ATI Appeal - Page 3

I'm sorry about your situation. My school had the exact same ATI policy and two people in our class didn't pass the Peds ATI twice and were failed for the course because of that. The bad thing was that they both had A's in the class. There wasn't really anything they could to - it was a school policy. They both appealed and were denied. The happy ending is that they retook the class next term and both passed, just graduated 6 months later.

I just don't get it. Why most colleges now are so into ATI? Why based your grade as pass or fail? Back in the days when ATI does not exist, students were able to pass it. There's only 1 good reason to use ATI, just a help- assessment, and to practice students how to get familiar with the types and style of questions NCLEX has. Sometimes I notice that some questions in ATI was inconsistent and I have to argue or ask my teacher about my rationale.
I know colleges gets their accreditation how how well their students pass the nclex. But what I think is important is how they teach their students. How the students will remember how good the knowledge they learned from that school, not all how to be strategically smart about how to take ATI style questions.

I have no clue. Don't get me wrong, I think ATI is a great tool..but in my program it is about 30% of our grade (10% for completing weekly modules that we must get at least a 90% on, and 20% on the exit exam). I think perhaps they feel if we can perform well on ATI exams than we can pass the NCLEX. We took the ATI predictor in february and pretty much all of us who had a 90-99% chance of passing the NCLEX on the first try, did.

If the module (home practice) was completed before the applicable final we could get a couple of extra points added to our lowest test grade. The proctored exams were a quiz grade highest level was 100, 2nd highest level was a 90, next level 80, "lowest" level was 75. (75 was minimum final grade to pass a course to progress to next level and/or graduate).

So even if you had a high average and did not do nearly as well on the proctored exam you could still keep your average pretty high. It was used as a tool in my program. I found many of the questions to be very similar to the NCLEX and many of the rationales were also. Some questions/rationales not so much. The caveat with the books was you needed to make sure that you downloaded the updates/corrections from the ATI website if you were going to use the books to study. Some of my classmates missed that highly emphasized piece of information given to us not only by the ATI rep but several times from our instructors and later tried to argue incorrect questions without success. (Some were pretty obvious that the first print of the book was incorrect vs. current evidenced based practice guidelines)

The ATI predictor exam seemed to be pretty accurate for most of my graduating class who took the NCLEX pretty close to graduation, those who waited 3, 6, 9 months or more to register and sit for the NCLEX did not do nearly as well...

I'm sure we've all seen nursing students, full of pride in their schools, try to compare how much harder their program is with incomparable metrics. Most frequently seen are silly peeing matches over who has the harder grading scale (percentages mean nothing when the questions are different). Well, schools do want to compare.

The only universal metric is NCLEX pass rate. However, NCLEX pass rate is somewhat meaningless because it fails to account for student filtering (attrition by class or program exit exams) and it doesn't tell a school where it is strong or weak. The ATI, and its competitors, offer a standardized tool to gauge student and program performance by class and by program within a cohort, between cohorts, and between schools. It even breaks down performance by sub-discipline within a class. You've seen these subject breakdowns as well as the performance rating within your program and on the national level in your ATI results.

Some schools use this as primarily a learning tool that counts for part of a grade. Other programs have decided to use ATI as a defining minimum performance metric. Which is the better method? I like the former, but I can see how some programs can keep their NCLEX pass rates within spec by using ATI as a cutoff.

ATI's pretests in many cases are full of incorrect and outdated information. Their post-graduation 3 day NCLEX review is a dog & pony show. I relied solely on that review and the material provided to take my NCLEX and I failed. ATI is a tool used by schools to maintain their accreditation and nothing more. ATI is about making money and I have even had a professor of mine admit to me that she was fairly sure that nurses were not making up the content on the ATI tests. I have taken 100's of snapshots of ATI questions with snipping tool (found in windows 7) and shared them with nurses who flat out say they are wrong! For instance, ATI believes that nurses are the ones who ensure a patient understands a surgical procedure they have upcoming when in fact that is the physicians responsibility. ATI also does not know the difference between side effects and adverse side effects. ATI believes that nurses are responsible for helping victims of physical abuse develop escape plans the next time they are abused. Of course, ALL of these are WRONG. All their NCLEX review did for me was have me study materials I wasn't even tested on when I took my NCLEX. ATI is a complete waste of time and effort. I graduated an accredited university with a Bachelors in Nursing with a 3.25gpa and failed the NCLEX because I relied on ATI to provide a quality review and used their materials to study. What I got turned out to be a bad joke and now a horrible situation. There's a reason ATI doesn't want anyone copying their questions on tests. There's a reason ATI reps won't speak directly to students. There's a reason you can never get a nurse on the line to speak to at ATI. They are trying to cover up the fact that they are in the business of making money, not educating students.

This situation is very similar to what is going on in my school at the moment. This is the first semester that ATI is counting as part of our grade... (10%) and because of the proctored exams, myself and two of my friends are going to fail the semester. My nursing program decided to change the grading requirements this semester (6 months before we graduate) just because they got accredited. If you ask me, I think it is complete BS. ATI is extremely inconsistent, not only with the information provided in the books they give you, but also with how the proctored exams are graded. Now, just because we got a level 1 on our proctored exams, we will fail the semester. I don’t think it is fair at all for ATI to be the determinant as to whether or not we pass. In my school, a 76.5 is considered "passing" and our test averages are well above 77.
The way it works: we get 4/10 points for handing in the practice tests (which we need to hand in any way to take our classroom exams) and the remaining 6 points come from whatever we get on the proctored exams. Level 1 and below level 1 get 0/6 pts. Level 2 gets 5.5/6 points and level 3 gets 6/6 points. So this means, that is I were to get a 90 on all of my tests, and a level 1 on the proctored exam, i will finish with a B and not an A-. Tell me now, is this fair?
My question: which schools use ATI as part of their grading system, and if so what % is ATI worth? Also, how many points are allocated for each level?
I have NEVER been fond of ATI since day 1 and 97% of my senior class is in agreement.
It really is a shame because I know for a fact that my friends and I will be excellent nurses. For my school to fail people just because of ATI is extremely ridiculous. I’ve even called ATI to find out what numerical grade is required for each level and the lady said she couldn’t tell me or she would get in trouble! I started to cry because my grade depended on it, obviously, and then she told me the grade needed for a level 2, but told me not to tell anyone because she could get in trouble. How is it that ATI can treat their customers as such, yet still be in business?!? I truly don’t understand ATI at all, I pay $650 for ATI and I’m not even allowed to know what number grade I need to achieve to get a level 2?!?! That’s honestly what shocked me the most. I DO plan on calling the better business bureau as soon as this situation is resolved.

What possible difference does it make to know what "number grade" you need to have to pass it? You won't change the way you prepare, presumably-- or would you just say, "Screw it, I only need a 45, so I'm not going to study that much"? Seems to me the mature response would be, "Well, then, I'd better work hard to do my best, because I really don't want to find myself close to the line!"

And with respect, it doesn't matter whether your class thinks the same way you do, and it REALLY doesn't matter that you "know for a fact that (your friends and you) will be excellent nurses." You don't know any such thing, especially given the recent research that indicates people consistently overestimate their fabulousness.

You are showing the "It isn't FAIR!!" response that most people grow into at 13, and outgrow by the time they're old enough to graduate from college.

The BBB won't give your complaint a second thought, either. Suck it up and deal, as my kid would say.

What possible difference does it make to know what "number grade" you need to have to pass it? You won't change the way you prepare, presumably-- or would you just say, "Screw it, I only need a 45, so I'm not going to study that much"? Seems to me the mature response would be, "Well, then, I'd better work hard to do my best, because I really don't want to find myself close to the line!"

And with respect, it doesn't matter whether your class thinks the same way you do, and it REALLY doesn't matter that you "know for a fact that (your friends and you) will be excellent nurses." You don't know any such thing, especially given the recent research that indicates people consistently overestimate their fabulousness.

You are showing the "It isn't FAIR!!" response that most people grow into at 13, and outgrow by the time they're old enough to graduate from college.

The BBB won't give your complaint a second thought, either. Suck it up and deal, as my kid would say.

This reminds me of the LPN program I was in. One semester a few students failed Fundamentals, and had to sit out an entire semester before re-taking it. They whined and screamed how "unfair" it was, wanted to run to the nursing board, the dean and anyone else they could whine to over how unfair it was that they had slacked off all semester and failed the class. One screamed how the class was "impossible" to pass. Really? I passed it with a 98.

If people spent half as much time studying as they did whining, maybe they wouldn't have as much to whine about.