Grades from school to school....

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papergirlRN

73 Posts

Specializes in geri.

Some people just have to work harder than others, and that can be frustrating for the people that have to put forth a little more effort than someone else.

I have 2 friends that don't even take notes in class. They just read and listen to the lecture and do very well, thanks to a good memory and excellent critical thinking skills. They are making A's.

I have other friends that study for hours and hours every day and are able to pull off B's on a good day.

I read a lot, study a little bit, and make A's and B's, which I am happy with.

So if you talked with one of my "A" friends, they'd tell you nursing school is a breeze, but if you talked to my "B" friends, it's the most difficult thing they've ever done. I'm somewhere in the middle. Everybody is different.

My point is that you can't compare the level of difficulty in one school among different students, much less different schools. You might think it's impossible to get A's in your program. Someone else might think it's impossible to pass at all. Still others will think it's impossible NOT to get A's, it's such a piece of cake.

Specializes in Pediatrics, High-Risk L&D, Antepartum, L.
Some people just have to work harder than others, and that can be frustrating for the people that have to put forth a little more effort than someone else.

I have 2 friends that don't even take notes in class. They just read and listen to the lecture and do very well, thanks to a good memory and excellent critical thinking skills. They are making A's.

I have other friends that study for hours and hours every day and are able to pull off B's on a good day.

I read a lot, study a little bit, and make A's and B's, which I am happy with.

So if you talked with one of my "A" friends, they'd tell you nursing school is a breeze, but if you talked to my "B" friends, it's the most difficult thing they've ever done. I'm somewhere in the middle. Everybody is different.

My point is that you can't compare the level of difficulty in one school among different students, much less different schools. You might think it's impossible to get A's in your program. Someone else might think it's impossible to pass at all. Still others will think it's impossible NOT to get A's, it's such a piece of cake.

And you can't say it's just the students either.

I'm sure it's possible to get As. We have 1 student with a low A/A-. 1 student among many. She isn't in a sea of idiots.

Is it not possible that schools are different and you can't compare between both? Is it really only just the student?

All schools are not created equal. I can say this because I happen to know people who went to two different schools and they COULD compare and they COULD say 100% they ARE DIFFERENT!

It can be about the students...sure. It is fair to say schools are different.

Eaglegrad007

19 Posts

I must say this was very interesting. I have too wondered if other programs were more or less vigorous. Well, my classmates and I were very curious about this so we decided to do our research project on the pass rate on NCLEX RN of nursing students in BSN programs and curriculum design. We found that in NC nursing schools the pass rate of NCLEX was related to curriculum design. We found that schools that had a less rigorous course load tend to perform better on the NCLEX. THis was based on the last 2 semesters of Nursing school. THe school I attended had a very rigorous course load. In my 1st semester of my senior year I took PED/OB and community health in the same semester plus to other courses that required atleast 3 hours outside of class time to prepare. I found it very difficult to manage my time in this program and I barely had time to study. You had to make a choice which course do I want to get the best grade. I chose PEDS/OB because it was a 7 hour course and community was a 5 hour course. FIrst of all I felt that PEDS and OB taught as one class was crazy because each book had atleast 1000 pages or more. I just want to know did anyone else have this type of course load while in nursing school. Also, I had 3 clinic days each week for a total of 18 hours a day.

Megsd, BSN, RN

723 Posts

Specializes in Neuro.

I'm in kind of a unique situation because my school offers both a traditional BSN and accelerated BSN. (I'm in the accelerated program). Most of the time we have had our own sections of classes, but sometimes we have the same class as the traditional students, and I can tell the difference between the two programs AT THE SAME SCHOOL.

We are held to MUCH higher standards than they are. We take undergraduate and graduate classes simultaneously and in order to take our graduate classes we must maintain a 3.0 GPA, not a 2.0 GPA like the traditional students.

At the end of every quarter we take ERI/ATI exams. The traditional students can take them unlimited times, at any computer, at any time within the last 2 weeks of the quarter. Many times they take them together and use books, drug books, and the internet to help. They also write down the answers to the test so they can look up the answers and ace the retake (all the questions are the same every time you take the test) which ups the average we need to exceed in order to pass. We get only ONE chance to take the ERI exams, and they are proctored by our school, and it's all closed-book closed-notes. If we fail, we have to sign a contract with the school and go through remediation before having our grades released.

But, my program has a 100% NCLEX first time pass rate, and theirs doesn't.

I understand the frustration at clawing for your grades to get into grad schools. I feel it too. I can only hope that the grad schools I apply to will be familiar with my nursing program and the level of difficulty so many any B's I have will "weigh more" than someone else's B's from a less rigorous program.

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