LaGuardia Community College (LAGCC) Nursing Program

U.S.A. New York

Updated:   Published

  1. Did you get accepted into Nursing at LAGCC?

    • 61
      YES
    • 26
      NO
    • 14
      Wait Listed

23 members have participated

Hi Everyone (preclinical students + alumni)

I hope this information here will help you decide if Lagcc is right for you. CUNY schools in general are very competitive because tuition is cheap at $1600 a semester so everyone wants to get in and tons of people apply. Admission is based on GPA so they start admitting the 4.0's then works it way down until its full.

Note / Disclaimer! All opinions and comments are mine alone,they do not reflect any endorsement by the school. Do your own research and make an informed decision. This review is from me as an alumni, graduate and a happy student.

NOTE Please check LaGCC school's nursing site for the most updated info as this original post is back in 2011-2012. There is now an entrance exam where previously there was not. http://www.lagcc.cuny.edu/RN/

* RESPECT is earned so please no prof bashing, name calling, cussing, insults, we are future nurses and professionals.

What is the GPA? Perquisites?

RN Program

 

 

Preqs
: English 101 (ENG101), Chemistry (SCC210), Anatomy & Physiology 1+2 (SCB203+204), General Pyschology (SSY101)

 

 

 
GPA:
3.8 minimum

 

 

 
Seats:
70

 

 

 
Accepts:
Spring and Fall

 

 

 
Entrance Test:
yes: TEAS

 

 

 
Time:
2 years

 

 

 

 

LPN Program (as of Spring 2012)

 

Preqs
: eng 101, gen pych, medical dosage (MAT106), A&P 1+2

 

 

 
GPA:
3.4 approx

 

 

 
Seats:
120

 

 

 
Accepts:
Fall only

 

 

 
Entrance Test:
TEAS

 

 

 
Time
: 9 months

 

 

 

 

Nursing Major - You are only a nursing student if you've been accepted into the clinical phase aka the competition for seats. all others its pre-nursing. Alot of people get very mixed up and what not on this title.

F.A.Q - All About Nursing At LAGCC

 

Campus

 

It's a small campus, consisting of 4 buildings E,M,B,C. It has your basic library, computer labs, gym, Olympic size pool, fitness center, yoga classes, free tutoring, writing center, and the like.

Support

Preclinical students are expected to read the nursing handbook, student general handbook and know what classes you need to register for as advisers are overworked and short staffed. THere is advisement the student advisement office if you're truely loss. When in doubt go to C107 they'll point you in the correct line to go to.

Clinical Students - Once you've been accepted into clinical phase you get an assigned adviser who is also a nursing professor. read the handbook before hand.. it gets very annoying to have to answer the same question 20x in a row when its printed on page X in the booklet.

Nursing Program

The training is rigorous, harsh and very complete. Anyone graduating from here is ready for the workforce, NCLEX you name it. At the end you have strong body of nursing knowledge, training, critical thinking, analysis skillz, and learn assertiveness. Professors drill into you the basics so its 2nd nature. Nursing process of ADPIE it applies to everything.

Money

Financial aid consist of your standard tap, pell, loans, work study, scholarships, and self funded. Most students work part time and some even FT.

Classes

Pre-Nursing classes like your prerequisite chem, A&P those fill up quickly, so keep hitting refresh and checking to see if there are spaces, register early and grab a section even if its not ideal at least you have something. Class size: like 25 with the occasionally mega class for chemistry of 100 those are rare.

Nursing Clinical Student

Once they accept you then you have a seat in all your nursing classes until you're done. No competing needed.

Lectures/Lab

Is usually 1 day 9:15-1pm and lab either on same day or separate either from 9:15am-12:45pm or 1pm-4:30pm

RN Classes

All RN nursing classes in day until you get to semester 3 and 4 then there's evening option because the evening class is usually the LPN-RNs. Day group is students that are starting fresh w/o nursing background. Kinda cool they keep the groups together so you level up with the same people you started with and graduate with.

LPN Classes

All day no evening / weekend classes

Clinical Days

It's 1 day a week 8am-3pm for the first 3 semesters and for the last semester 4 you get to do 2 clinical days back to back. Days well ya don't really get to pick unless you have truly extra ordinary situations like child care and such. WHICH DAY? could be mon, tue, thurs and occasionally Friday.

Is it true that nursing ... just need to get a C to graduate?

Yes, but let me warn you that "C" is going to be the hardest grade you've ever had to study for. If you get the "C" amount of effort you've put in would have equaled an A+ in any class on any topic.

Uniform

You only wear it to clinical its nurse whites with apron for women and men its blue uniform top. See details when you get here. TIP: buy 2 sets with one as backup.. because I've had my uniform stolen left in lib, Had Ink pen explode in pocket, spilled coffee, grease drip from pizza. (skyblue apron = LPN) and (Navy Blue aprons = RN)

Tests

It's 3 exams of 50 questions in 60 mins with 1 finals at 100 Ques. style follows NCLEX so its suppose to train you for that exam, hmm critical thinking required by 2nd semester so gotta learn it. No one can teach you how to think critically but you need to figure out if given X data, what do I do with it? how to I keep my patient safe etc. Think out of the box

Homework

Clinik writing - a ton there's nursing process tool, teaching plan, care plan, reflection, eportfolio. You'll do more writing in nursing classes than you've ever written for any English class or what not. I once spent 21 hrs writing my tool and 25 pages long.

LAB PREP there's h.w to be done before each lab

Professors

 

Pre-Nursing (prerequisite) ... it's a hit or miss some are awesome others soso and some prof's need to learn how to teach. If you're out of luck and got a bad prof and you can't self learn the material for a high grade then you have to choose drop the course or take the risk you get a lower grade.

Nursing Professors ... all are highly knowledgeable in their area of expertise, some are better at teaching than others, they are available to students, have office hours, reply to emails fairly quickly. Remember these profs are not here to be your friend, they're here to make sure that you pass the stateboards NCLEX, learn what it takes to be a nurse so uh ya the training is harsh and students blame the prof, hate em. I am of the mind of take responsibility for your own training/education suck it up and do whatever it takes to pass those nursing classes and get your license.

Addendum: Nursing professors are tough but guess what? out here in the real world its even harder and the stakes are higher your livelihood, license and even freedom is at stake. It's a dog eat dog world, nurses eat their young and only the strong survive. Good luck, learn what you can

Mentors ... this is the fun part. Anyone can be your mentor whether it be your professor, an upper class-men, once you're in the nursing program they take care of you, and you're supported by your professors, fellow classmates, senior nursing students ..there's always someone to answer questions, give advice or reassure you about nursing fears.

Food ... there's awesome shiskabab by t-mobile corner. Van Damm Dinner is fabulous with Sinefeld like atmosphere and decor, 7-11 shop, pizza store, and cafe, Cafeteria and Atrium Cafe.

Coffee ... sigh you'd think upper management didn't drink coffee considering the inky stuff cafeteria calls coffee. 7-11 has decent one, atrium cafe drinkable.. no Starbucks within a 10 block radius go figure and there is one McDonald in 9 blocks.

I am currently a student at lagcc in my key courses I have a overall gpa of 3.1 here is the breakdown

A&P 1 I got a C+

SCC 210 A-

SSY101 B-

ENG 101 A

i am like really nervous cause of gpa for the key courses are low but my overall gpa is a 2.5 which isn't good I have five classes to take before I want to apply

which are microbiology, developmental psychology, urban writing, statistics, anatomy 2 if I get all A in the remaining classes my overall gpa will be a 3.5 my concern is should I even apply to lagcc program or just look somewhere I took the teas the first time and got a 41.2% and I am planning to retake it. I néed some serious advice before I plan my school schedule for the Fall 2014.

You can still get in. A lot of people are not passing the TEAS test. As a result, the GPA went from a 3.8 and up to a 3.1-3.2. You must take the Teas test and get a 58.7 minimum to even apply. For LPN it's a 41. I graduated from Lagcc LPN program last June. I'm up for candidacy for the LPN-RN bridge program. I will find out next month if I got in. Continue taking your classes and do not be discouraged.

Thank you so much I have been crazy worried not knowing should I even waste my time for this program or just continue looking at other BSN programs. Should I do the LPN route cause I got a 41.2 on the teas the first time.

Specializes in Ambulatory care.

try and then try again :) seriously yes go put in your application at lagcc RN, other places, bsn apply all over so you have choices. if you get rejected then go LPN route.

For lpn the required teas is actually 41.3, so you are off by .1 point. I have applied for candidacy for the Fall, RN. I am extremely nervous because this semester I kind of slacked off and my GPA dropped to a 3.43 from a 4.0 for the key courses. I am really hoping to get in. But, I am nervous that if I do get in I will fail out since I didn't take any of the other Gen Ed courses, and we don't even get to choose our classes and I may end up with a really bad professor.

My main concern is that do I even have a chance to get into the RN program because I got a C+ in SCB203 and that is a important class also I got a B- in Ssy101 so far my key course gpa is a 3.15 and I am little discouraged to apply to lagcc RN program I need some advice please!!!!!!!

The only solutions I can think of is:

1. Try to appeal your grades or go to the head of the department and ask permission to repeat those two classes. Which is kind of far fetched because they aren't really lenient on those types of things, and even if they do they will average the two grades together.

2. Continue to take the general education classed to help boost your GPA, which is what a lot of people do.

3. Retake the TEAS and score at least a 58.7 and apply to the program and hope that it is not as competitive next semester. Also, a lot of people apply and end up failing scb-204 if they take it during the summer, apply with the minimum GPA and assume that is enough, didn't pass the TEAS and still applied, or even some have citizenship issues.

4. Or just transfer schools and ask for those two classes to not be transferred and retake them. And you could even go to another school boost your GPA and then transfer back if you feel that you may not get in there either.

If this is something that really really want to do and is meant to do then it will happen. Many people face setbacks for whatever reason, but they don't give up. Research your options.

I am going to speak to biology dept if I can take anatomy 1 over again. I am applying for the fall 2015. I am taking the teas this month

Good luck...

I have a question about the second semester of the nursing program. On the schedule it says mental health and med surg has a 6 week clinical does that mean that the classes are only 6 weeks or are they both still the full 12 weeks? I noticed that for some of the classes it says first six weeks mental health combined with second six weeks med surg and vice versa. Also i know there are 3 exams and one final, but are there quizzes in between? Also in the handbook it says that there is kaplan integrated testing, what are those like? I don't see many people posting about that program.

Good luck...

I have a question about the second semester of the nursing program. On the schedule it says mental health and med surg has a 6 week clinical does that mean that the classes are only 6 weeks or are they both still the full 12 weeks? I noticed that for some of the classes it says first six weeks mental health combined with second six weeks med surg and vice versa. Also i know there are 3 exams and one final, but are there quizzes in between? Also in the handbook it says that there is kaplan integrated testing, what are those like? I don't see many people posting about that program.

From what I understand both classes have lectures for 12 weeks, but you spend the first 6 weeks in one clinical and the next 6 weeks in the other. Half of the students start with MH clinicals, while the other half start med surg and after the first 6 weeks its switched. In fundamentals we didn't have any quizzes in lecture but there are practicals and a math test in lab that you must pass.

As far as Kaplan they require you to pay for it, you take a test during orientation to see where you're at, they had logic questions and nclex style questions on things you haven't learned yet, but it's not part of your grade. During finals week after your final you take another test using Kaplan. This time the questions are about things you learned during the semester and it is 5% of your final course grade.

Yes, this is true. I’m a LaGuardia student and will be starting med surg 2 in the fall. As for med surg 1 and psychiatric nursing, the lectures are 12 weeks and for the first six weeks half of you will go to psych clinical and the other half med surg clinical and then switch for the second six weeks of the semester. As for the quizzes, this was implemented after my semester; we didn’t have to take any. From what I understand from students a semester behind me, it totally depends on which professor you get that determines whether or not you’ll have to take quizzes, unless the department has recently changed the curriculum and everyone must take them now. CAUTION regarding the mental health course, do not underestimate the material. Because you have to take med surg 1 and mental health at the same time, you might be tempted to focus more on med surge because it is a lot of information, including some heavy pharmacology and the mental health material will appear to be simpler, so not true. Those were no so simple exams. I managed to pass with a B-; there were students who were not so lucky and some that even passed med surg and had to repeat mental health. So, my advice is to find a nice balance.

And yes, Kaplan is integrated into the program and it costs $450. However, you will pay $112.50 each semester and if you multiply that by 4 (semesters) the total is $450. You will take the Kaplan critical thinking exam first in the beginning of the first semester. This does not count against your grade; it is just to see where you are before you actually start learning the content. At the end of your first semester (during finals week), you will take the Kaplan fundamentals exam (75 questions; this is worth 5%) in addition to your lecture final (100 questions). From this point on during finals week, you will take a Kaplan (med surg 1, psychiatric, maternity, pediatrics, and med surg 2) exam, each worth 5%, in addition to your lecture final. Kaplan exams are Nclex styled and in my opinion the level of difficulty depends on the content. Hoped this helped; Good Luck!!!

how is the maternity and pediatrics course? very hard?

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