tentonne

I am a Registered Nurse planning to move to the US as soon as I've passed my NCLEX exam and gone through the Green Card process. My wife and I have 3 daughters aged between 1 - 5 and are keen to find somewhere that offers good education opportunities for them.

We both dislike the cold but like the mid-west which we have regularly visited (I appreciate it gets pretty cold in winter there!). We are both in our mid-30's and are ideally looking for a small town sort of environment because neither of us enjoy city living.

We will have around $280,000 to buy a house and take care of expenses which I realise precludes us from buying in a lot of areas.

I would welcome any advice you could provide regarding freat places to live / work / play and also would like to take this opportunity to say hi! to everyone on this forum.

christmasoompa

Hi and welcome.

Are you aware that there are no visas currently available for nurses? You need to worry about that first before focusing on the finer details!

Good luck with it all.

Duncan Roberts

Like what was said, by the time you are (if you are) able to move the advice you get now will be well out of date.

Samuel

Tenntone - Given you resolve obstacles noted by christmasompa - I'd approach this by doing research on four fronts:
a) I'd check out http://www.greatschools.net/ for quality of schools. For starters I'd focus on API scores (the higher the better) and # of kids receiving free meals (the lower the better)
b) I'd check # of jobs and prevailing wages for nurses on moster.com (there may be a better place for healthcare jobs - but monster will do for initial research)
c) Check weather.com and weatherunderground.com for average temps, humidity and percipitation levels
d) Once you narrow your choices via a, b and c - I'd use zillow.com and redfin.com to research real estate prices in ares of interest.

I hope this helps and good luck.

Best,

Samuel

MsElui

im loving ohio!

but as said before be sure its possible before making to many plans. When you say the green card process - do you really mean that? Or are you using that term instead of visa?

paul1968mcr

We live in hamilton county indiana, voted by forbes as the best county in America to raise a family, Fishers, in hamilton, was 10th in the best cities to live in in the usa.

we love it here, great schools, great and crap weather, amazing people - loads to do.

Patrick Hasler

Please put your $280,000 in a cardboard box and leave it under the 3rd bench on the right as you go through the gates at the north end of Ft Edward cemetary in NY on nov 30th and I will find you a nice warm house

Bob

You being sponsored for a greencard by an agency? Well in a few years time when you get it, you'll have to fill in terms of the contract first, and then after that consider where the work is.

Plenty of work for nurses in Maine though and that's not to bad for families, reasonable housing too...bit shit if your an older couple though as the winters go suck goat after a while, but then your kids would be older enough to shovel the drive way for you, only reason to have the blighters

North Carolina might be nice too....but then again, it all depends on the life style you fancy, sports, sea, going out lots, theatre, eating out etc...that'll determine what you think would be a nice spot.

tentonne

Crikey, I'm really shocked about that because I went to an exposition hosted by Atlas Medical Resources in London in July this year and they were keen to process applications from British Registered Nurses (and I know of 3 former colleagues who have utlised their services in the past 3 years to move to New York so I know they are legit!). Each nurse that is selected for permanent placement is sponsored for their Visa/Green Card applications by the facility offering employment

tentonne

I'm not so much looking for technical info at this juncture; more an idea of potential locations that would be suitable that I can visit in the next year or so.

tentonne

Seems like I've been lead up the garden path by the company hosting the expo I went to - they said it would realistically take around 2 years to complete the process. I guess that I'll log back into the forum in a couple of years when I might be closer to moving! Perhaps it won't all seem like such a secret squirral club then!!

Jerseygirl

Please tell me you haven't parted with any money.

tentonne

No I haven't - the employer pays the expenses to Atlas Medical. The only thing I would be liable for is the payment to take my NCLEX examination which is a relatively nominal amount paid directly to The National Council of State Boards of Nursing (which has been established for 100+ years).

Jerseygirl

Good and welcome to BE.

tentonne

Thanks for your concern and for the welcome!

I just noticed Atlas MR are actually advertising at the bottom of this page!