Advice Please-Provisional Accredited School

[havehope]

I didn't realize how important it was when looking at schools to attend to pick one that was fully accredited. Spring 2014, I will be attending a "provisional accredited" school. This particular program went from a diploma(was fully accredited) to an associates(provisional accreditation). The LPN program they offer is fully accredited. However, when I graduate I want to go for a BSN and even a MSN. Research I have done says that it is nearly impossible to get a BSN if you did not graduate from an accredited school. Anyone have any advice? It sucks that I've worked so hard to get into nursing school and now running into this problem.

Thank you for any suggestions or advice in advance.

[applesxoranges, BSN, RN]

It depends. First the school has to crawl before it can run kind of thing. They need to be running before they can be accrediated. So no school will ever be accrediated from day one.

First, find out if they have partnership with any local schools. When my school lost accreditation, they still had local partner schools who had the NLNAC accrediation that would accept them. So you could get your accreditation that way. Plus if they are well respected school, then schools probably will accept their students in that area. Schools did from us without requiring extra bridge classes.

Also, some schools do not bother with the NLN accreditation because it costs too much to have master-prepared instructors. That's why ours lost the accreditation. We had too many BSN instructors and not enough MSNs.

My school is accreditated and they back dated to one of the site visits in January.

[elkpark]

The fact that the former diploma program was accredited and the current LPN program is accredited speak well to the program. It is required to seek new accreditation simply because of the switch from diploma to ADN, and, as already noted, every school goes through a "provisional" phase because the full accreditation process takes time (a few years). I would not be too concerned about this particular situation.

However, there is more to accreditation that just nursing accreditation. General academic accreditation also matters when it comes to continuing your education at another school later on. What kind of general academic accreditation is this former diploma program going to have? The same regional accreditation as "regular" colleges and universities in your area? That is important, also.