ADN program in Pennsylvania

Science771 · Aug 5

emtpbill said:

After going through Excelsior's program successfully I would 1000% pick an Excelsior grad to be as competent, if not more so, then graduates of other online or brick and mortar school offering the same degree level.

I completely agree! Emtpbill, you seem like a stellar RN and healthcare professional. EMTs/paramedics are first line with critical care skills and more than qualified to bridge to an RN. I would feel 1000% more confident hiring you than I would a new grad who is brand new to healthcare from a brick & mortar school. The state systems are biased and don't take into consideration the full concept of Excelsior's nursing program. Even though I don't fully agree with some of Excelsior's practices, I think Excelsior's nursing program and it's grads should be given the credit they deserve. There are some things about some local nursing programs I don't fully agree with either, including the one I graduated from before bridging through Excelsior.

In the hospital where I work, when the associate degree nursing students come to the hospital, they are mainly doing aide work, may rarely get to pass meds under an instructor and might get to see or help with a nursing skill or task once in a while. Even my LPN clinicals taught me more than a lot of them are learning. Preparing and going through the CPNE was way more educational than that. Also, seeing that many of the brick & mortar students have no prior medical experience, they would need more supervised instruction. Excelsior definitely is not a diploma mill handing out degrees. Only those who went through Excelsior can fully grasp how rigorous the program is, how well it prepared us, and how hard we worked to bridge to RN.

The cons I find with Excelsior is their of lack transparency regarding state licensing and some of their unfair testing practices, such as failing students for trivial things that are not based within rubric guidelines. It probably wouldn't hurt Excelsior's cause to have in person, supervised clinicals for every online theory class just to satisfy all the states, which would remove state barriers to nursing licensure for grads and RNs.

emtpbill, ASN, RN, EMT-P · Aug 6

Science771 said:

The cons I find with Excelsior is their of lack transparency regarding state licensing and some of their unfair testing practices, such as failing students for trivial things that are not based within rubric guidelines. It probably wouldn't hurt Excelsior's cause to have in person, supervised clinicals for every online theory class just to satisfy all the states, which would remove state barriers to nursing licensure for grads and RNs.

When I began and completed the Excelsior program there was pretty much one state that would not license Excelsior grads no matter what and that was California. I see a lot of states are now listed by Excelsior as not accepting students from, which is sad, because like you said they do not take into consideration the hoops and hurdles that Excelsior students have to go through the just to graduate and have the opportunity to take the NCLEX-RN. Fortunately I passed the NCLEX-RN on my first attempt. I remember that there was a young lady in the waiting room at the Pearson Vue testing center. I struck up a conversation with her and just asked if she was there to take her RN boards and she was. She then went on to tell me that this was her 5th time taking the NCLEX-RN and that she had to wait several weeks in between before being allowed to register again to take it. She went on to tell me that she had graduated from a 4 year brick and mortar University. Now she may just be a poor test taker but I was taken aback , and a bit petrified, that if this young lady couldn't pass this exam what shot do I have???? Fortunately I had worked up my worry for no reason at all. I never was able to follow up with her to see if she finally passed the boards or not but , and I believe this to be 100% true, my education through Excelsior gave me the knowledge and confidence to get this beast of a test, the NCLEX-RN, slayed and in my rearview mirror.