Excellent top qualifications but rejected by a school

[guest456275]

Hi, I am wondering what I should do or where I should go. I live in CA but am willing to move wherever I need in order to get my nursing education.

I recently applied to a religious nursing school in Northern CA. My cumulative GPA is 3.9 compared to the average student who got in which was 3.3. My other qualifications were tops as well (top 3% nationally on TEAS, 29 on ACT English, which was good enough for presidents scholarship (highest scholarship) at this school, two recommendation letters from elders of the church affiliated with the school that contained all "excellent" marks not even one "good" mark...) The reason given to me for not getting in was that I did not take enough courses at their school. I am already finished with all of my nursing pre-requisite courses and my funding will not fund me retaking courses that I have already taken and aced.

Where can I apply for a good nursing program that will accept a 35 yr old male nursing student w/ high qualifications, yet who has not taken any of their pre-requisite courses at that particular school. All of my courses were accepted for transfer and are from a fully accredited school, yet this school will not accept those who have not taken at least 12 of their pre-requisites at this school.

The school where I took my nursing pre-requisites was not peaceful at all, there was much bickering and foul play. Even the person in charge of the nursing program was moved out of the institution due to students ganging up against them along with the lab teacher who was also removed from teaching by the main headquarters of the school by the same students ganging up on her. I felt uncomfortable in the hostile environment. There were ~ 400 applicants and only 20 students were accepted into the nursing program there, where I thought the messy stuff would stop, it didn't it only seemed to get worse, so I left that school. Teachers were leaving the school as fast as they were being hired. It was not a good environment for learning nursing. I simply sat in on classes, did the work, studied at home, and took and aced the tests. Then after I saw it was the same IN the nursing program itself, I left.

If anyone can help me by letting me know which nursing schools out there might be good for me, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks.

P.S. I'm feeling pretty hurt that I didn't get into this religious nursing school, I was very confident that my qualifications would stand out and would make the difference. They do supposedly take students who do not have classes here, or so I was told when I started applying... apparently there were more than usual number of applicants this time around who were qualified... but still with those who got in having an average GPA of 3.3 to my 3.9, that most likely means that there were some who got in who were an entire Grade point average below me. Total shock to me that I didn't get accepted.

[kimmeyd]

There are a lot of good nursing schools out there, in each state. The problem I would see is that if you apply out-of-state you are facing out-of-state tuition, which can get very pricey and not to mention the core requirements/transfer credits could be vastly different state-to-state. I am from TX and could give you a list of great schools here, but I highly suggest researching your own state's school. CA is a big state and should have a lot of great schools.

Another thing, I am a RN and when I was in school most of what you are describing sounds VERY familiar, and most of my friend's who RNs also faced the same situation from different schools. The fact is, you have a bunch of very competitive, extroverted personalities working close together and are "against the evil" nursing instructors. Nursing school is VERY hard and I had a bunch of friends fail out... I am not trying discourage you by any means, it's a great profession and well worth it, but it brings out the mean side in a person if you can't make the cut, and the first person to get the lashing is the nursing instructors, b/c they are the ones "trying" to fail the students. Although not the case, I saw it myself, as you probably will with any nursing school. As you, and I both know, we work our butts of to get into a nursing program, and some fail out. It's just part of it but it makes for a crazy environment sometimes. I am just saying don't judge a school by that. Look at the school's NCLEX-RN pass rate, accreditation etc... This should give you a good gist of what kind of education you are going to get. Oh, and one more thing, I wouldn't look at anything other than a BSN program...it's really hard to get a job without one these days. Keep trying! You'll get there!!! And again, IT IS WORTH all the late night and stress you go through!

[guest456275]

Yes, well by those standards this is still not a good school. I was in the 5th cohort. The 1st cohort was beginning to take the NCLEX exam when I was getting in. Now the results show that the students were failing the NCLEX horribly. I wasn't the only student to see the writing on the wall and to drop out either. I was the first, but several other students felt the same way.

You can imagine how hard I worked in the program to get he scores I described above. Yet I dropped out! After trying so hard to get in! And so did other students after me!

When we were in our second nursing class in the program we were asked to draw a picture of the internal organs. You should have seen those pictures. I couldn't even convince my group to place the proper organs where they should be. They just wouldn't believe me that they were where I was saying they were. That means they didn't even RECOGNIZE the correct answer when SHOWN! The school's constant over catering to the student's constant complaints WAS what was running that program.

Instead of focusing on teaching the material the school and teachers were focused on how to keep the students who were complaining happy. A teacher would say they were going to test on such and such and then the next day they would come in and do the exact opposite because the complaining students would complain and the teacher would be forced to give the test on what the complaining students would insist upon. Even if the entire class would fail due to the misinformation the school would stand behind the complaining students.

It was horrible.

My only thought / hope was that once I got into the actual nursing program it would not be like that. I though there the students would simply be focused on the program and learning. After all, there was no more reason to try to destroy other students. They were already in the program.

But, nope, they persisted to do the same things. Why, I don't have any idea. I can't explain why the school catered to them or why they were doing what they were doing.

It was just stressing me out, so I jumped ship and said to myself, my grades and qualifications are good enough I should be able to go anywhere. I was the top student as far as qualifications in the program. They wanted to make me class leader, but I was just too stressed by all of the cut throat ugliness.

I sought out who in the group would make a good class leader, and when I found them I elected them class leader and voted for them and that day they became the class leader. Then I left.

I have not given up on my hopes of becoming a nurse. I plan to become a nurse anesthetist. I just beleive that there are schools that are much healthier than that one. & I want to be the best nurse I can be, which I don't feel I had the opportunity to be going there.

[MyGranniePanties]

While researching schools in my state, I have found that a lot of them give "preference" to students that took pre-reqs there. It is not impossible to get in, but with SO many students applying, they have to weed them out some way.

At the college closest to me, many students with 3.8-3.9 gpas were waitlisted or rejected because the school simply did not have room in the program.

Anyway, I would suggest that you apply to a variety of schools to increase your chances of being accepted to one. Good luck!

[guest456275]

I wanted to apply to several school but I just didn't have time. I am a veteran and the new regulations that take effect on Aug. 1, 2011 which were signed into law by Obama have really been putting me in a major bind to try ot understand how they will affect me. I stand to lose my college funding, due to the new bill, yet the new bill hasn't been publicly posted, so I have had to research it via the VA which has been a long and tedious process. Currently I'm on the phone with the VA trying to straighten something out about it as I am typing this.

To make matters worse the VA has the wrong discharge date. I am struggling to get this stuff taken care of now, because after Aug. 1, 2011 the laws change and I lose it all. The VA is busy and difficult to work with. Also they don't really know about the new laws very well, I keep getting different information. I try to get ahold of knowledgeable persons, yet the only way to do that is to call several times. Some can direct me to written evidence others 'just work there' and can barely provide a summation of what may be the case.

Then there are other financial things I am trying to sort out as well, along with applications and other issues.

So I totally agree with what you are saying, it is the best advise possible, yet not always easy, especially when the schools are far away. I fully intend to do that for next semester, yet also intend to be taking classes in the fall which should count toward Bachelor's degree, such as humanities class (Art History), History class, etc. & I am taking classes right now, such as nutrition, etc.