Are NCLEX passing rates misleading??

[gt4everpn, BSN, RN]

hey everyone, good to be back!i'm almost done with my first year of nursing school and i know alot of people consider nursing schools based on their nclex passing rates, but i'm starting to think that those numbers can be misleading. instead i think it's important to consider retention rates.. currently in the program i attend alot of people are failing (way more than 50%) but my schools nclex passing rate is supposedly very good, so for example if 200 people start the program but 40 people graduate and all 40 pass the nclex that makes the school's nclex passing rate 100% (for that yr i suppose)for example, but the other 160 either were dismissed or left, assuming the majority of people probably are dismissed from most nursing programs due to failing grades. don't get me wrong passing rates are good to when considering nursing schools but i don't think that they are an accurate indicator of the quality of any program, in fact the nursing program i used to attend was terrible and alot of the teachers were incompetent, but the only way i passed nclex was because i buckled down and taught myself everything i needed to know, and this may very well be why nclex passing rates may seem so reliable...the students establish the nclex passing rates not the schools. i really think retention rates are important to look at, if they're available because if you get kicked out of a program, or are struggling to stay in i don't think you'll care whether or not a schools nclex passing rate is above 90%, you'll probably be wondering what went terribly wrong,especially if you were a good student to begin with.. just my opinion.. what do you guys think?

[Lovely_RN, MSN]

This is a dirty little secret about nursing school that most people don't discover until they are in the program. When I did my LPN course we started with 30 and graduated 18. 17 passed on first try so we had a 94% pass rate but the retention rate was 60% and I have heard that some schools retention rates are even worse.

The LPN to RN program was even worse. The school started out with 60 transition students (LPNs taking pre-reqs at the school). Out of those 60 people only 15 made it into the RN program (partially due to a cheating scandal) and the other 5 were LPNs who were directly admitted from the school's LPN program.

Out of the 20 only 6 of us graduated. So in total out of 60 people who payed 7k for two semesters of pre-reqs only 25% were accepted into the RN program and only 30% of those who made it graduated. If you really want think about it that means out of 65 candidates 11% of us were accepted and graduated and people wonder why I said I felt like I hit the lotto when I got out of that school.

60 (X)7k (X) 2 semesters= $840,000

20 (X)7k (X) 1 semester = $140,000

17 (X)7k (X) 2 semesters = $238,000

$1,218,000 to bring 6 new RNs into the profession.

I'm not saying that everyone who enrolls should be accepted or allowed to graduate but some of these school's have a pretty good hustle going on. The LPN program I graduated from was a new program and they quickly discovered that people are very desperate to get into nursing school. They have went from starting a new class annually to starting one every semester and they operate on a tri-semester basis. The school also has 60 LPN to RN transition students in the pipeline who are hoping to be accepted for a Fall '09 start date. They barely had enough instructors to cover the one LPN class I attended much less three of them simultaneously and a new RN class but I have a pretty good idea of how they will handle the classroom and teacher shortage. :icon_roll

[gt4everpn, BSN, RN]

i agree bx, my school also has a shortage of nursing instructors, most of the previous ones left last year. retention rates are far more important than nclex rates, as far as what nursing schools to pick, at least in my opinion

[guiltysins]

I agree, retention rates are important but you'll notice that most schools that have over 100 nursing students usually only wind up with 60 graduating. My school accepts about 130 every semester and of those usually only 50-60 graduate but every nursing program seems to have around that number except for those that only accept 50 or 60 from the very start.

Part of the reason is that since they accept over 100 people every semester, my school also has a pharmacy program that is very competitive, so to cut their loses, a lot of the students who think they won't make the pharmacy cut switch their majors to nursing. These are usually the students that drop out because they don't know what they are getting into and are fooled by the fact that our BSN program isn't that competitive to get into but competitive to stay in.

[gt4everpn, BSN, RN]

that's true guilty... i think you go to my school... and its true alot of nursing students are dropout pharmd students, or those who couldn't make it in, sad but true.

[guiltysins]

that's true guilty... i think you go to my school... and its true alot of nursing students are dropout pharmd students, or those who couldn't make it in, sad but true.

i do and it annoys the crap out of me how they're like "i'm gonna switch to nursing cause i don't wanna take the pcat or i don't wanna take organic chem or it's easy there's no competition" so when they get bumped from the nursing program, i don't really feel sorry for them.

[gt4everpn, BSN, RN]

so true, alot of people (esp people in our age gap) are misinformed about nursing and nursing school, it's no piece of cake profession. if only these schools openly posted their nclex passing rates and retention rates would some people see the light. a 90% passing rate looks good but a retention rate of 30% don't look good either, it's a sad, sad reality even for the people that do know what they're in nursing school for!

[gillytook]

Let's crunch a few numbers. If you look at a school with a 90% pass rate and a 30% retention rate, only 27% of those starting the program become RNs. A school with a 75% pass rate and 60% retention, 45% become RNs. And the school with an 65% pass rate and an 80% retention, 52% become nurses. Which do you think you have the better chance in? I think you need to look at both to see how successful a program really is.

[gt4everpn, BSN, RN]

i understand where you are coming from gillytook, but i think statistics can be misleading and alot of people may weigh their decision in picking a school heavily upon passing rate, and nothing more, this is from my experience listening to why prospective and current nursing students choose a specific program. your numbers are convincing but does a high retention rate always correlate or equal a lowered nclex passing rate? it may be easy to deduce that a low retention rate would produce only the very best and brightest test takers and memorizers etc.., who had a great shot at passing nclex anyway (from the get go) , but is that really fair? like i said before if you can't get through the program or are sturggling to pass, retention rate then becomes your issue, not nclex success rates. i'm currently in a program where the best and brightest of us are struggling to pass, what is a normal retention rate? and if these nrsg programs are so good at educating their students why are the retention rates so low (i presume) i like your perspective though, how did you come up with those numbers?

let's crunch a few numbers. if you look at a school with a 90% pass rate and a 30% retention rate, only 27% of those starting the program become rns. a school with a 75% pass rate and 60% retention, 45% become rns. and the school with an 65% pass rate and an 80% retention, 52% become nurses. which do you think you have the better chance in? i think you need to look at both to see how successful a program really is.