ATI Comprehensive Predictor

The bigger concern for your friend might be learning the strategies used to answer ATI questions (e.g. studying answer rationales, breaking down the questions, and prioritization methods), which he will need for the NCLEX. It's a shame that his program didn't prepare him for that - not only in his last semester, but throughout. However, these strategies can be learned and practiced.

Lots of schools use ATI or similar tests as part of their evaluation, so that part doesn't seem too strange to me. Some schools use them to weed out students to keep their NCLEX pass rates unnaturally high. That seems less ethical to me, but it happens. To me, it sounds like this program is somewhere in the middle.

I do agree with you that only having one chance to take it is rough, but they are also not straight failing people based on their one grade since it is factored in. However, the test policy and grade implications should have been discussed somewhere before hand (syllabus or policies)...? If this policy wasn't mentioned anywhere (which I think is doubtful), your friend may have grounds to raise the issue within the school and try to appeal.

8 hours ago, May 2014 said:

What more is annoying is the fact that the instructor is using probability as the final grade instead of his raw percentage in the exam.

This is not hurting your friend the way you think it is. Raw scores are lower than probability of passing for ATI exams. For example, my school used 90% probability of passing as the required score, which corresponds to 69.3% raw score. 60% probability of passing appears to correspond to 58.7% raw score.

Although it is disappointing to get so far and be asked to repeat a course, the fastest route to be done may be just to repeat the course. If it ends up going that way, make sure your friend puts in the effort to focus on ATI strategies to avoid a repeat experience.

1 hour ago, kayji said:

The bigger concern for your friend might be learning the strategies used to answer ATI questions (e.g. studying answer rationales, breaking down the questions, and prioritization methods), which he will need for the NCLEX. It's a shame that his program didn't prepare him for that - not only in his last semester, but throughout. However, these strategies can be learned and practiced.

Lots of schools use ATI or similar tests as part of their evaluation, so that part doesn't seem too strange to me. Some schools use them to weed out students to keep their NCLEX pass rates unnaturally high. That seems less ethical to me, but it happens. To me, it sounds like this program is somewhere in the middle.

I do agree with you that only having one chance to take it is rough, but they are also not straight failing people based on their one grade since it is factored in. However, the test policy and grade implications should have been discussed somewhere before hand (syllabus or policies)...? If this policy wasn't mentioned anywhere (which I think is doubtful), your friend may have grounds to raise the issue within the school and try to appeal.

This is not hurting your friend the way you think it is. Raw scores are lower than probability of passing for ATI exams. For example, my school used 90% probability of passing as the required score, which corresponds to 69.3% raw score. 60% probability of passing appears to correspond to 58.7% raw score.

Although it is disappointing to get so far and be asked to repeat a course, the fastest route to be done may be just to repeat the course. If it ends up going that way, make sure your friend puts in the effort to focus on ATI strategies to avoid a repeat experience.

Thanks for your input. I wished the probability was higher that would have helped him. But unfortunately, per what he told me, the ATI probability of passing was lower so that really dropped his grade. 

If I have my chance, I will scrap all nursing programs, and rebuild their curriculums.. The stress they place on students is just ridiculous.