ARE MOST RN SCHOOLS LIKE THIS??

BagelBomber, ASN, BSN, RN · May 21, 2019

My program has a minimum exam average of 75%. Like your program, OP, they will not factor in any other grades unless the exam average is at least a 75. They invite you to tutoring if you score below an 80 on an exam. If you fail a class, you are permitted to join the next class (if there is space). If you either fail that class again or you fail another class after that, you are removed from the program and you are not allowed to apply to another nursing school in the state (Maryland) for five years. There is no rounding, there is no coddling. Welcome to nursing school!

BrisketRN, BSN, RN · May 21, 2019

I think my program was 75%. If they offer free tutoring then do it before you fail a test. Free tutoring was the only thing that got me through some of my tougher nursing classes (pathophysiology for sure).

Luchador, CNA, EMT-B · May 22, 2019

On 5/19/2019 at 11:23 AM, Anon143 said:
I’ve just got accepted in an RN program & in every syllabus, they mention that if you score below 75% in all tests, quizzes, final or misters that you’ll have to attend mandatory tutoring & that any homework, projects, class work, etc that you have competed will not add on to the test or quizzes until AFTER you have completed them with a 75%. In other words, you can score high & do well in all class work assignments & homework but if you score less than 75% in all tests taken, you fail the class. Is this like this is ALL RN schools or is mine being shady???

My school is much harsher. If you don't maintain a 77% test average, you're gone. Half of the grade is exams, and half is clinical. So, theoretically, you could get a 76% exam average, a 100% on clinicals, and you'd still be history. And they are brutal. Student had a 76.4%. Asked, "Won't you round up?" They told him, "We would if it was 76.5."

Going into the final exam, everybody knew what they had to get to stay in the program. For some it was a 42. For others it was an 85. After each exam we can go in a room and check our answers and figure out our score. After the final a couple of students went into the room, came out, sat down and sobbed.

Congrats on getting into the program. Buckle up!

studentnurse2018, ADN, BSN · May 22, 2019

My school requires an 80% on all exams and if you fail you have to complete remediation. You maintain 80% to pass the class. They do not round up your final average so if have a 79.9% final grade you fail the course.

NICU_Nurse_Casti, BSN, RN · May 22, 2019

My program has a minimum exam average of 78%. If you meet that, then you still need an overall course grade of 78%. No rounding up. So, if you got a 77.99%, you failed. My school offers free tutoring and other resources (i.e. recorded, and online and in-person live review sessions) to help students. It seems pretty common for nursing programs to adopt a different grading scale than the normal 10-point scale.

Chazzie_Made_It, ADN · May 22, 2019

Yes, it's common. Our proctored grades had to be above 76% before our non-proctored grades were added.

AngelKissed857, BSN, RN · May 22, 2019

That tutoring is available at all is great! And yes, that is the norm, at least in California. Less than 75% on any test is a fail, no other worked added until and unless you have a minimum grade of 75%. My school also had a take no prisoners attendance policy- miss more than 10% of lectures or 2 days of clinical in a semester and you're out. Late to clinical, skills labs, sim lab or lecture and you are marked absent. It was no joke. But here's the best part of nursing school- you never have to do it again- thank God!

iWish, ADN, RN · May 22, 2019

This is common grading criteria for nursing courses. In my program 75% is passing. 74.9% is failing. If you score anything lower than a 77% on an exam, you have to remediate with the professor and the academic advisor plus filing out paperwork. There is no rounding at all in my program.

Toya2xcel, BSN, RN · May 22, 2019

Ours was 80% or higher or it was considered a failure, whether it was the entire class or a test. Our tests were all 50 questions, each answer worth 2 points, so if you got more than 10 questions wrong on a test, you failed. 75% is kind of lenient actually.

nsue · May 22, 2019

Yes my nursing school had the same policy. We lost 30 people out of 100 because they flunked out.

Seeing Myself Out · May 22, 2019

My program required at least a 75% cumulative in every course to pass the program. I didn't do many assignments and a good number of my classmates completed bombed individual quizzes, but everyone scored high enough to pass.

NurseSpeedy, ADN, LPN, RN · May 22, 2019

The school I went to had a similar policy if I remember correctly. Your assignments, projects, clinicals, labs were all pass/fail. The theory was all tests and you had to have I think it was 77% to pass. Then there was always a HESI exam for each block that had to be a specific score or higher. If you failed the HESI you had to take the whole block over, complete a remediation packet, sit out a quarter, then retake the class after the remediation packet (large from what I was told) was completed and pay to retake each component theory/lab/clinical all over again. This could be done with one class. If it happened again you were dropped from the program.

To be fair, most tests come completely from the text books. If it’s bold, in a box, or anything else special in the text book-it’s on your test. I know reading the textbook can be time consuming, but if you do it, pay attention to how the book is laid out, and then what’s on the test, figuring out what will be on the next test may be very easy. This is what I had found out when I went through school. Never failed a test so it may be worth trying.