Are A's a thing of the past?

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Before I got into nursing school I was an A student, not A-, but A. So far I have not gotten a single A. I got an A- in pathopharm and am going to have an A- in Peds/Ob with the rest of my classes being B,s and B+'s. I really wanted to get an A this semester because I want to go in OB so I though I should be able to pull it off at-least this time, but NO, I missed it by 3% ugh! Is any one else finding that getting A's seem to be a thing of the past once in nursing school?

Absolutely. The only time you can really even let your employer know your grades is if you put your GPA on your resume, or you add some thing like "Graduated with Honors," etc. Otherwise it doesn't even come into play.

Also, most employers expect that honestly, as a new graduate nurse, you don't know much. You will get a much longer and more thorough orientation than a nurse with experience. It's not that they think poorly of you--they have just been there, too. They KNOW that you dont' know much, they expect that, and they expect to provide you with the experience that you will need in their facility. If they DON'T expect to do this for you, run away, it is not a facility that a new grad needs to be at.

Specializes in Urgent Care.

I graduate in 1 week- ( yay!), and the only thing that straight A's has gotten me is scholarships. I have gotten almost all of my schooling paid for through scholarships. I have a 4.0, but I also volunteer and work at the school as a tutor so I am sure that helped too. I have already gotten hired for a job and of course they do not ask your grades, they only want your liscense.

Yes, A's are possible, but it will not make you any better of a nurse. It only means you are book smart. There is alot more to nursing than answering priority questions LOL

Specializes in General adult inpatient psychiatry.

I know I've worked my tail off during this first semester just for Bs and B-s. I know I aim for that "A" and study as hard as I can. I don't think anyone should aim for less than what they're capable of. I sometimes think grades are subjective and even if you work as hard as you can, you still may get that "C" you didn't want.

Just my $.02.

I'm almost done with my 2/4 semesters, and I have all As again going into my finals. I work my orifice off for them though, and I've spent so much time with my NCLEX question books that I'm doing them in my sleep. I've always been an A student though, even back to being valedictorian in high school, so I've always had very good study habits. I have no problem with anyone who works as hard as he/she can, and strives for the best grade possible. I'll always strive for As, and I'll always be a little disappointed if I don't get them, but if someone works equally hard and finishes with a 91 (B) or 83 ©, I have no problem at all with that. It's the people who brag about how they haven't opened a textbook since June but they're still sliding by with a high C off the powerpoints that bug me. It seems like they're "settling," yet they're also the ones who complain most loudly during test reviews and such that certain questions were "not fair." Well, honey, if you'd have even cracked that textbook, you might have realized where they were coming from. Oh well, just don't complain to me, I'm a little low on sympathy. Back to the books!

Specializes in ED.

I have A's, in 3 of the 4 semesters so far. And from the new grad applications I have started looking at, there are some (at least half) that want a transcript. And so to some employers it does matter. Plus, I think it helps if you want to go on to grad school, maybe I'm wrong.

Good point. The grades might not matter at all in the job search; but in advancing your education it may come into play in getting accepted into the school as well as financial aid.

J

The ONLY problem with this statement is that (the person who chooses to not study) is NOT the only one who has to live with those consequences. If in fact that non-studier some how passes and makes it to nursing, their patients are the ones who will ultimately have to "live or die" due to that persons actions or inability to act/react. I honestly want to believe that the people who choose to " just barely make it" through school like this really know the material but are not showing it. I don't want to believe that there are nurses out there who didn't "get it" in school and just barely passed, only to have people's lives/deaths in their hands. The role of the RN is very serious in nature, I am not a stiff collared type person by an stretch, and I hate to think about those patients who end up with those nurses. It is very frightening to me.

Patient safety is of great concern, but again can you prove that the A student is going to be safer than a C student? Too many variables that go into the grades to tell why someone got the grade that they did. There are plenty of people who just can't take tests well, but they know the material and there are others who can test well but can't apply their knowledge in a practical setting. Personally, I trust that the faculty wants to pass safe students and won't allow those who can't tell a needle from a syringe to get through. The rest of it is moot, because C is passing and that has been deemed to be safe enough to practice through all of the state boards of nursing and all of the medical boards. So the safety issue really can't be brought into the argument. We all would probably be better off keeping our grades to ourselves (at school) and staying out of each others business. People get jealous because some people can get an A without studying (they just quickly read through the material), Others have to study every second of every minute to get that A, others have the same study skills but can only manage a B or just to scrape by etc... We are all different. As long as we come out with the basic skills and knowledge needed to be safe Grad nurses and can pass the NCLEX then the rest really didn't matter all that much. Now if someone wants to go on to grad school then grades will be a factor. This is why I would encourage everyone to try and get good grades, but if you know and understand the material well and just don't want to kill yourself to memorize the nitty gritty details and get a B instead of an A, it just doesn't bug me because at some point a lot of those nitty gritty details are going to be forgotten and you will have to look them up later on anyway. The big picture and how the systems relate to one another and how medications and disesase processes work down to the cellular level are important. Knowing the lab ranges of every liver function test is not. You can look that up later. Knowing how methimazole works to supress thyroid hormone production may not be that important because you are probably going to forget it anyway and will need to look it up again later instead of relying on your memory. (That is the nurse that I want. Someone who will admit when they don't know something, instead of thinking that they do and getting mixed up. Just look it up). I'm rambling, but I guess for me the core principles of nursing and physiology are the important things, the details sometimes are things that you can look up to refresh your memory on the job so after the test they aren't always so important.

Specializes in LTC/Skilled Care/Rehab.

I want to go to grad school which is why I am worried about my grades. I won't die if I don't get straight As but I try to get as many as I can.

I want to go to grad school which is why I am worried about my grades. I won't die if I don't get straight As but I try to get as many as I can.

This pretty much some up my approach as well. I don't have plans to go to grad school though. At this point BSN will be it.

It is important to do your very best in nursing school. This being said, many people who go on to do very well in nursing do not make straight A's or even any A's in nursing classes. I was lucky enough to be a teenager w/o responsibilities when I started nursing school. Many of my very bright classmates, had kids, parents, etc. they cared for. They were just as smart as me, if not smarter. Often though, their grades were lower. They had more complicated lives than me at that point. One of the things you learn in nursing school is that everything important is not always apparent. This can be applied to grades. In some schools, clinical is pass/fail. A student may be a stellar clinical performer, but perhaps only a medicore performer on written tests or papers. Another student may be a great test taker, but be only satisfactory at clinicals. In other words, the best nurse doesn't always have the best grades. My best advice, as an old nurse and a student nurse's mom...do your best and take care of you and your own learning. Don't worry about others' grades or judge them by those grades. I am still amazed by how competitive nursing students are about grades. If you are a good nurse, you will NEVER stop learning, even when you aren't recieving a grade. And yes, even those who get all C's (nothing to be ashamed of, because nursing school is pretty hard) can put RN behind their name once they have passed N-Clex. Unfortunately straight A's don't guarantee a passing score on N-Clex either! Good luck to all of you students. I want you to succeed, so I can retire one day!

I have had so many conversations with people who were distraught because they came into nursing school as a 4.0 student and they are getting B's, and so yes the natural reply is to remind them that C is passing and that they will make wonderful nurses. I do not know of any person, who is passing, that has the attitude that they just want to pass. We started with 66 people but I do know we have lost a few. (Especially since finals were today). Most of these people are studying their tushies off. I know because some of them are in study groups with me. We are a full time BSN program and I know that just to get into the program, which was heavily impacted, the average gpa was 3.8. So none of the people in our program are dummies and/or slackers. Some of them have to work and some have families and have had normal life events happen (illness, unexpected emergencies, and deaths). Also, because it is the first quarter, some have had to adjust from a semester to a quarter system. In addition, we are learning a completely new way of thinking (many of us never had theory classes) and the test questions, in the NCLEX style, are different from what we previously were used to. This quarter the average grade in nursing school is a B, so yes, there are some A's, but there are many more B's. I believe the people I am going to school with, will make wonderful nurses (A, B, or C). So if by encouraging them, I say the dreaded, "C=passing", I beg your pardon to all who would be offended. I am just doing my best to encourage and support my fellow classmates who I hope to be with for the next 2 years. I was lucky to squeak out A's, but I was also fortunate to be able to quit work and I have an incredibly supportive and understanding family. I will strive to keep getting A's, but I will also not beat myself up over a lower grade as long as I am still on the road to becoming a nurse. Good luck to all who are still going through finals.

Specializes in Cardiac Telemetry, ED.
Before I got into nursing school I was an A student, not A-, but A. So far I have not gotten a single A. I got an A- in pathopharm and am going to have an A- in Peds/Ob with the rest of my classes being B,s and B+'s. I really wanted to get an A this semester because I want to go in OB so I though I should be able to pull it off at-least this time, but NO, I missed it by 3% ugh! Is any one else finding that getting A's seem to be a thing of the past once in nursing school?

Nope. Still getting As.

To me, the phrase C=RN does not imply acceptance of doing the bare minimum to get by, but rather, is intended to put things in perspective and take a little bit of the pressure off.

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