Does nursing school seem impossible to get into?

Hello nurses and future nurses,

I am having a hard time NOT feeling discouraged and hopeless about getting into the nursing program. I live in San Diego, CA and I have applied to three community colleges and National University nursing program and have been denied from all of them. I have a decent cumulative gpa and a really good science gpa. However, I scored a overall 72% on my teas v, which I plan to retake soon.

Any advice would really help especially from those who were in the same situation as me and eventually got accepted.

Ocean18, I can understand your discouragement but please do not feel hopeless. You are not hopeless or helpless. If you really want into the program, then you seem to know that you must do better than a 72% and hopefully much better than 72%. I am not trying to be hard on you, but I think you know the answer already. You should be stuyding diligently and consistently on your weak areas for the TEAS exam. Anytime that I do poorly on an exam, my first inclination is to blame something or someone else but the reality is it was me. I could have done better- period! Instead of taking that Friday night off, I could have studied more but I didn't. Instead of watching 3 hours of television on Sunday I could have been studying but I didn't. Once I really reflect on it, I acknowledge that I got precisely the score that I deserved. If you want this, then you need to hunker down and prepare effectively for the TEAS exam. You didn't mention your GPA other than to say it is "decent". Well, that is rather subjective. Many would say a 3.4 GPA is "decent", but it might be a far cry from competitive for the school that you are applying.

There is a ton of information on this website on how to prepare for the TEAS. I used this thread posted by rainbowvahmet and it really is accurate:

https://allnurses.com/teas-exam-help/how-i-passed-804222.html

Hang in there, and DO IT, ocean18! :)

Regards,

LW

Hi Loyalweim and thank you for responding!

I completely understand and absolutely agree with you.

My gpa for anatomy/lab, physiology/lab, microbiology/lab and statistics 3.7 and cumulative is around 3.3

The chemistry part of the teas killed me as well as the reading section. During the teas, I thought I bombed it and pretty much gave up towards the end of the reading section. I am terrified to take the test again!

I am taking chemistry at my local community college and hope this help when retaking the teas v test.

Hi Loyalweim and thank you for responding!

I completely understand and absolutely agree with you.

My gpa for anatomy/lab, physiology/lab, microbiology/lab and statistics 3.7 and cumulative is around 3.3

The chemistry part of the teas killed me as well as the reading section. During the teas, I thought I bombed it and pretty much gave up towards the end of the reading section. I am terrified to take the test again!

I am taking chemistry at my local community college and hope this help when retaking the teas v test.

The chemistry class should definitely help because frankly the TEAS chemistry is quite basic. If I were you, I would scrutinize over the TEAS results to determine my weakest areas and then hone in on those. Reading is more difficult to improve on in my opinion. However, you should know exactly what the TEAS expects in terms of the reading section such as "Main idea", "supporting evidence", etc... For me, I *thought* I knew grammar but the practice tests showed the stark reality that I did NOT. Once I really dove into the details and relearned grammar stuff like subject-verb agreement, capitalization rules, etc... then I made progress.

Good luck, you can do it ocean18!

LW

Yeah it was the opposite for me. I thought I wouldn't have a problem in the reading section and dreaded the grammar section but I actually scored second best in the grammar section.

I don't think teas v chemistry is that basic. Maybe it was because I was so stressed out when I took the teas, I blanked on a lot of things. I'm hoping this class will help.

How long did you study for the teas v?

If you don't mind me asking, are you in nursing school right now?

Thank you for your encouragement.

Yeah it was the opposite for me. I thought I wouldn't have a problem in the reading section and dreaded the grammar section but I actually scored second best in the grammar section.

I don't think teas v chemistry is that basic. Maybe it was because I was so stressed out when I took the teas, I blanked on a lot of things. I'm hoping this class will help.

How long did you study for the teas v?

If you don't mind me asking, are you in nursing school right now?

Thank you for your encouragement.

I start nursing school Spring 2015. It is an accelerated BSN program so it will take 20 months to get my BSN degree.

Have you looked at the details of your test? In there is a section titled, "Topics to Review". You should be scrutinizing that section to determine just exactly where you struggled. It even provides you the page number to reference in the ATI Study Manual!

In my opinion, the ATI Study Manual DOES cover everything you need to know on the TEAS exam. However, some have recommended to go beyond the TEAS for the science section. I agree that it can be helpful but I think that if one literally has the science in the manual mastered, that is all that is needed to do very well on the TEAS science. I am guessing that many peoplethink they know the science, but really do not. Instead, they take the practice exams multiple times and then "voila" they declare themselves ready for the exam because they finally scored above a 90%. Then, once they score poorly they often blame the manual as "inadequate".

In the end, my best score was science which shocked me! Note, that I did use other sources in addition to the ATI Study Manual. I feel that this helped me to better focus in on my weak areas, but much of the material actually went beyond the complexity of the TEAS material.

Again, these are for the most part my experiences and opinions. Whatever you do, do not simply take the sample tests multiple times! I swear this is the #1 problem why students score worse than expected...

Each time I took a sample test, I put a little question mark next to the ones I wasn't confident in answering. After grading the test, I would go back and really focus on those that I:

1. Was not certain and MISSED.

2. Was not certain and GOT RIGHT (i.e. probably got LUCKY).

3. Was certain I got right, but MISSED (i.e. critical to acknowledge and understand these! Because otherwise you are almost 100% guaranteed to miss them AGAIN on the actual test).

After going over each and every problem here, I then take note of weakness in overall subject matter. For example, I missed ~3 questions on cell organelles? Ok... yeah I cannot rememember what a Mitochondria or a Ribosome do... so I better really learn that stuff because I really DON'T KNOW IT. I missed the periodic table question? Really? I thought I knew that!? Ohhhhh.... that's right electronegativity increases from lower left to upper right of the periodic table! Why did I get that backwards?

Regards,

LW

Oh, I think that I studied about 8 weeks for the test. I typically studied every single day at least 4-6 hours. Some days I might take off completely, others I might literally study 10 hours in one day. Overall, I tried to do work every single day. This is a great way to put what you have learned into long-term memory. Repitition daily really helps me a lot.

About 6 weeks in I scheduled for the TEAS exam about two weeks out. I then took the ATI online test form A and scored miserably below what I wanted. This scared the hell out of me! I thought I was doomed! So I studied intensely on the areas that I missed from the online test. A week later, I took ATI online test B and scored miserably again! For the most part, it was the science section that was killing me. I had scored about 69% on both form A and form B. I studied about 8-10 hours every single day on science, science, science, and then... more science! On the actual test, I scored about a 97% on the science. The online tests are much more difficult than the actual test, in my opinion. But, they do help you to prepare even more (i.e. above beyond the actual test).

Be sure to learn mneumonics for some of the science material like:

Radio, Microwave, Infrared, Visual, Ultrasound, X-Ray, Gamma

Raging Martians Invaded Venus Using X-ray Guns

Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species

Don't Kick the Poor Cat Or Father Gets Sad

Regards,

LW

I was actually surprised that I saw "arabic numerals" on the test when I had been studying Roman numerals. I really have to go back and learn that!

MY advice is find a private college. I was accepted and attended 2 semester at a private college nursing program. It's more expensive but you have a better chance of getting in IMO.

Well believe it or not, this is very encouraging. Thank you LoyalWeim!!