My NCLEX Story :)

I graduated from ITT tech on December 14th and scheduled my test date for December 29th. I attended a Kaplan live review course from December 15-18. I worked full time as a tech on a telemetry unit during this time also.

ITT requires all students to pass their hesi exit exam with a minimum score of 850 or higher (I believed this helped me the most since I had to take it twice). I mostly used nclex mastery (phone app), Saunders yellow book, and Kaplan to study. Mastery and Saunders was def the foundation I needed for content while Kaplan truly helped me look at questions in a totally different way than I have ever used before in nursing school (Kaplan questions are very similar to nclex questions).

The day before my exam I stayed in a hotel since my testing center was two hours away. I highly suggest that you do not drive far if the testing center is not within your city the day of testing. On my way to the city of testing the day before I truly just studied testing strategies from a Kaplan book to calm my nerves. My wife and I had a very relaxing day including going out to eat for lunch and supper and relaxing in the hotel room after watching our favorite tv shows (law and order/lie to me).

The day of the test I was very anxious and was very nauseous, but I made sure to eat breakfast since I knew this test could take up to six hours long! Once I got to the testing center about a half an hour early I was welcomed by the front desk. I was signed in using a palm vein scanner and was shown a paper of all the nclex rules. Next I was Palm vein scanned into the testing room where I was able to have ear plugs and noise canceling headphones which they provided thankfully! After the tutorial I took three deep breaths and started just like I was answering Kaplan questions. Next I noticed I was at 75 questions and I started to shake a little. I hit next and kept going, the next time I looked up I was at about 100 and didn't even remember answering the questions I just answered because I was so anxious, but I felt good about the test so far. I took a deep breath and really tried hard for the next 10 questions and it shut off at 110 for me! I was bitter sweet about the whole test because you just don't know even though I felt good about it.

In the car almost back to my home town (2 hrs away) I did the new Pearson vue trick. I received the good pop up, but it's not 100% accurate till after 24 hrs so I was still very unsure about the whole thing still even though friends were calling me RN already..

The next day I checked the state board of nursing of Indiana and my license number was posted by 8 am!

This experience is very humbling, but I truly believe that anyone can achieve what I have achieved. I was considered "slow" in elementary and look at me now!

Sincerely, Harrison Walter RN