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!
There is probably a bunch of other stuff I could talk about as well, but I won't go on!
I agree with the above question, many programs that have a high drop out/fail rate (especially within the first few terms) are lottery schools who do not admit based on merit. This, in my opinion, is a way of "weeding" out students who would otherwise not have had the grades to get into a merit based program or did not know what nursing really entailed because they were not required to do volunteer work or such to bulk up their resume... I don't know of any merit based acceptance programs in my area that have a fail rate like the one the OP claims her school to have. However, several lottery programs I know of do have up to a 50% fail rate. I went to a merit based program and out of 45 students we lost 1 (for medical reasons); one of my friends went to a lottery program and within the first term they had already lost ~20 out of 60 students...
Hey, sounds like you go to my school. I wasn't aware of all this crazyness when I started. I was under the impression that I already had a bachelor's in biology, it would be about the same difficulty level. Wrong!!! I agree, a lot of people that are smarter than me have already failed out. I think luck has a lot to do with it.
Wow sounds like a bunch of S*** to me! Our school is definitely tough with the NCLEX Style questions on tests but we do not have near the amount of busy-work that your school is requiring of you.
Our school is 77% to pass
ATI is a part of our grade
If you fail 2 classes you are kicked out of the program.
Clinical paperwork is usually about 10 pages and has to be completed within 2 hours of the end of clinicals.
That's about it. Its definitely a tough program though because we started with 60 and are down to about 40 or less. The students who usually fail are the older students and the ones fresh out of high school.
There was a group of students a couple of semesters ahead of me who had a class with only two exams. There was a 95% fail rate that semester. Most of the people that failed came together in a group and went to the dean. They were told that nothing would be done. They decided to take their case up to the state level. State came in and did an investigation. I don't have any details, but I can tell you that the school mixed up the instructors, the dean of nursing quickly took a position elsewhere, and that particular class now has 5 exams. People still fail, but not 95%. This was 3rd semester nursing.
Wow sounds like a bunch of S*** to me! Our school is definitely tough with the NCLEX Style questions on tests but we do not have near the amount of busy-work that your school is requiring of you.
Our school is 77% to pass
ATI is a part of our grade
If you fail 2 classes you are kicked out of the program.
Clinical paperwork is usually about 10 pages and has to be completed within 2 hours of the end of clinicals.
That's about it. Its definitely a tough program though because we started with 60 and are down to about 40 or less. The students who usually fail are the older students and the ones fresh out of high school.
I call foul! You just posted flame bait! :argue:
As a older student, I am offended by your general statement.
I'm suspicious of your comment regarding "fresh out of high school." There is a possibility that the nursing school that you attend is extremely poor. The two nursing schools in my area require many prerequisites prior to acceptance.
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Nurse Salt
330 Posts
I agree with the above question, many programs that have a high drop out/fail rate (especially within the first few terms) are lottery schools who do not admit based on merit. This, in my opinion, is a way of "weeding" out students who would otherwise not have had the grades to get into a merit based program or did not know what nursing really entailed because they were not required to do volunteer work or such to bulk up their resume... I don't know of any merit based acceptance programs in my area that have a fail rate like the one the OP claims her school to have. However, several lottery programs I know of do have up to a 50% fail rate. I went to a merit based program and out of 45 students we lost 1 (for medical reasons); one of my friends went to a lottery program and within the first term they had already lost ~20 out of 60 students...