In school, we have to participate in a survey about predicted college success vs home support systems, class load, work hours, etc. This is to receive a grant, and those funds will be allocated to help 'borderline' students succeed.
Borderline students? As in the students who can't pull off a 75 on an exam if their lives depended on it? These are the students we want to try to help graduate and be out on the workforce? I think its wrong to relax the standards and help those less intellectually focused to pass the program knowing that they will never pass boards and, if they do sneak through, they'll be horribly unsafe nurses.
Its bad enough that the minimum score on the ACT is a 20. One of my friends in school is in the program, right beside me, and scored an 18. WTF? What is the point of having standards if everyone doesn't have to adhere to them?
But no, now they are seeking money to hire special tutors and create college success courses for the students who can't seem to pass.
What do you think? There are admission standards, ongoing standards, for a reason... to 'weed out' the people who can't make it. Why cater to them, make it easy for them to pass, knowing they'll never be successful? To collect more tuition dollars? Improve their numbers of graduating students? It certainly won't improve the nclex pass rate.
People say I'm too hard on others. Ok, whatever. I do not want to work beside a borderline student who can't figure out a simple dosage calculation or doesn't know the difference between DI and DM.
Their concern is not whether or not you graduate, how well you do in your classes or how long it takes you to make it through their program, it's really about how much $$ you bring in each semester in tuition and fees and as you pointed out grants.
More and more schools are run as businesses, not centers for education. So, it is more profitable for them to alow lots of lee- way to keep students in the program.
This post made me remember a girl I worked with who paid $10,000 for LPN school, and she told me that almost as soon as the cutoff date for refunds came, students began getting "flunked" from the program, til only about 1/2 the student body was left at the end.
I don't think this is about lowering standards. There are many students that will make mediocre grades and barely pass simply because they never were able to develope good study habits or never learned to read and adequately retain what they read. By giving them help with their studies and getting them equipped with good study habits, we are blessed with a good nurse. Now if someone is just barely getting by, but having a good time, partying and just don't care, that is different. But like some of the other people who posted, there are a lot of good nurses that just have problems understanding what they read or that have poor study habits.
Forgive me for being dense if you already said this, I've got a raging headache, but will borderline apply to those in the program already and struggling or even to new admits?
Either way I still say no, the program needs to stay competitive, and lowering the standards won't help that. If they've produced good nurses this far, they should continue to do it the same way.
And as for the lady who's been at since 92 WTF?! Seriously, I think it's time to adopt a 2x you're out policy.
This post made me remember a girl I worked with who paid $10,000 for LPN school, and she told me that almost as soon as the cutoff date for refunds came, students began getting "flunked" from the program, til only about 1/2 the student body was left at the end.
- SleepyEyes
Yowser!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's rotten. A coincidence?
My uncle was in his 3rd year of a 4 year program to become a Secondary School Teacher. You know what his college did during that 3rd year? They said that they were changing the program and adding on a whole extra year so that instead of 4 years it was now 5. If you didn't want to go that extra year you would not graduate with a degree. He had to completely switch schools more than half way through his degree just so he could get out in 4 years.
I agree that help / tutoring should be given to those student that have poor study skills, learning issues, etc. because we all have an achilles heal with at least one thing be it drug calc., A&P, etc. but people that just don't care are a whole other ball of wax.
Many of the nurses in my RN program flunked-out in our last semester. Know what??
They protested to the dean of nursing and were let back in the program to graduate w/ the rest of us, with absolutely no consequences. Know what else?
Several of them have repeatedly failed boards. Another was fired from her job in corrections for having "improper relations" with several of the inmates. Don't know if she was turned in to The Board. But... I do know that she left her husband and took her two-year old daughter to move in with a convicted felon she met at work, after he was released.
Know what else?!
This student was given the "student of the year" award for "passing" after "working so hard."
She was let out of having to do several assignments that were mandatory for the rest of us. We went to a student convention in Utah. She was assigned as my roomate for the convention. She spent her time drunk, and tried to bring a strange man to our room.
When many of us were working on fundraising to have money to go to the convention, she went to Las Vegas w/ her husband.
She sat right next to me in class. She seemed to always be taking notes... One day she showed me what she had been writing..letters to her "friend" in the prison where she worked as a LPN.
I am totally against lowering standards and providing excessive support to students who can't make it in school.
There's not going to be anyone to hold their hands for them when pts lives are on the line. They need to learn stand on their own two feet.
Kind of along the lines of what Lausana is saying and about that lady that's been there since '92 I would have to say that if someone is really trying and making efforts by getting tutoring, extra studying, etc. and still isn't cutting it (any of it) I would really have to question whether or not they should be there. Not that they aren't smart but maybe their skills, talents and interests would be better suited in another type of career.
And for the lady that's been there since '92, can we all have a collective WTF?
I agree that help / tutoring should be given to those student that have poor study skills, learning issues, etc. because we all have an achilles heal with at least one thing be it drug calc., A&P, etc. but people that just don't care are a whole other ball of wax.
It would be best if people in the former category could be identified and offered assistance before starting a nursing program. It's tough enough as it is. But of course this is the real world and it doesn't happen like that very often.
Kind of along the lines of what Lausana is saying and about that lady that's been there since '92 I would have to say that if someone is really trying and making efforts by getting tutoring, extra studying, etc. and still isn't cutting it (any of it) I would really have to question whether or not they should be there.
This is also part of what I was trying to say. I'm so sleepy this afternoon! Anyway, what I was saying about identifying these students early on--one effect of this might be, if a student is getting help and is still struggling in, say, prereqs, then at that point they might decide they are not cut out to be a nurse. Not after they've gone through X amount of semesters and frustration in a nursing program. Their spot in a nursing program could be given to someone who has demonstrated basic academic capabilities (math, reading, writing, study skills). And by "basic" I don't mean stellar, just some kind of minimum compentency. But I agree that a lot of standards seem to go out the window--I mean, we're talking about college, not high school.
WTF?! Seriously, I think it's time to adopt a 2x you're out policy.
emily_mom
1,024 Posts
BTW, welcome to Allnurses!