What is a "passing grade" for your nursing program?

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I am just curious as I have noticed that it varies program to program.

For my program that I will be starting next month, a passing grade is 80% and anything less is failing. Furthermore, your exams must average out to 80% prior to them adding any of your other assignments into the grade. So even if you have an 89%, but your exams average to 79.9, you will be failing then semester.

For my ADN, it was 77%. I think the test average had to be 77%. The "final" was the ATI which was worth 10% and the highest grade you could get was a 95%. It was 95%, 85%, 75%, or 65% depending on the level you received.

For my BSN, I think it's like 80. It works out to be a B- is the minimum you can get.

The BSN portion is completely different than ADN.

Keep in mind that it's hard to compare programs to programs. A program may require a 85% but have the easiest tests in the world and have many different assignments factored in whereas another program may have it set at 70% but have four super hard tests and that's all you're graded on along with a pass/fail clinical that doesn't get factored into the grade.

Apples, did you pick your screen name because it matches this topic? Apples to oranges, for sure. I think as people look at this it's really important to understand that high score thresholds or low are really not indicative of what you can learn in a program or whether it's a quality program or not. A hard earned 65 in a tough program could be meaningful (though for sure, not as alluring to prospective employers).

I feel like grades are pretty arbitrary and I care about them only as much as they allow me to do what I want to do next...

Ask me how I feel about grades after I've earned a couple in an actual nursing course- yeah, so my whole ease with this subject is purely theoretical :geek:

80% for both my PN program and now my ADN program. It's an average of all graded assignments/exams but it's weighted, exams are generally 70-80% of your grade.

Specializes in ER/Emergency Behavioral Health....

78% and I believe that goes for tests as well as final grades. Anything less than that is considered failing.

Our school has a 60% passing grade. But to get in, you need at least 80-90% average.

Specializes in Emergency Room.

Ours is 77% or above with no rounding and 90% or above on dosage calculations.

We have to maintain a 2.5 GPA; however, their grading system is different than the usual (for me anyway) 70-79% C, 80-89% B, and 90-100% A.

They go by:

A: 93% - 100%

B: 85% - 92.9%

C: 80% - 84.9%

D: 75% - 79.9%

F: 0% - 74.9%

All Cs would only get us a 2.0, so we really need to reach for Bs and Cs at minimum. They do round. 84.6 would be rounded up to 85 - 84.5 would be rounded to 84.

We need a 75 to pass the class, which is a C on the transcript. If you get lower than a 75, you have one chance to retake the class before you are kicked out of the program. In lab, we have 2 chances to pass check-offs. We fail the class after our second attempt, regardless of our written exam average.

75 is the lowest C in our program.

Specializes in ICU, Radiology,Infectious Disease,Forensic Nursing.

77% is a passing grade for ours. Projects, papers and everything else in factored into the grade. We also have a a lot of pass/fail things in there.

Specializes in Telemetry, IMCU.
77% is a passing grade for ours. Projects, papers and everything else in factored into the grade. We also have a a lot of pass/fail things in there.

I love your avatar. :)

If anyone is still reading this topic, I'd like to solicit feedback on class averages. Our requirements are similar to many of those referenced above. Minimum 78 to pass the class and minimum of 78 on test grades (which ultimately = 90% of the class grade) to pass the class, and no more than one test score below passing to pass the class + 90% to pass med math tests.

But as someone pointed out, it's where people's grades fall that matters. Our instructors have said that they keep class averages on test grades very consistently at about 82 or 84 with the vast majority of students falling between 80 and 85. That is a middle to low C. That seems low to me as a class average. Anyone else able to share insight on the class standing question? Thx.

75% is the minimum for my program. It's cumulative and includes exams, quizzes, and other assignments. Our dosage calculation test every semester must be passed with 100% and you get 3 tries. Clinicals are pass/fail.

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