Excelsior College Newbie

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Hi I am new to this site. I am interested in excelsior college to go from LPN to RN. I dont understand what college network is and why you would need it in addition to excelsior. Any other accreditied internet programs for LPN to RN. ANy opinions or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

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Specializes in Addiction & Recovery, Community Health.

Hi and Welcome!

College Network sells materials to help you study to take Excelsior Exams. EC exams are like CLEP exams. It is my understanding that it is much less expensive to purchase your materials right through Excelsior. I have also heard that College Network material are not as good. If you are a student at Excelsior you will have an advisor and they will help you ALOT. Mine has. The downside to being an official student, not just taking just the exams but also some classes, is that you pay an enrollment fee every year but I really needed help navigating the system. Also, to graduate you have to become an official student eventually anyway. Excelsior does make you take a couple classes and the others you can choose to either take or test out of. It is cheaper to test out, obviously. I have liked ENG101N, a composition class geared toward nurses. For the nursing classes you can only test out, they do not offer formal, online classes for these.

I would go to the website, get the number, call, get a student id number, send your transcripts, and go from there. Once you have done those things they can advise you before you even send money.

I hope this helps. Feel free to ask more questions if I can help you.:)

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Specializes in MOHS surgery.

I am about to start at Excelsior. I am very excited and nervous at the same time. I have called and asked alot of questions and they are always very helpful and polite. I have a question for Suzi-Q. Are you taking the English course or exam? I think that is the class I am most nervous about. I am going to talk to my advisor about taking some CLEP tests instead of the Excelsior exams. They are alot cheaper. From what I have heard from the College Network they just want your money and it doesn't help much with exams. For Excelsior you need to make sure it is recognized in your state. It's good in most states I think. Good in TN!!!

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Specializes in Addiction & Recovery, Community Health.

It sounds like you and I are in agreement about how Excelsior and College Network are designed. CLEP is cheaper; I forgot that part!:D I have not been in a regular college course for many years so I decided the best thing for me to do was take the English Composition for Nursing Professionals. I did not think I would do well if I "tested out" of my english requirement. Some people would do just fine though, I am sure. In case anybody wonders...I LOVED IT! Great class, great teacher, learned ALOT.

I am happy to help anyone with Excelsior questions...:)

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It sounds like you and I are in agreement about how Excelsior and College Network are designed. CLEP is cheaper; I forgot that part!:D I have not been in a regular college course for many years so I decided the best thing for me to do was take the English Composition for Nursing Professionals. I did not think I would do well if I "tested out" of my english requirement. Some people would do just fine though, I am sure. In case anybody wonders...I LOVED IT! Great class, great teacher, learned ALOT.

I am happy to help anyone with Excelsior questions...:)

SusieQ,

Don't offer that help so quickly until you have met me LOL. I recently sent my appliation off, have sent off transcript request from my former college and since i'm 9 hours ahead ( live in Dubai) I have to wait until hours from now before I can make my first phone call. I have browsed the web site and joined this website which is worth its bytes in GOLD! So i found some course outlines and started to read just the one for Health Safety and literally scared myself away from the PC LOL. I hope i'm just taking in too much stuff at one time and I will be fine. Hubby says there have been many a person that has become an RN via Excelsior that didn't have the luxury of ANY medical experience and that I will be just fine. But as a Paramedic, i feel that I am on a whole different page. I hope once I am given an advisor, i will feel more comfortable but right now I think i'm more scared than I was when i went to Paramedic school ( 10 years ago). I don't know where to begin. What I am doing at this point is going all over the EC web site and this web site and making as many friends as possible. I excelled as a Paramedic and had the confidence and skills to take on anything but right now I feel sooooooooooo inferior and way out of my element. One thing I do know though is that I've wanted to be an RN for a while and I know I will make a great RN. I hope I'm making the right decision to go the EC way vs school.

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Specializes in EMS, ED, Trauma, CEN, CPEN, TCRN.
I hope I'm making the right decision to go the EC way vs school.

Another consideration is where you'll be licensed -- I know you're in Dubai now, but will you eventually return stateside? EC is not accepted in all states (most, once an RN has some experience, but not all). There is a list here on EC's site:

https://www.excelsior.edu/Excelsior_College/School_Of_Nursing/Accreditation_and_Licensure/State_Board_Requirements

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Which states is Excelsior not accepted in if you don't mind me asking? Thanks

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Specializes in EMS, ED, Trauma, CEN, CPEN, TCRN.
Which states is Excelsior not accepted in if you don't mind me asking? Thanks

Info is here: https://www.excelsior.edu/Excelsior_College/School_Of_Nursing/Accreditation_and_Licensure/State_Board_Requirements

Many states will allow EC RNs to endorse in with a certain amount of hours. The only state I'm aware of that will not at all is Maryland.

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Yes that is something i looked at prior to applying at Excelsior. My sis is an RN in California and I knew that was one of the states that doesn't accept Excelsior graduates without experience. We still have our home in Mississippi, right on the TN stateline. We fly home every few weeks and what I will do once I graduate is apply for licensure in both MS and TN. We may be living stateside fulltime again by then but if not, I will most likely live stateside half the time working PRN until I aquire enough time put in to work wherever we're living at the time. A large reason I'm wanting my RN is so that I may work and volunteer internationally with organizations such as Doctors without Borders and respond to disasters working as an RN and Paramedic.

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Thank You Lunah :)

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Excelsior College has a good LPN to RN program, however, it is costly [ if you use TCN ] and, unfortunately, Illinois does not recognize EC's program. I know that because I live in Illinois and looked into it recently. That's a shame because I don't think there are any other LPN - RN programs out there.

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