Chamberlain Sacramento Campus

Adowner04 · Apr 22, 2019

I feel your pain. I live in Roseville and are preparing to separate from the USAF and I am wanting to get started on a new career like now. I have a few nurse friends who all either were on a waitlist or had to re-apply for a minimum of two years before they were accepted into a program in California. I met a LVN that worked at a clinic on base that attended Chamberlain and she said that it was expensive, unorganized, and that they would pair certain classes together in a semester that made it hard to keep up; like maths and science paired together. She ended up withdrawing from the school because it got too expensive and she could not work while in the program. Also I met with a counselor and she told me the cost of the program for me for 3 years would be be $85,000! I swiftly ended the session. Although my education is paid for through the Air Force, I dont want to waste my money on a school that is hungry for it because it's a guaranteed pay through my GI bill. I guess, if I where to give any advice, do ALL the research you can and get ALL the information you can so that you can make in informed decision for yourself. Good Luck ?

ERnessa · May 21, 2019

Hi!

So I attended Chamberlain Sacramento from 2017-2019 and graduated with my BSN in April of this year. I passed NCLEX last week without any difficulty. I want to give you my input on the school. I am sure with all schools there are pros and cons, and Chamberlain is no different. I went into the school with all my nursing prerequisites done, so I have no experience with taking math or science through them.

Cons:

Very expensive (it was about $55,000 for me because I came in with all my prerequisites and I tested out of nutrition).
Disorganized: The one thing that we could always rely on was that no matter what the administrators/professors said things were gonna change. Many times things were changed last minute. One time we had a simulation lab scheduled for 8am and they called us at 9pm the night before and said they were rescheduled it for 1pm. This was super inconvenient for those of us who have jobs/kids in school. Unfortunately, this was not the only incidence this happened to us. It was more frequent than not.
Professors are not amazing: Many of the professors aren't great. I always tell people that I "homeschooled" myself through nursing school. Chamberlain does not believe in lectures, so they do "facilitated learning" which basically means we make posters and teach each other. This is a really dumb way to teach and it definitely made the learning curve steep and difficult.
Clinicals: There aren't very many choices for clinical. This is changing now and we are getting more and more contracts with additional Sacramento hospitals. I did my clinicals at: Sutter Roseville, Sutter Sacramento, Dameron Hospital Stockton, Marshall Hospital Placerville and Sierra Vista Hospital in Sac. I have heard that they are getting some Dignity contracts so that may expand our clinicals to MSJ, MGH, MFH and Methodist.
They are new to the area. Chamberlain just started in Sac in 2016 so its a super new school. This means it's going through growing pains, which is why its so disorganized and the professors haven't learned how to teach. This will improve with time (hopefully).
Pros:
It has an AMAZING NCLEX pass rate. I was the third cohort to finish and so far we have a 100% pass rate for the first try. Almost all of the students who have graduated and taken NCLEX have passed in 75 questions.
The last semester really prepares you. In your final semester you don't learn anything new. The whole semester is dedicated to NCLEX prep. At first, this seems stupid and a total waste of time/money. However, I know several students who go to other schools that do not have this set up and they are NOT prepared for NCLEX like we are.
We know our stuff. Throughout my whole time in school I worried that we were stupider than other nursing students, or that we weren't learning enough. However, by the last semester I was single handedly taking care of 4 patients at a time including calling doctors, calling lab, calling blood bank, charting all assessments, administering all medications etc.
Long story short--> Chamberlain seems like a chaotic mess, but it is a legit program that gets you a BSN and you are prepared for the job by the end. In my opinion, it's worth it. If you need more information feel free to contact me, I love answering questions about the school and my experience.

Adowner04 · May 21, 2019

Amazing info, thanks!