Are all RN programs like this???

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Our department tutor, who is also in the RN program and highly intelligent, just failed Med/surg II(our srping semester) with a 78%. There were no greviences that he could file, no student reps to talk to and the dept. chair basically said:to bad so sad. If you can't pass our tests, then you can't be in our program.

The reason I am upset is because not only is he a good friend, but also I believe that the system they have at my school is kind of messed up. So I am wondering if all nursing programs are like this:

Must have an 80% to pass. There will be no extra credit given, Clinicals do not count as a grade, so even if you are a fantastic "on the floor student", you still are SOL if you get anything lower than an 80%

Right from the beginning, our questions are N-CLEX style, which makes them more difficult than usual. In fact our instructors make them "harder" than NCLEX questions so that they have a high pass rate. Our school is known for it's pass rate of 98% on the NCLEX, but at what cost? By that time, good nurses have failed the program. Typically, out of 120 students only 20-30 are left to take the NCLEX anyhow, the rest have already failed out,

8-16 chapters on 1 test with only 1-2 weeks study time.

Our clinicals are back to back, we have from the time we leave the first clinical to the time we start the next morning to fill out our 14 page assessment forms, write a 12 page case study, write a diagnostic card, memorize, prepare and label drug cards for ALL drugs given to the client, fill out a lab sheet and write a minimum 1 page, per abnormal lab. Usually we have about 12 hours to do all of that! It;s exhausting!:eek:

There is probably a bunch of other stuff I could talk about as well, but I won't go on!

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Sounds typical. Sorry about your friend. Just regroup and try harder next time:)

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Thanks for the quick reply. Ok I was just wondering! I'm toughing it out, so far!:rolleyes:

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The amount of work is insane. When I got out of school, I didn't know what to do with myself. I could watch TV and read a people magazine without guilt. You can do it. Focus.

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yeah that sounds like my universities policy.

with ours its a 78% though.

need a 78% in the end to pass the class

need a 78% on the final to pass the class no matter your grade

get below a level 2 on an ati and you fail that semester's clinicals and cant progress

fail 2 classes and you're out of the program

however, we do have a grievance board you can appeal to but it probably will not help much.

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Specializes in Psych, EMS.

Yes..I feel ya girl :angryfire

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

Ditto mine, except we needed 78% to pass. Try not to spend too much time dwelling on this because I'm sure you have a lot of studying to do and don't need to divert your focus. The thing is that even if someone is wonderful on the floor they still need to be able to pass the exams which is usually spelled out pretty clearly from the start. There are tons of us that have passed so you know it is doable! Just tuck your head and keep your back to the wind. Hang in there, Jules

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Unless you only had one exam, your friend had time to change his study methods, meet with instructors and get HELP before he failed out. Nursing schools want the best students to graduate. The raise the bar for a reason. Your life may be in these people's hands.

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Specializes in SICU/CVICU.

That is awful...we just have the typical 70 or better is passing.

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Specializes in Acute Mental Health.

Mine is the same with a 78% to pass and Clinicals are pass/fail. There will be no extra credit to help those who can't pull up their grade, but if a student fails a class, he/she can retake it, but this can occur only once. If that student fails another class, they are out. NCLEX style questions are the norm and they are so difficult to try to get accustomed to that first semester. I hate that there doesn't seem to be a way for instructors to better prepare students for that shock that first semester. I think students should take a couple week course on how to take this sort of exam. But alas, its just a weary students :twocents:

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Unless you only had one exam, your friend had time to change his study methods, meet with instructors and get HELP before he failed out. Nursing schools want the best students to graduate. The raise the bar for a reason. Your life may be in these people's hands.

Yeah, I actually know who she's talking about. I agree that he didn't deserve to fail. We only had 2 tests, and the first exam 36 people failed! This fellow is smarter than most of us, and has a really strong medical background. A lot of us would have not made it this far without him helping us study. He pretty much knew the textbooks forward and backward. I guarantee his failing had nothing to do with his studying methods. I would trust my life to this man. Seriously.

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By the way, hi Jen! :-)

(This is Chera)

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