A&P and Micro - Summertime

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Specializes in Emergency / Disaster.

I thought I had my choice school narrowed down but for financial reasons my first choice is now my last or not even a possibility unless I win the lottery. I have 2 possible schools for a BSN and 1 for an ADN (I already have a BS degree and I can't move). I'm attending the ADN school currently and taking A&P as a Transient student now.

Over the summer semester would you

1) take A&P 2 and Micro together?

2) would you take A&P2 from a different school than you took A&P1 (meaning different textbook and the whole 9 yards - I don't know about continuity - my "current" school is 7 editions back from where I'm taking A&P now)

3) would you take micro with a teacher that you are familiar with (first test I got a 100 - prob got lucky). Should I stay at this other school for these other 2 classes?

Their semester is 2 weeks shorter than my "current" school but I know how the instructor teaches, I already have the book and the online portion so I would have continuity (which is a requirement in one of the schools but I was told on the phone it can be waived - sure would suck if she was wrong)... The downside is its a little more expensive and it keeps me from getting the # of credit hours at my "current" school (but since I already have a BSN they would likely waive the # of credit hours I need to apply. My current school also goes by points and as long as I do well on the TEAS then I would probably have enough points to skip the 12 hours at current school anyway).

I could also wait and take Micro during Fall, but this would only work for 1 school I'm applying to, since the rest say the courses must be completed prior to application.

My initial plan was to go back to my school, but now I'm thinking I should stay where I'm at for A&P and take A&P2 and Micro with the same instructor even if the semester is shorter. What would you do? So many of the people in my current class are backing down from taking them together in the summer

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I'm trying to figure out what you mean by not getting the number of credits you need at your main school. I'm assuming there's a nursing program at that school that you will be applying to and I guess that there is a requirement for getting a certain number of credits from that school? If I'm assuming right, then get the fact that it can be waived and how it can be waived in writing from someone in the program, assuming it's not mentioned and explained on the program's website. An email reply will suffice. But you don't want to go by what someone told you on the phone because if they were wrong, you have no actual proof of what was said and they have no reason to even believe you. I've had the staff at the advising office tell me a different thing the 5 times I called about one issue.

But assuming that the credit thing can be waived and isn't an issue, I would take both classes in the summer and just hunker down to get it done. I would want to be able to apply to as many programs as I could, not just one. I'd personally at least do A&P 2 at the same college I took A&P 1 to ensure that I'm going to learn everything. Different colleges can stop A&P 1 at different chapters and systems or do different body systems in different orders. Micro would be taken with whatever college would be easiest.

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Specializes in Emergency / Disaster.

You got it - my current school requires 12 credit hours taken at their school to apply for the ADN program there. It is a requirement in that you get "points" and when it comes time to admit students, they take all the qualified candidates and then put them in order of points - highest first and go down the list until they get to 40 and that is who gets accepted. The points are based mostly on A&P 1&2, Eng, Psy, Stats, Micro, TEAS - and each grade letter is worth a different amount of points (an A in A&P is worth 8 points and an A in English or Psy is only worth 5 points). They tell you that you can't apply until you have completed all the Science courses, but the real truth is you can't make a cutting score until you complete them. This program starts with 40 students and typically ends up with less than 20 - that scares me for some reason.

I'm thinking I should take A&P2 at the same school also.

My plan is to apply to 2 schools (the 4th is just financially a bad decision - its where I want to go, but a bad financial decision) and the 3rd school requires additional pre-reqs and I won't have them done to apply for the same semester. I have a 3.86 on my undergrad degree and I'm currently getting As in all my pre-reqs. I would hope that it is enough to get me into one of these 2, but if I don't I'll do whatever to get into the other school. I was previously a student there, so it shouldn't be too hard to send my final transcript and get accepted and enroll again.

My biggest fear right now is that I'm studying for the HESI and the TEAS in my "break" time (in the car, in grocery lines, etc) and I'm sitting around 60%. I hope that this goes up as I get further into and through A&P. The biology is killing me!!

Thanks for the advice!!

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Starting off with 40 students and ending with 20 is a bit concerning, I agree. You can always see if you can find the school's NCLEX pass rates for new grads, as that might tell you if people are dropping because the program isn't teaching them well. That or check to see if there's any previous threads about the school here.

But it does sound like you have a good plan then. I hope you get accepted to both schools.

(And the science section of the TEAS will be a lot easier once you finish A&P 1 and start A&P 2 since the science portion is pretty much 90% things you review or learn in A&P. I took the TEAS about two thirds of the way through A&P 2 and felt prepared. I used Khan Academy and other videos to learn basics on anything I hadn't already learned in class.)

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Specializes in Emergency / Disaster.

It says their NCLEX pass rate is above 90% but the last posted date is 2015. The staff says that the students just aren't prepared for how hard it actually is... I'm not really buying that.

The last class in December only graduated 8 people.... yup - lil bit worried about that.

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Specializes in Cardiac ICU.

I took advanced A&P and Micro in the same semester. It sucked, but, I averaged roughly 95% between the two. You can certainly do it. I had two different instructors for General A&P and Advanced A&P, and a third one for Micro. I like them all and was glad I had the ones I did for the classes I had them for. Good as they were, Khan Academy and Crash Course were my best online friends in the world..

I never had to deal with TEAC, but, I thought the HESI was WAAAYYY overhyped. I didn't think that it was difficult at all. I took it roughly 4 months after finishing Adv. A&P and got 100% on that portion with no studying in between. I don't RECOMMEND that--that's just me. Of all of the nightmares I've heard about it, after I took it, I had to wonder what those folks were being taught in their A&P classes...

College classes and instructors are like a box of chocolates....

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