Carrington College Jan' 19, +Kaplan Tips

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Hey All! I am applying to start Carrington's RN program in January 2019 and I just took my Kaplan exam last night. I spent months scouring the internet looking for study tips and came up pretty short so I wanted to share mine here to hopefully help someone else out. Firstly I studied out of the Hesi, Kaplan, and McGraw Hill nursing entry exam review books (all purchased on amazon). I also studied off of Khan Academy's SAT prep for reading, writing, and to brush up on grammar. I scored 100% in reading, 96% in math, and 81% in writing. If you've already taken the exam I would love to compare scores, especially if you've applied before! I'm pretty happy with my scores but I have no frame of reference for it they are good enough to get in.

Math: There is a calculator available to you for every question. Most of the questions are working with fractions and decimals and are VERY easy. There were a few very simple "solve for x" equations and a few simple word problems as well. The HESI and Kaplan review book's math section are significantly more difficult than what you will encounter on the actual exam. The McGraw hill is very similar in difficulty but touches on things I found you really didn't need for the exam, like geometry.

Reading: The reading comprehension section was WAY easier than the reading comprehension sections of the Khan SAT prep, Kaplan, and Hesi books. The passages were comparable to those of the McGraw hill book, but honestly I would say a smidge easier. I would not stress about this section, it was very straightforward.

Writing: This section was definitely the hardest. You are given a passage to read and then given a series of questions about how to alter the passage. Some questions ask you to pick the best spot to add a sentence, to pick out a sentence to delete because it is repetitive, to identify which sentence is missing a verb etc. The most difficult part about this section was that I often felt that multiple answers were correct. None of the review books were helpful for this section but the Khan Academy website was. Their SAT writing review section had the most similar questions to the actual exam and going through their grammar review page was extremely helpful in brushing up on things like subject-verb agreement, semicolon usage, affect vs. effect etc.

I know this is long but I hope it is helpful to someone! If anyone has any questions for me I am happy to answer them! Again if anyone else has taken the exam/applied to carrington before I would love to chat with you too to get a better a sense of where my scores are standing!

39 minutes ago, MorganD said:

Hi! So i am Applying to carrying colleges RN as well! I just got off the phone with Pam and she said i scored In the 96th percentile without science and 92 percentile with science. They haven’t called to tell me I was accepted or not tho. Any advise? Is 96 and 92 percentile good?? Thank you!!

If you scored that high you should get in. Did she let you know when they would be calling to offer seats for the next go around? Typically they don’t call and offer seats until the all the testing dates are complete from my understanding.

Specializes in LVN pediatrics.

I didnt Make the first round :(( she said the next selection date is November 4th I’m hoping I’ll make it on that one. She said “I’m right there” ???

On 6/27/2019 at 8:49 AM, kingrk said:

I don't know exactly how they calculate everything, but the scores I listed in the OP ended up being a composite score of 293 and I was offered a first pick position! Good luck everyone! Please feel free to ask me anything and I'll try to respond as much as I can. I remember feeling so frustrated at the lack of info out there and desperately wanting to talk to someone about scores and schedules and all that good stuff.

What did you study for the Kaplan exam?

Hi all! 

I know this forum was last year. I'm hoping that someone still follows it and can answer this question for me. I did the informational session with Carrington. The lady said to study Math, Reading and Writing and could do Science. 

I'm curious how much time, if any, should I spend on studying science and what would be most beneficial to study?

I have done some of the biology review and I plan on doing some Anatomy and Physiology review as well.

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