, and did you get enough of any case type you were short on?
- Would you choose this program again, and what would you ask that you did not?
Common mistakes when comparing programs
- Choosing on location or cost alone without checking completion and certification outcomes.
- Accepting an eventual pass rate in place of a first-time rate.
- Budgeting tuition but not the rotation travel, housing, and years without a nursing salary.
- Not reading the progression and dismissal policy before enrolling.
- Relying on a single conversation with an admissions officer rather than with faculty and current students.
- Assuming credits or clinical hours would transfer if you had to move. Get each program to say what it would accept before counting on it.