How to Get Into CRNA School with Less Than 1 Year of ICU Experience at the Time of Application with Dalton, NAR & CSPA Student

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What if the hardest part of becoming a CRNA… is simply getting into school?

In this inspiring episode, Jenny sits down with Dalton, who recently gained CRNA school admission, proving that you don’t need years of ICU experience to make your CRNA dream a reality.

Discover how a spontaneous shadowing opportunity sparked Dalton’s passion, what really helped him stand out to admissions panels, and how he overcame imposter syndrome and a lack of support to land that coveted acceptance letter.

You’ll learn:

• Why persistence always beats perfection

• The mindset shift that transformed Dalton’s entire journey

• The underrated “little things” that helped him rise above the competition

• How the CSPA 12 Month Intensive helped him build confidence and strategy

• Why standing out doesn’t mean having a “perfect story” — it means taking action

If you’ve ever doubted whether you’re “ready” or “experienced enough” to apply, this is your sign to go for it — and this episode will show you how.

Hit play and get ready to feel empowered, inspired, and ready to take the next step in your CRNA journey.

Get access to application & interview preparation resources plus ICU Educational Workshops that have helped thousands of nurses accelerate their CRNA success. Become a member of CRNA School Prep Academy: https://cspaedu.com/join

Get CRNA School insights sent straight to your inbox! Sign up for the CSPA email newsletter: https://www.cspaedu.com/podcast-email

Book a mock interview, resume or personal statement critique, transcript review and more: www.teachrn.com

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Watch the episode here

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From ER Nurse to CRNA: How Dalton Found His Path

Hello and welcome back, future CRNA. So excited to have you on today’s show. I have a very special guest today, Dalton, who is going to share with you his story, his journey to CRNA success. Welcome Dalton to the show.

Thank you.

So I am so excited to have him here today. Dalton was a part of our 12 Month Intensive program and if you’re unfamiliar, that program does guarantee your acceptance. If you complete the program in its entirety and still don’t get into CRNA school, you get your money back; it’s a money back guarantee because we fully believe in our product and what we can do for our students.

So welcome Dalton. We’re so excited to have you and we’re going to kick this off by just having you share your nursing background and what led you to pursue CRNA?

What led me to pursue CRNA; I was a sophomore in nursing school. At that point, I didn’t even know CRNA was a thing. I was just studying with my friend, her mom is a CRNA and she told me to shadow her. I thought it was just awesome when I shadowed her and I was kind of asking her for advice; the one thing that stuck with me was she said that the hardest thing about CRNA school is getting into school.

I didn’t really understand what she meant at that moment, I was just focused on nursing school. But I did end up realizing that afterwards. As far as my nursing background, I was one year in the emergency department, that’s where I trained when I was a new grad and my senior rotation.

Then I switched to the ICU because I was pretty dead-set on wanting to become CRNA and I knew that was what I would have to do. And right now, I’m at one year and three months in the ICU.

Woohoo. That’s exciting! For those of you listening who are unsure about applying to CRNA school early on in your journey, yes you can. This is living proof here that you do not have to have that average of three years to apply to CRNA school.

I am thankful for you sharing your ER background and the fact that you knew that ICU was the route you had to go to achieve your dream. I also think it’s really cool that you started with a shadow experience. I think a lot of students struggle with that; they think they need to have a unique story, “I had surgery and a CRNA did my epidural” or whatever it was, but you don’t necessarily have to have that unique story.

The unique story is that you were lit up with a passion when you saw a CRNA in action. And I can relate to that in so many ways. That’s kind of how I got started where I was just like, “Wow, this is a nurse behind the drape.” I never knew. Just that passion of knowing that a nurse could do that role was exciting enough for me to want to investigate further. So I love that.

As you mentioned, getting into CRNA school is the hardest part of pursuing CRNA; what do you feel your biggest obstacle was along this journey?

Getting into CRNA School Is the Hardest Part—Here’s How to Overcome It

I think I have a tie. One is imposter syndrome. I wanted to say that because I think everyone has that. And I would say two would be lack of support; it is a good thing that I joined the 12 Month Intensive program because I felt like there was a lot of support in the program, which was much needed.

It’s really easy to have imposter syndrome no matter where you’re at. You could be the most experienced nurse or you could be one year in like me. I’ve heard time after time through people in CSPA and just in my unit, of not thinking you’re good enough and everything. What I’ve realized is a lot of persistence is the key to it, even though it’s hard to think about in the moment.

I love that share. Thank you so much. And you’re a hundred percent right. There are so many aspiring CRNAs who are doubting themselves, who are feeling overwhelmed with the idea of “Is it even possible? Should I put this time, effort into something that I may not be able to achieve?” That mindset right there is going to limit you. So you have to work on that mindset, knowing that this is possible, you can achieve it.

How To Get Into CRNA School: You have to be able to take feedback with a smile and not let it destroy your confidence and who you know you are.

It is about persistence, it is about determination. One thing that I can say from coaching you so much Dalton, and something that I would love for our listeners to really take to heart, what really stood out to me about you, and how I just knew for a fact that 110%, you would find success: You were so open to feedback and you always took it with a smile.

Even though I know sometimes it was maybe hard to hear, that this is what you have to do, or it’s not going to be the easiest thing to do or maybe not the thing you really want to do, but this is what I think you should do. You always took it with a smile.

I think that that’s the key aspect- you have to be willing and open for feedback. You have to have to seek out support. But when you do seek out support, you have to be open and willing to reflect on your weaknesses, which sometimes can be painful to do.

I just want to highlight that I thought you were very receptive to feedback, which is a very good signal because when you’re in CRNA school, you’re going to equally receive a lot of feedback during clinical and even during the academic portion.

You have to be able to take that feedback with a smile and not let it destroy your confidence and who you know you are. I think when you have what is called a fixed mindset, you let your achievements, or who you are, define you. When you have a growth mindset, you say, “Okay, I got some feedback, but that means I have room to grow. That means I have room to improve, and that’s a good thing.”

I think that if anyone reading can focus a lot on adapting a growth mindset over a fixed mindset; it’s easy to do you guys, we all live in the fixed mindset at some point- imposter syndrome itself is a fixed mindset. And so I think that we all again are guilty of being there. So I appreciate that share.

How the CSPA 12 Month Intensive Helped Me Stand Out

I would love to reflect a little bit. You said you didn’t feel like you had a lot of support. How was joining the 12 Month Intensive, I guess looking back, what motivated you? Was it the lack of support that motivated you to join the 12 Month Intensive?

So I followed CSPA for about a year or two before I even heard about the 12 Month Intensive. I started seeing advertisements about it; when I first saw the advertisement about it, I was still in the ER, so I didn’t really think much about it.

Then I saw another thing- that it’s been a hundred percent success rate, everyone who’s joined this program has gotten into CRNA school. So then I was like, “Okay, I need to read a little bit more into this thing.”

I read about everything you get in the program, and the fact that your money does come back if you don’t get into school. It just kind of felt like such a small amount for me to sacrifice to get into school. And if I didn’t get into school, then I get my money back plus I get a bunch of education and knowledge for the next cycle anyways.

I didn’t honestly realize how much support I would get in the program, but all of the things prior motivated me to want to join.

Awesome. I love it. Yes, we’ve been doing the 12 Month Intensive for almost two years. We’re coming up on our two year anniversary actually in the next month. And so far, everyone who has completed the program has had success.

We do hold you accountable to do our courses, as well as two mock interviews and you also must attend faculty office hours. We essentially want to make sure that you’re getting what you paid for.

We want you to get the results, which means you have to receive the coaching, so it involves CRNA faculty coaches as a part of the program. I also offer weekly mentor sessions as well. So there’s a lot of touch points in this program as well as a very outlined roadmap of what we know what successful students are doing to achieve success.

So that is so exciting and I’m grateful that our advertisements worked. And here you are accepted to CRNA school! I would love to know, what do you think helped you feel like you could stand out to the interview panel or as an applicant?

Things that helped me stand out was just little things that the program would teach me and other things that your videos taught me, such as whenever I went to open houses, I knew what questions not to ask. And when people asked those questions, I was just like, “Oh my gosh, that wasn’t an obvious thing not to ask.”

Even going to a state CRNA meeting, when I did that, I was the only nurse in the whole CRNA meeting. It felt like everything that CSPA was teaching me was putting me in the top 5%. It kind of gave me a lot of motivation that I was on the right path and I was going to do it eventually.

I love that. It really is about the little things you guys. It might not seem obvious because it’s things that are not widely looked at since they’re not listed as a requirement, so they’re not required. They’re not even listed, period on any school’s websites but it’s usually the little unique things that are not disclosed that can really make you stand out.

Similarly, going to open houses and not asking questions that you can easily find on the website, for example, is a big one because it just kind of shows that you’re not digging into the website yourself, enriching yourself and being a self motivator to educate yourself.

But yeah, and going to open houses, that’s just huge. You’d be surprised at how many applicants do not ever go to an open house and yet they apply to all these schools and it seems so simple to me, but I get it. Sometimes it means traveling, which is hard, but a lot of schools are offering virtual open houses, so really there’s no barrier to go other than time. So it does help you stand out.

I love that it’s really about the little tiny nuances along the way that can really set your application apart because at the end of the day, everyone’s going to have the ICU experience. Everyone’s going to have a good GPA, everyone’s going to have the CCRN.

I’ve heard from program faculty that it looks like a lot of apples and it’s just a matter of how shiny is that apple versus the other apple, they’re all apples. Which one’s the crispest, best, juiciest apple is kind of what they have to then decipher from all the little tiny things that kind of help applicants stand out.

What are some lessons learned that if you knew now you would do something differently back when you first started this journey?

Emotional Intelligence and Mindset Shifts on the Road to CRNA

We learned a lot about emotional intelligence in the 12 Month Intensive program and read some books on it too. I’d say a mindset frame that I was able to shift near the end, instead of worrying about “What if this happens and everything’s going to crash and burn”, because it’s impossible for me not to think about what ifs. But now I do think like “Okay, if that does happen, what am I going to do to help myself and still succeed?”

Instead of just thinking about crashing and burning, I’m going to think about “if I crash and burn, what am I going to do to pick myself up after that?” So I would say, if I was able to give myself that mindset earlier on, it probably would’ve made the process a little bit less stressful. But that’s what helped me a lot.

I love that. And you guys, this is something that you can all do and it’s free. That’s the beauty of working on mindset. There’s so many resources, whether that’s YouTube or books about a growth mindset, emotional intelligence, reflecting on who you are.

I see a lot of applicants put so much pressure on themselves to be successful at the very first time. And the reality is, what’s so bad about failing? There’s really nothing bad about failing unless you make it feel bad. You are in control of how you feel about what occurs in your life, and that goes for really everything.

So it’s kind of re-framing it, the fact that if I’m not successful, there’s going to be another chance. If I’m not successful, I’m going to learn something from that failure. And it’s so weird to me because a lot of times you grow up playing sports, right? And yes, you always want to win, but you don’t. I just think over time you do it enough to where you get used to failing every now and then to be like, it’s no big deal. If I fail, there’ll be another time where I feel like this.

You don’t apply to CRNA school all the time or as you grow up. So I feel like this feels like such a giant monumental task and that maybe it’s a one time and your only shot, but the reality is there is going to be more than one chance. And as long as you set yourself up to know what the school’s requirements are, meaning do they have an application limit, do they have an interview limit?

If you know those things prior to going into it, you should rest assured that there’s going to be another opportunity. So I think that’s awesome that you shared that.

Final Advice for Aspiring CRNAs: Go Above and Beyond

What advice, if anything, could you leave our listeners as far as people who are considering this career path, considering going back to the ICU? What’s some parting advice you would leave?

For me, I would say just be willing to do what you think not many others would, and eventually people are going to see that. I often hear people say, “I don’t want to go back to the ICU. I have my experience and I’m doing this now, but I’m having trouble getting CRNA interviews” and stuff.

You need to do what you think that the school wants at the end of the day. And if you think that is going back to the ICU, then you should do that because everyone else you’re competing with probably is.

Try to stand yourself out from that and do even more like go to a state meeting or do some research or anything like that. So just try to go above and beyond what you think the average CRNA school applicant is doing; CRNA school is very competitive.

I love that, it’s some great parting advice. It’s sometimes hard to accept when you know it’s going to be costly or time consuming to do these things or even things you just know that you don’t want to do, right? I mean, maybe you were burned out in the ICU, and I’m not suggesting anybody who’s in a really bad mental point to go back to the ICU. I’ve even talked to students who had to leave the ICU due to a physical injury, right?

So there are certain circumstances that make those movements much harder, but that’s when you need to be upfront with the program if there’s a reason as to why either mentally or physically it would be unwell for you to go back to the ICU. I think you need to be upfront about any issues like that when you’re actively applying so they understand this is not coming from a place of you not wanting to do go above and beyond, but because maybe there’s a mental or physical reason why you physically shouldn’t.

How to Get Into CRNA School: You need to do what you think that the school wants at the end of the day. And if you think that is going back to the ICU, then you should do that because everyone else you’re competing with probably is.

Sometimes I run into students who are like, “But the level one trauma ICU is an hour from me.” I’m like, “But that’s also where the school is usually.” Usually CRNA schools are kind of pocketed around cities, and so those cities tend to have higher level ICUs.

Unfortunately the majority of the applicants will come from those cities. Not that getting rural experience is bad; by all means, I’m not saying that’s not good enough. A lot of times it can be, but you have to be really careful because again, you’re going up against all these applicants who have known level one, level two trauma experience where those schools don’t have to question whether or not it’s high acuity.

Just to touch on this too, since I know you were relatively new in your ICU experience when you applied, sometimes units are not what I call “CRNA pathway friendly.” Sometimes that means bullying. Sometimes that means not giving the most acute assignments to you because they know you’re pursuing CRNA.

You have to remain persistent. You have to kind of do what you did, Dalton, is you put yourself in a position to learn. Even if that’s just going into rooms and picking up on little nuances that someone’s training on ecmo, put yourself in those positions. Seek out opportunities for research. Contact your CNS. Contact a fellow attending, see what they’re working on, see if you can volunteer your services, your help, your time.

You can often do little things like that. They will go a long way, even if you feel like you’re facing adversity in your unit. I know a lot of you are, but you can find ways around that. Stay persistent. You can do it. Just because you’re facing adversity there does not mean it’s the end.

I often see students leave their ICU in the middle of application because they think maybe it’s not the best ICU. Sometimes that is necessary. But sometimes that’s really hindering because now you have to start all over again; even getting a reference letter can really set you back at an entire application cycle.

So you have to be really, really careful when you make that decision to leave an ICU versus just trying your best, even if it’s not ideal. I wanted to leave that parting advice for those listening. And thank you Dalton, so very much. I’m so incredibly proud of you.

Congratulations, and I look forward to following your journey as you progress through CRNA school.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

For help finding a high-acuity ICU job, check out the CSPA Job Board: https://jobs.crnaschoolprepacademy.com/

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Thank you for tuning in. Be sure to head over to our Free Resources page to gather planning and interview prep resources to help you on your CRNA journey. You can also explore our FREE community for aspiring CRNAs, ICU Dreaming of Anesthesia.

Stay strong. We’re rooting for you, future CRNA!

Important Links

Join the Free CSPA Community! Connect with Aspiring CRNAs, Nurse Anesthesia Residents, practicing CRNAs, and CRNA Program Faculty Mentors who are ready to support you. Get real answers and expert guidance in a welcoming space that’s free from misinformation and negativity. You don’t have to do this alone! Join Now: https://www.cspaedu.com/community

Get access to application & interview preparation resources plus ICU Educational Workshops that have helped thousands of nurses accelerate their CRNA success. Become a member of CRNA School Prep Academy: https://cspaedu.com/join

Get CRNA School insights sent straight to your inbox! Sign up for the CSPA email newsletter: https://www.cspaedu.com/podcast-email

Book a mock interview, resume or personal statement critique, transcript review and more: www.teachrn.com