Hesi Exit Test

Nursing Students HESI

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Hello fellow educators....I am dealing with a dilema which I have no control over as I am a staff member, not administration, but it is just eating away at my concious. My community college uses the HESI exit exam for the ADN and LVN programs. Regardless of how good your GPA is, clinical performance and so on....along April or so, you have to pass a "exit exam" with a score of 850 or better in order to "Walk with your diploma". If you fail to pass the test you are allowed to take it again. If you fail again, you are out. Don't pass go, don't collect you monopoly money!!!! The problem I have with it, and I am not alone in this, IS>>> a couple of students each year per program, fails the HESI, despite being quality nursing students and according to the census of most instructors would pass the NCLEX with no problems. Other schools in our area use the HESi,but as a tool to help the students focus on their areas of weakness. I feel we should not leave it up to a third party vendor to make or break these kids, who have put their lives on hold, pawned everything they own, just to be one of us.

Am I normal to feel this way? I have discussed it with other staff and told it is the policy of the college network, DON'T go there...etc.

Your viewpoints would be appreciated. I just want my students to all have a shot at NCLEX after proving themselves to me, not a private vendor.

ERDude

I am in mourning. One of my classmates after a second attempt, finally succeeded in killing herself.

In her note, she said that she could no longer deal with the humilation, loss, and lies that the school had put her and her children through. She no longer had any money to repeat second year and have her grades audited as if she never earned them to begin with. Which were the only choice the school gave them.

Its been so painful dealing with how our school used their students as escapegoats for their own curriculum's deficiencies. I feel if the students had any deficiencies that it would of been nipped in the bud to begin with. The school was wrong to wait until you completed the entire program, to have taken all of your money, to a use a diagnostic test to withold your degree, and holding only the students accountable and not the faculty.

I am in so much pain on the loss of my beloved classmate. She would of made an excellent nurse. She stated in her note, that she wishes that faculty would of stood up for what is right. Faculty had told us many times that they do not believe in the exam. But, they also told us they were afraid to speak up against the vice chancellor in fear that they would lose their jobs. We had no advocacy. A few classmates have obtained an attorney regarding the matter. Others just gave up. I don't know what to do. Who do I write to? Who can help make this change? How can our story be known? I feel helpless and hopeless.

This maybe the last time I write here. I am in too much pain and confused about this whole HESI vs. NCLEX conspiracy. I lost my friend because of it.

I will never see her, again.

I don't understand...

Hello:

I need to find out more about this case. Please contact me ASAP.

Darrell Spurlock, Jr. PhD, RN

Email: dr.dspurlock *at* gmail.com

I would be interested in hearing how faculty in other schools are helping students deal with the stress associated with HESI and other similar tests. The tragedy described above suggests the intensity of distress students are suffering.

i recently graduated in august 2008...well not exactly graduated since i didnt pass the hesi w/ the grade of 880 or higher. we have 3 tries at 880. mind you, we are a community college and there are bsn programs out there that require 850. i think it's totally unfair that after the 3rd try, the only thing the teacher told us to do is take the lvn licensure exam. i was livid. they did nothing to help us, not even any remediation if failure occured. furthermore, the previous semester before us (may 2008) was allowed to graduate and sit for nclex w/ a score of 850 or higher with 4 tries. in fact, in my second testing, there were students from the may batch going for their 4th try and passed with 852 and 853...i made an 864 and cannot move on. and also, out of 87 students, so far until this date only 31 have passed; less than 50% of the class were successfull. this is not a matter of a class full of incompetent nurses, but it is mainly because of the lack of instruction by teachers or concern of the school overall.

they only care about keeping their ratings high for nclex passing rates. our class is making major progress in taking this into legal matters. we have went up the chain of command. the dean said that he would want to lower the score back to 850 but decided to put the last decision to the nursing faculty...they chose 880. now we have passed the president, and have decided to hire a lawyer to talk with the chancellor of our school. we also have someone who has connections with the media and will have an interview with a reporter soon.

wat breaks my heart the most is that some teachers were talking about imposing the hesi at the end of each semester and overall lower the score to 850 FOR THE FOLLOWING SEMESTERS AFTER US. they said that this policy cannot be done retroactively, so that leaves our semester of graduates with this dilemma.

i hope everything goes for the best. wish us luck!!!!

I can assure many that Southern University in Baton Rouge is probably one of the worst in the nation about how they administer these test. They do not tell the students ahead of time which test they will be taking. It can be HESI, ATI, Kaplan or any of 5 others they haven't named. Last semester was 2 ATI test and this semester they have started with a HESI. They do not comprehend that the test has weight based questions. And require percentage based grades based on raw scores ignoring the weight of questions. They claim of course, that students must get a 78% raw score to pass. Then ignore this after the test (because no one passes) and say a 71% raw score with a 900 HESI score. I know of some who had above a 71% and lower than a 900 HESI score, yet above 850 who are not passing this go round.

Some semesters they ignore the HESI score and go with only the raw score. This also means two people with the same number of questions right, yet one got the hard ones right and the other missed all the hard ones, essentially have the same raw score.

I really wish someone, would come up with a way to sue the administrations for these kinds of things. I would think the student handbooks or school guidelines would require schools to notify students of the exact grading scale that would be used and what test company prior to the actual test.

SUBR just changes the passing guidelines on every test to get the specific number they want to pass the test, regardless of fairness. One test may be a 78 and the next a 70. But I specifically have a major problem with using non-departmental test and then not using their scoring system and making up your own.

Where can students go to find out regulations regarding this?

It seems to me that some of these administrators will not learn anything until they are faced with a multi-million dollar class action.

Later,

Mr. Spurlock

I will contact you. I am a work right now. I just posted a few minutes ago. Its under graduated students. I wrote your e mail down and I will e mail you asap. I work the midnight shift and sleep most of the days.

But, I will call.

To all instructors. I know that all instructors are not like the instructors we had. Unfortunately, we have only experienced good clinical instructors. I hope that my classmates expirations will somehow make those particular instructors who lack the passion and care of teaching think twice.

We were never bad students. We never had any prior incidents with any other instructors/professors until we entered the nursing program.

Thank you for the instructors who continue to have the passion to inspire. To ensure that their students make the best nurses that they can be.

I am a student. I have taken the HESI 4 times. My scores have been 895-915 (approximately & consistently). Our school requires a score of 950. Approximately 35-40% of the students never achieve this score until they spend an additional $2400 and 2 months in remediation to pass the 950 requirements.

Recently, Drexel, started allowing students who failed the tests to review the HESI questions, answers and rationales for missed test questions. Review of the HESI questions from the last test shows that HESI makes mistakes in scoring. So far 5 questions in the last test have been challenged as being incorrectly scored. We have some support from the faculty, but no support from administration as this poses significant implications to their graduation requirements of passing the HESI with a 950 if the test has errors.

There are 8-9 students who are pursuing legal actions at this time. Several have taken steps to join class action law suits being tried in other states. I am on the fence with my next step.

i'm sitting right next to you rdl44. something must be done about universities holding back good nurses based on hesi exit exams. especially when a student successfully passed all course requirements. students must come together and seek legal advice put a stop to this. students are out 40k with nothing to show for. how do these people sleep at night? we have found many errors ore questionable answers to some of the test questions it make one wonder how valid these exams are. i wish faculty would step up and be an advocate for students in our situation. i read some where to place a complaint to the state board of nursing.

legal advice is greatly appreciated.

just took my hesi this monday and got a 954. our school requires an 850 though. my suggestion is to do questions from different sources ie. hesit cd, nclex 4000, and saunders. good luck to everyone

Wow.

This actually freaks me out...

I'm in my first semester of nursing school and we have HESIs as final exams for the majority of our classes. :/

I know someone said each exam should only cover what we've learned, but from past experience we don't always learn what's on standardized tests.

I also have to take the Hesi and is allow to take it only 3 times. The 3rd time if I do not pass the exam my years of hard work is a waist. I will be taking the exam for the 3rd time in April. I am worry because I hear that the test gets harder each time with more mutiple answers questions. I am planning to take the Kaplan course January 2009. Any suggestions. Does anyone know of a nursing school that do not require Hesi or you can take it as many times. Please help. :cry:

I also have to take the Hesi and is allow to take it only 3 times. The 3rd time if I do not pass the exam my years of hard work is a waist. I will be taking the exam for the 3rd time in April. I am worry because I hear that the test gets harder each time with more mutiple answers questions. I am planning to take the Kaplan course January 2009. Any suggestions. Does anyone know of a nursing school that do not require Hesi or you can take it as many times. Please help. :cry:

Hello Sweetna2003,

I was once in the same place you are in. My school only let us take the HESI 3 times or we would be out the program. I passed pn my 3rd try, it was hard but I made it with a lot of studying and praying. I advise you to do lots of questions. Read all the rationales where you got the question right or wrong. Study the areas you are weak in. I can't say it gets harder it just depends on what test they give you.

There's a few schools that do not require Hesi but I don't know what city and state you are in so...I wish you the best of luck, and never give up on your dream!!

i'm a student and i'm suprised to hear that an instuctor has an issue with the hesi! it's good to know. at my school, we have to take the hesi but getting our diploma doesn't depend on passing it. i think the hesi has become so popular with the schools is because of it suppose prediction of passing the nclex. if the students fail the nclex, that makes the school look bad. at my school so many students were failing the lpn hesi that the school's accredidation was put on probation....but it is so unfair for students to spend so much time and money and then not be able to receive their diploma. that should be illegal!

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