Dropping like flies....now I know why

Nursing Students General Students

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We are half-way through the semester, and out of 52, we have lost 6 students and a meeting will be held next week by the instructors with students that are not doing well, and some will be encouraged to withdraw.

I would say, out of the students that I know that are not doing well, probably only 2, are truly giving it their best shot.

The others that are not making it are:

1) Re-admits, who previously failed the first semester

2) Students who were accepted that had bare-minimum requirements

3) Students who are not showing up to class

4) Students who are not serious, laugh when they fail an exam, and say, "Oh well, I didn't crack a book anyway."

5) Students who are working full-time jobs.

I just don't get it...why go to all of the trouble to get in, if you aren't going to take it seriously?

Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

As others have said, some people just aren't ready for higher education at the age of 18 or 20. I just wish they wouldn't all blame the faculty for their failure to tke it seriously and do the work!

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Specializes in Maternal - Child Health.

It is interesting to consider the reasons why students fail the nursing program. The program I attended, GPA essentially was the sole factor in determining admission. 1/3 of students were accepted directly into the nursing program as college freshmen, even though they had not completed a single college-level pre-req. They were accepted based on their high school GPA. 1/3 of the students were already attending the college, and were accepted as sophomores or juniors based on their GPA from 1-2 years of college. 1/3 of students were accepted as transfer students from community colleges or other universities, and their college GPAs were all that was considered.

Most of the students accepted as entering freshmen never made it to the nursing program. They washed out during their pre-reqs. Of those accepted as on-campus transfers into the nursing program, or transfers from other colleges and universities, we only lost 2 out of 40 students.

I think nursing programs do their students a huge dis-service by not giving adequate consideration to pre-req grades in considering admission.

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Specializes in Critical Care: Cardiac, VAD, Transplant.

Our school accepts applicants primarily on GPA, but there must be some other underlying factors (such as mom's ability to pay cash for her darling's schooling) since some with GPA's of 2.6 were able to get in. Even with GPA criteria, I will be losing many of my classmates and we are only in our first semester of clinicals. Hate to see so many of them fall, but those that are falling tend to fit under those categories previously mentioned!

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I do have to wonder about the admission requirements at schools with a close to 50% or higher failure/drop out rate. We started with a class of 40 and will graduate in March. We have lost 6 so far due to failures and drops due to workload. This is 15%, which seems a bit more reasonable, but we have very stringent admissions policies. The failure rates are far less now than they were years ago before these policies were in place.

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Specializes in OR Peri Operative.

Wow, I can't believe how many people are failing. You would think that after how hard it was to get into a seat that they would work thier bums off. I too am bitter because I had to wait to get in while other people failed or didn't take it seriously.

I can already see in my class of only 30 that there are going to be a few people who do not make it. I feel bad for the others that didn't get in that would have worked hard to make it.

Make me appreciate my determination and my hard work to get here.

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Our school accepts applicants primarily on GPA, but there must be some other underlying factors (such as mom's ability to pay cash for her darling's schooling) since some with GPA's of 2.6 were able to get in. Even with GPA criteria, I will be losing many of my classmates and we are only in our first semester of clinicals. Hate to see so many of them fall, but those that are falling tend to fit under those categories previously mentioned!

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who feels this way. I am in the middle of my pre-reqs at a local community college and attended an informational meeting today. At this CC they use a point system gpa + hesi score+coreq classes. I learned today that you can skim by with a 2.75 gpa on prereqs and just complete all the co-req classes (with a at least a C) and you are more likely to get in. I found this very offensive to myself considering I am working my tush off to get 4.0 (while taking 14 credit hours) and others are just skimming by and getting the bare minimum to get in. Makes me wonder why I'm working so hard.. :angryfire I understand that some of the best nurses can have 2.5 gpa, but I don't believe in just "skimming by". Sorry about the rant. I pulled an all-nighter studying for an AP exam (got an A) and I guess it just hit me the wrong way. :uhoh3: One good thing I got out of this informational meeting...I am going to be looking at schools who actually consider my GPA (that I'm working hard on) as a factor for entrance into their program. Guess I have too much pride to do the "bare minimum". ;)

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At my CC they go by NLN test scores strictly, which I think is terrible. You can still do your pre-reqs while in the program (which is a HUGE mistake). I started the program in January at age 37. I see so many young people who think they can work, not study, not put in one extra ounce. Maybe it's my age but I spend a lot of time studying, buying extra books to help me, read whatever I can, re-read it again and again. I want to go through the program once. But if this is going to be my career, I really want to learn it instead of just "passing the class" (like I did in high school and college!!).

Of course I have some older classmates who don't really study it. It's like they're not even worried about failing.

I've decided to take the attitude that I'm doing a lot of hard work and it will pay off b/c I am knowledgable about a lot of things. And that gives me confidence. The others will eventually be dropped or just continue to ho-hum along in their little world.

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Specializes in SICU, MICU, CICU, NeuroICU.

Being a person who failed advanced med/surg, I can speak from experience. My school decided to start classes a week earlier (when I had planned a vacation, too much money was invested, so I couldn't cancel it). When I came back I didn't do well on the first test and was thus faced with a semester long uphill battle. I worked my tail off sometimes wondering if I could study more. I understood the material, but just couldn't relate it to the tests. Now I am in the class again as a "super senior," as we call them/us, along with 8 other of my classmates. We all didn't pass for various reasons, but we are all trying to do it the second time around.

Sometimes it is the teacher that is the problem. When we were taking advanced med/surg. We only had one teacher. The other senoir instructor took another position within the school. So this one teacher was it for the med/surg class. She was very disorganized and all over the place. She once told us that "I put this question on the test because I knew you'd all get it wrong." What type of encouraging attitude is that? Another teacher was hired and things were slowly getting better for the second half of the class, but that beginning wasn't fun and discouraging, but hey, I'm still here, ticking away.

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What is a "super-senior".

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Actually, I think that if you are not getting at least a "B" in A&P, you are going to have difficulties in nursing school. A&P usually relies on memorization, but nursing school requires on critical thinking so if you don't have a good handle on the physiology...you are going to have an uphill battle.

I've a close friend who is an A&P instructor and we talk often about his students. There are occasionally student that just want to coast through the class and want to put in as little time as possible. I always suggest to him that he have some of his former students return who are now in the nursing program. I think that if some students hear directly from current nursing students the reality of nursing school and the courseload, they would open their eyes.

Okay, I'm now stepping off of my soapbox!

Kris

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Specializes in Ortho, Stroke, Neuro, Gyn.

I just started my quarter on October 1st. Two weeks and some days ago. Two people are already seriously considering dropping. One because she has yet to make above a 65 on two of the fundamentals exams and she bombed the first drug calc test as well. Fundamentals in our program has a requirement of 75% or higher on exam average and for drug calc its 80% or higher.

The other person is simply frustrated with the program. She said that she felt like we'd be doing more hands-on stuff. I just kind of nodded because I couldn't think of any response that wouldn't hurt her feelings. I just feel like you have to work hard to get to the hands-on stuff.

I am not what I'd consider an older student, but compared to some of these 'babies' I must be. There is a whole group of 21 and unders who text message during class, and shrug off their test results. One of them told me the other day that she could make it up eventually. I told her that thinking that way was a sure-fire way to fail everything.

To me performance is proof. If you're not doing well, its time to re-evaluate. If you are still not doing well, its time to seek outside help.

I worry constantly about my grades and try to be very attentive no matter how tired I am. We'll see how it works out.

Last year's class started with 46, this year they are down to 19. :uhoh3:

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I'm in my first semester of an ADN program and I just want to say that I appreciate this thread. We have 46 women and 6 men in our class. The main thing that I've noticed so far is the complaining. As hard as I've worked to get this far, the last thing that I would do is to complain to an instructor about anything. It just seems like asking for trouble. Our first exam is on Monday and I feel that the cream will definately rise to the top and the complaining will escalate. The drama is interesting, but I won't be involved. If I don't do well, I know that it will be my fault and not the instructors. If this wasn't my top priority I would not make it. Next week should be very interesting, I just hope that the students that are working their tails off do OK. A&P and Algebra classes all shrank considerably- hopefully, as important as this is, my nursing class will be different.

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