Attrition/Retention rate at your School

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No need to name your institution, but I'm curious about the retention/attrition rates at other schools. My program has an extremely high NCLEX pass rate. However, the number of students who start every semester who are allowed to remain to the end of the program is only a small fraction of the students who begin the program.

We are given to understand that it would not even be possible for the majority of students to pass owing to fewer than necessary clinical placements available. In our state, I am wondering if all the licensing authorities look at is the actual NCLEX pass rate. Does anyone know how this works? I'm not concerned about myself, but I have seen talented people cut loose. It troubles me. I'm wondering if it is something that happens everywhere.

Specializes in Cardio-Pulmonary; Med-Surg; Private Duty.

I just graduated from a community college's part-time ADN program. Out of the 80 people who started the part-time program with me, only about 25 people graduated in the same part-time program.

Some people failed out along the way, and some people left due to pregnancy, health problems, family problems, etc. Some who failed out re-entered the program (either full-time or part-time) along the way, others it was their second time failing a class and they aren't eligible to rejoin the program.

I think my program's problem is that they admit far too many people who are simply unable to handle the academic rigors of the program. Because it is a community college, they try to be overly-inclusive -- the hardest requirement is a minimum of a B- in A&P. It would be interesting to compare how many of those "bare minimum" students failed out compared to the students who got a B+ or higher in the A&P courses.

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

I think my program's problem is that they admit far too many people who are simply unable to handle the academic rigors of the program. Because it is a community college, they try to be overly-inclusive -- the hardest requirement is a minimum of a B- in A&P. It would be interesting to compare how many of those "bare minimum" students failed out compared to the students who got a B+ or higher in the A&P courses.

I agree. And in my school it's a C for the pre-requisites.

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

Interesting discussion - thank to all posters, I'm enjoying your insight.

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I'm entering my 4th semester in my program with 9 people. We started with 25. My school has the highest NCLEX pass rates in the surrounding area. Nobody at all in my program has managed to make an A in any of our classes so far and only a select few (1-3 people) have managed to make low B's in a couple of our classes we've taken thus far.

We are required to have a 78% as our final grade to pass. We've had people fail out of an entire class by .02% (no rounding up). Our check-offs for our lab skills (med admin, foley, etc.) must be performed perfectly in front of an instructor. If you miss a critical step you are allowed to repeat the skill one more time, should you fail again you are forced to withdraw from the class. You can reapply to the program but, obviously, many people fail out and it is very difficult to get re-admitted.

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Specializes in Forensic Psych.

My program has about a 95% pass rate, and graduates around 90% of the entered class. I like those odds ;)

I think the small class size has something to do with it - it's difficult to get in, but our instructors have the time and resources to help us through.

There also isn't any sort of "weeding out" mentality - at least not that I can tell. Some people just can't cut it, but they leave because they couldn't meet reasonable (in my option) expectations, not because they were bullied out.

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Apparently, it doesn't happen everywhere (two people so far have responded that they don't lose that many but still have high NCLEX pass rates). I wonder why. I wonder what those schools do differently.

i.e. is it something about the school's programming or is it that they manage their acceptances differently, or what?

My own thinking is that it would be optimal to have both high NCLEX pass rates AND high retention rates. If some schools are achieving this, it would be nice to know what they are doing right.

At the school I'm attending they pretty much will not let anyone being the program if they won't pass. The "weeding out" is done in the ranking classes and tests. So very few fail out and most pass their test. This seems to be true for all of the health occupation degrees.

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Specializes in critical care.
I'm entering my 4th semester in my program with 9 people. We started with 25. My school has the highest NCLEX pass rates in the surrounding area. Nobody at all in my program has managed to make an A in any of our classes so far and only a select few (1-3 people) have managed to make low B's in a couple of our classes we've taken thus far.

We are required to have a 78% as our final grade to pass. We've had people fail out of an entire class by .02% (no rounding up). Our check-offs for our lab skills (med admin, foley, etc.) must be performed perfectly in front of an instructor. If you miss a critical step you are allowed to repeat the skill one more time, should you fail again you are forced to withdraw from the class. You can reapply to the program but, obviously, many people fail out and it is very difficult to get re-admitted.

This is insane. How does this kind of brutality in a program actually support worthy people in becoming confident, well-rounded nurses?

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I think mine said something like 80% pass rate first time on NCLEX.

80%? My State BON would be all over a school with that pass rate. After reading the BON minutes of the meetings it seems that once a school hits mid 80's the BON wants a correction plan to increase those scores. The majority of the nursing schools (BSN to LPN) are in the mid90-100 pass rate.

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Our four year average is 95%. And we lose roughly 10% of students throughout the two years.

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This is insane. How does this kind of brutality in a program actually support worthy people in becoming confident, well-rounded nurses?

I'm not sure, but people can and do graduate and become good nurses, everyone that graduated last year had an RN job upon graduation, whether locally or in another town.

My main concern is the grading system. Yes, any third person viewer can simply say "wah wah cry about your grades and try harder" but they are simply ignorant to how my program is run. As I stated in my previous post, a "C" is what the overwhelming majority of the class makes in our classes (me included). We are not a stupid class, nearly every single one of the original remaining members of my class had a 4.0 before nursing school. You can say its all on the student to make the grades but that statement only goes so far. I have plans to continue my education at the graduate level, and I know grades are taken into consideration. Am I just going to state that I came from an extremely difficult program with a C average and expect them to believe all that? It's a mess....

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Specializes in Forensic Psych.

The vast majority of my class earns Cs. Bs are less common and As are something close to a miracle, even though we all had As before NS. I've been lead to believe that's somewhat normal.

What doesn't seem normal is that the majority of your class FAILED. To me, that signifies something is wrong. You'd have a better chance graduating med school!

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My LPN school

We started with 42 students graduated 14

Had a 98% NCLEX pass rate

I just finished my first semester stated with 30 lost 4, in fundamentals.

pass rate last year was 92-94% for NCLEX

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