ATI Fee

iCme2 · May 27, 2012

We're charged around $170 for our first semester. We all felt it was a waste of money since it was a summary of our Fundamentals book. We'll be charged again next semester. Although, we can opt not to pay for it just like not buying books. But the consequence is we would lose 6% of our final grade. Next semester, I think our ATI grades are worth 10% instead. We just have to blindly open our wallets

Mama_Cashew, ASN, RN · May 27, 2012

The school I applied to charges I think $388 for the whole 2 year program for ATI. Then towards the end you can sign up for the NCLEX course for around $400. So it sounds like you are getting the same thing, just being forced to get the NCLEX part instead of choosing it.

OB-nurse2013, BSN, RN · May 27, 2012

We're charged probably close to that but they do it each semester and its in with our tuition so I don't pay as much attention with it.

anonymousstudent · May 27, 2012

I paid $100 each term - thankfully they only started making us do it the last few terms. But if I had done it through the entire program it would have been $700 total.

And I don't think it's worth it either. I get a heck of a lot more out of the practice NCLEX books than I do ATI. They publish their own books for each topic area, which are not any better than my text book that I already paid for.

nickster10 · May 27, 2012

That's odd we don't have to pay for ATI and they gave us a fundies, med surg, peds, and pharm book and we have online access to practice test for each subject idk maybe because I'm in a ADN program

futurehomebirthcnm · May 27, 2012

My school (CCAC-Allegheny) did a really odd thing in the spring semester: we were told we needed to buy the $170 books for first semester and they had to be from from school bookstore (though they said they'd make exceptions to people who had taken the first semester before), and that we'd get our access codes when we bought the book. The access codes did not come from the book--they actually just gave us a Xerox of the codes. And then later I found there was a link on one of our bulletin boards for a free PDF copy of the ATI book. In previous years the fee was included in our tuition and students got the books for free.

So it doesn't even seem to make sense to buy the books next semester (at least for me--I don't find study guides like that useful. YMMV)

Katie71275 · May 27, 2012

Ours is a quarterly fee, I think the first quarter, it was 150, and then it went down from there....I think we are now paying 75$ per quarter.

Double-Helix, BSN, RN · May 27, 2012

Our fee was 100 or 150 dollars per test. So the fee varied depending on how many test we had per semester, but it was usually at least two.

brillohead, ADN, RN · May 27, 2012

It's included in our "lab fees" each semester, but not broken out so we know how much is for simulations and how much is for ATI. I've noticed that it's gone up considerably every semester, too. I think the only semester that I felt our "fees" were justified was the first semester, because instead of clinicals we were in the lab, and we went through copious amounts of supplies -- regular gloves, sterile gloves, NG tubes, catheters, tape, alcohol wipes, syringes, needles, linens, basins, IV bags, etc.

Now that we're doing clinicals instead of labs, we have two "simulations" per semester with the computer mannequins, and our lab fees go towards covering the cost of the computerized stuff and the ATI module. Oddly enough, our psych sims do NOT use the computerized mannequins, and yet the "fees" portion of my program was still higher this semester. :rolleyes:

Those who are complaining about $600/semester for "lab fees" now (originally was more like $300, as I recall). Included in that fee we typically get one or two practice tests that we can take an unlimited number of times (and usually worth 1% of our grade), one proctored test at the end of the semester (typically worth 5% of our grade), and the book(s) for that module. The big rip-off -- we only get one Med-Surg book to cover Med-Surg I, II, and III, but we're paying the fees every single semester.

My school is looking to switch to the Kaplan system, though. Supposedly the cost per student is lower, and we get the Kaplan NCLEX study program after graduation (reduced price for my cohort coming in partway through the program, but free for those who are just starting out and will have had Kaplan every semester instead of ATI).

sherri12 · May 27, 2012

At my 4 year Universtiy we get charged around $250. a semester for ATI. So far it's not helping me, but we'll see. I'm in the second half of my junior year.

RNCEN · May 28, 2012

That's odd we don't have to pay for ATI and they gave us a fundies, med surg, peds, and pharm book and we have online access to practice test for each subject idk maybe because I'm in a ADN program

You're most certainly paying for it. It may not be a separate fee, but you're paying for it!