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Discussion

Advice Needed Regarding Where to Apply for Licensure

Dear AllNurses Community,

I'm on here all the time reading posts, but haven't every started a thread until now! I have looked in this forum for a topic that might answer my question, but haven't found anything that has helped completely.

I am a Nursing student in Missouri and am graduating at the end of April. I'm originally from California and my family is all back there (so, I plan on going back eventually). My original idea was that I would take the NCLEX for Missouri and stay here for a year or two and possibly move back to CA after that if I decided to.

Now, because of personal stuff, I am realizing that I would like to apply to residency programs in California, Oregon, Texas, Illinois, Colorado, and Missouri instead of only jobs in Missouri.

No, on to my actual question! Would it be better to:

a. Take the NCLEX for Missouri (I already sent in my application) and then apply for licensure in CA, OR, or IL after getting my license (the other states on my list are in the compact with MO) if I get accepted into a program there. The problem with this is that if I take the NCLEX in early June, I might not have a license by a July/August program start date (CA in particular).

b. Take the NCLEX for California. This would allow me to easily move into a residency program there and if I instead got a job in another state, it would take much less time to get a temporary license there (since every other state is quicker than California!) The thing is that CA is so competitive (so it's less likely that I would get accepted there) and it's not part of the compact (not a huge drawback). AND I already sent in my MO application, so I'd have to go through the process again for CA...

It would be wonderful to hear what you all recommend. I am planning on making an appointment with an advisor at my school to really hash this out, but since you are all so knowledgeable I thought it couldn't hurt to ask!

Thanks in advance for all your help!

YellowBear

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    Are you considered a legal permanent resident of MO ? Students often are not. NLC only takes effect if you are a legal resident of the compact state.

    You will lose your fees submitted to MO BoN if you rescind your application to apply to CA BRN. As you already stated CA is highly saturated & extremely competitive

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    NCLEX is the same in every state. Take it in whichever state gives you the earliest test date. The way it's done now is that your license is registered with the state BoN within hours or days of your passing NCLEX, so the delay for actually getting a license is not a factor. Then if you have done that in a Compact state it's easy to get to another Compact state, no delays there.

    California is a pain anyway; budget cuts have handcuffed many state agencies and it takes awhile to get through their paperwork regardless. If you think you might go there, take your NCLEX ASAP wherever you are and then apply to CA immediately. If you have a license from another state, Compact or not, you can tell prospective employers that and that your CA license is pending. They see this all the time.

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    • Author

    @JustBeachyNurse - I didn't know that about compact states! Very helpful. I'm still a legal resident of CA, so the compact thing wouldn't apply to me.

    @GrnTea - That is totally reassuring and helpful. I am thinking MO would give me the earliest date (though this is just a guess) and since I've already applied, I think I'll just go ahead and go for MO. I'm sure you're right that employers see the pending license thing a bunch, but the fact that Residency program info pages I've been looking at often say "Must have California RN License by program start date" kind of scares me. I guess I can go ahead and email the programs and just find out if they would be okay with me starting while having a pending CA license. If I take the NCLEX end of May/Start of June, then hopefully that would be enough time for a temporary license to get issues in CA before Mid-July (When UC Davis and UC San Diego start).

    Thank you both so much for responding!

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    I hear that CA takes about 4 weeks (I am not a reliable source for this information), but if I were you I'd realize that with everybody and his brother graduating and trying to get licensure it could be longer in the spring. Push to get your NCLEX date as early as possible and meanwhile get the packet from the CA BoN.

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