Susan Boman, a De Anza College nursing program applicant, received a hug from her friend Sharyn Bogherra when her name was not picked in the program’s new lottery system on Nov. 16.
"If you make straight ‘A’s’ and you’re a good student, you’re in the same lottery as an average student," Bogherra said. "Apparently it doesn’t matter that they make straight ‘A’s’. It just matters how lucky they are and it’s very unfair." Due to limited space and budget issues, the program accepts only 30 new students every quarter.
Nursing as a career is in demand because of job stability and money said Judith Clavijo, executive head of nursing. La Voz asked Clavijo whether she thought the lottery system was unfair. "Gosh no," Clavijo responded. "It’s a matter of demand at this moment."
Bogherra stood with a group of four women on the morning of the lottery drawing as she waited for Boman. Two of the four women immediately walked away when La Voz asked questions about the lottery system. One woman who walked away said it was because she was an applicant. "They blackball people," Bogherra said. "If you go and complain about this, they roll the dice against you." Bogherra tried to talk to the people who run the nursing program about the lottery but they would not talk to her.
"They won’t talk about how unfair this is," she said. "They say they have every right to make up the rules on what they are calling fair."
Clavijo said there was "absolutely no way" for them to single anyone out.
"How are we going to say, ‘No because you open your mouth, you’re not going to be in the process’?"
All students who want to apply for the nursing program and have completed everything necessary for the application will be entered into the lottery. "So please make sure that statement is there because I don’t want to have … any misinformation given to a potential student who could be an excellent nurse," Clavijo said.
Bogherra and Lori Gager, the other woman who stayed, were both not applicants.
The lottery marks the third time that Gager’s sister tried to join the nursing program.
"I’ve been with her through all the times that she’s been going through the program," Gager said. "I just think it’s incredibly unfair."
"I don’t think they take into consideration how long you’ve been applying. People who transfer in from other schools who haven’t paid De Anza a penny walk into the program where my sister has been taking all of her prerequisites through De Anza and can’t get in the program."
Gager backed up Bogherra’s idea that the system does not take students’ grades into account and that people in charge do not talk about the unfairness within the lottery. "They refuse to reveal what’s really happening in there and I think it’s ridiculous," Gager said. "I think Silicon Valley needs to understand what’s going on in this program."
Gager said the nursing program is very good but that there has to be a better way of getting into the program. Another aspect of the lottery system was that everybody got one ticket with their name on it, no matter who they are, Bogherra said. "At least they have one ticket there," Clavijo said. "At least they have the chance to be there."
Some programs are not accepting applicants any more, some are first come first served, while others simply say no, she said. Boman was laid off from her job in the electronics industry and decided to enter De Anza’s nursing program, Bogherra said.
"Right now she’s working two jobs and going to school making straight A’s," she said. "My point is, you’re getting a lot of eligible people in here that are going to start dropping out because they’re not lucky."
Clavijo answered the questions about whether applicants need to be lucky with questions. "Just make this correlation," she said. "Does everyone get the ticket to go to the football game? Everybody who buys a lottery ticket, does everyone get the millions for the first prize?"
Some universities would interview their applicants, have them take a test, and look at their grades and extracurricular activities, she said. "There’s all kinds of things that should factor into whether or not you would make the best nurse, not just how lucky are you today," Bogherra said. "Because if we were lucky we would have already won the lottery."
"De Anza cannot make everybody happy," Clavijo said.
"That’s the lottery process, so anybody who does not agree with that is more than welcome to go to another college that has a different system," she said.
"I worked really hard to get my prerequisites out of the way," Boman said. Boman said that the lottery system makes the classes she takes seem like they are pass-no-pass classes because people with average grades have the same chance of getting accepted as she does.
"There’s a lot of good people in there that I know personally have worked very hard and they didn’t get picked either," Boman said. "It’s difficult."
