Normal nursing grades..

lillymom · Oct 26, 2012

AT my school they tell us that the test questions are more complex than the NCLEX questions to make sure that we can pass the NCLEX. They tell us that they aim for the majority of us to score 80-85 on our tests. Sounds pretty crazy to me!

jennaroo · Oct 26, 2012

C=Fail in my school. You need a B-(80) in order to move on to the next nursing class.
But to the OP, don't stress over getting all A's.

Some schools are on a different letter grading scale where as an 80% is a C.....imo they should be the same across the board, but that could be why the other poster is saying C=RN......in some schools it actually could.....

Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN · Oct 26, 2012

Well some of us are interested in getting into super competitive graduate programs in which nursing school grades matter a great deal. So, for me at least, the goal is all A's in NS....The program I am looking at only accepts 14 students a year.

Having goals are great.....CRNA is, in my humble opinion, one of the hardest disciplines. The good schools are extremely tough and competitive......they should be small to have quality.

I think some new students have difficulty adjusting to the volume information and the type of questioning in nursing. There is so much lateral thinking and multiple answers that are right but the one MOST right.....is difficult to adjust. It is unlike the per-requisites all together.

OP ..... take a deep breath......it will get better. Talk to your advisers/CI about what you need and where you might be off the path.

Good Luck!

jessjay · Oct 26, 2012

I am a chamberlain nursing student in illinois. i want to start off by saying that in high school, i litterly (no joke) graduated dead center in my class. I was an average B-C student in high school. I didnt like school at all, would rather hang out with friends or work. I attended my local community college after i graduated and for the first 3 semester, i again, was your average B-C student. It wasnt until i had an instructor for Chemistry who had a form of autism, when i learned how to teach myself and how to really really study. his class started out with 40 students, but final exam time, about 25 students were left and only 10 passed the class. out of those 10, i was included and received a B in the class all around. i went on to getting an A in a&p and an A in microbiology. After i was denied entrance to my community colleges nursing program (my TEAS score was around 78 & my gpa was like 2.97), i knew i had to go else where. thats when i found chamberlain and fell in love. the only thing i was super scared about was the program at chamberlain is an excellerated program. instead of full 16 week semesters, we had 8 week semesters. Chamberlain also offers their BSN in 3 years. I was able to transfer 50 credits out of 80 from my previous school, which was amazing! (the first 2 years i slacked so by the time i wanted to crack down on my studies, i was told i was a few classes away from applying for nursing school and a few away from receiving my associates in science, so i went both ways)When i started at chamberlain, my first class was a health and wellness class that wasnt part of the program but was a nursing class. needless to say, i bombed the first exam with a 64%. at chamberlain, you need to maintain a 76% on all exams before the soft points (assignments, quizes, projects, etc) were included. this class only had 3 exams. i worked my butt off to bring my grade up but unfortunately, i was not able to pass the class with a 76%, instead, i failed with a 75.8%. man, was i bummbed! i felt like such a failure, but that didnt stop me. i ended up retaking the class (with a few peers who aslo failed, which brought my self esteem up a few) and passed with a B+. our grading scale is shortened as well. a B+ starts at 92%. I started my first semester of nursing school this past July and successfully passed all 3 classes (fundamentals of nursing, health assessment class and patho). like i said before, our program is excellerated so in 16 weeks, we have 2 8 week sessions, which both have a total of 4 exams and 1 final. so in 16 weeks i took 17 exams. during finals week of the first session, we had what we called return demonstrations of lab skills we learned in lab, basic CNA/PCT stuff except we learned suctioning, foley insertions, wound cleaning, etc. from left and right, all i heard were girls (and some men) were failing. Students who were straight A students in high school and their other colleges were failing out horribly. they were dropping like flies. i was so scared!!! but, i was able to pass with 2 B's and a C. second session was a little different. I started out the session getting C's on all exams but was able to pull all 3 grades up to a B by this past week (finals week). Even during these finals, girls were droping like flies. i made friends with a girl who is a couple years younger than i am and who prides herself on her intellegence. she was a straight A student in high school and when she finished her prereqs at chamberlain she made the deans list quite a few times. Even this last session, she ended up failing her first exam, got her first C in a class and was mortified.

all in all, you cant get hung up on the grade. As long as you pass, you will still have the same education and know the same material as the one who passed with an A. i know gpa is important for master programs and even scholarships but if you dont need the scholarship, just try and do the best you can. if your school offers a tutoring center, GO! i have learned our center isnt that great, so i picked one of their brains and releaized the study packets they give us are books i can find online. these study guides are AMAZING! they helped so much because my problem wasnt the content, i knew the content like the back of my hand (for the most part), it was the questions! those tricky nursing questions that were the reason i failed my very first nursing exam.

I like to go by the moto "Cs get degrees!" because truthfully, being an average minded student, this accelerated program has made me go crazy! i want to strive to do better than a C BUT, i know that sometimes, its very unrealistic for me, myself, to get an A. I worked very hard for my grades, and im very proud of them. ive never studied this much in my life but its worth it to me. a lot of girls didnt go into the program with the mentality "this is going to be hard! no social life, no nothing except nursing nursing nursing"! and honestly, thats what you need to do. you need to mentally prepare yourself for this. if you dont, youre not going to succeed. i have a girlfriend who failed with me on the first nursing exam ever and made it all the way until this week where she failed again. but she also didnt make the same amount of time for school that i did. she thought working was more important and her boyfriend, who lived like 3 hrs away, was more important. i see my boyfriend everyday BUT i study like crazy when im with him. he hates it but he knows its what i need to do to be successful.

dont get too hung up about the grade, as long as your passing youll be fine. students who were straight A students in highschool are learning this the hard way. dont get stressed! just study, use your resources and know your material. practice questions and you will do fine!!!!!

good luck!!!

Anoetos, BSN, RN · Oct 26, 2012

a B is an A in Nursing School....

Or so the old saying goes. I came into NS with a 4.0 and was lucky to finish with a 3.8. I graduated second in my class to a lady who had a 3.9.

My dirty secret is that I was still figuring out how to study the material in my final semester. I learned that all I really had to do was read the book. I had been notating, transcribing, making cards, etc.

Lowest grade I got in a class was a B-

Like another poster said, you'll get some A's and, probably, a lot of B's.

If you want to go on to graduate studies, good grades matter, so do your best.

WannaBNursey, ADN, ASN, RN · Oct 26, 2012

Our grade scale is 92-100 A, 85-91 B, 77-84 C, anything less than 77 is failing. A B is a normal grade, but we have a lot of overachievers who get A's.

AheleneRN · Oct 26, 2012

Our grade scale is 92-100 A, 85-91 B, 77-84 C, anything less than 77 is failing. A B is a normal grade, but we have a lot of overachievers who get A's.

I'm just curious as to why you call the people who got A's overachievers?

mclennan, BSN, RN · Oct 26, 2012

"C's get degrees!"

I graduated 6 years ago from a supposedly "prestigious" BSN program (pfffft). I got solid B's in the CLASSES THAT ARE IMPORTANT, and C's in the stupid stuff. My culm GPA was something like 3.24 and A) I got jobs B) I got into grad school just fine and C) didn't die.

WannaBNursey, ADN, ASN, RN · Oct 26, 2012

I'm just curious as to why you call the people who got A's overachievers?

Well if you look at the dictionary definition Overachiever - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary

"one who achieves success over and above the standard or expected level" I would say that people who consistently get A's in classes as difficult as nursing classes are overachievers, or a person who achieves success over and above the standard or expected level. They are not only achieving (passing their classes) but they are overachieving by consistently succeeding above the standard.

I'm curious as to what you would call people who get A's.

Stephalump · Oct 26, 2012

Well if you look at the dictionary definition Overachiever - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary
"one who achieves success over and above the standard or expected level" I would say that people who consistently get A's in classes as difficult as nursing classes are overachievers, or a person who achieves success over and above the standard or expected level. They are not only achieving (passing their classes) but they are overachieving by consistently succeeding above the standard.
I'm curious as to what you would call people who get A's.

After nursing school I plan to go to apply to GN internships (which are GPA/HESI based) and then grad school or med school, so I'm expected to get high grades. Would I still be considered an overachiever?

IMO, an overachiever would be the person who isn't happy with a 93% because they only want 105%. Tack on an extra page and photo sheets to projects. Superfluous things.

WannaBNursey, ADN, ASN, RN · Oct 26, 2012

After nursing school I plan to go to apply to GN internships (which are GPA/HESI based) and then grad school or med school, so I'm expected to get high grades. Would I still be considered an overachiever?
IMO, an overachiever would be the person who isn't happy with a 93% because they only want 105%. Tack on an extra page and photo sheets to projects. Superfluous things.

I don't often view the word overachiever with a negative connotation, so I don't find it insulting to tell somebody that they are an overachiever. Guess I'm looking at it the wrong way.

AheleneRN · Oct 27, 2012

Well if you look at the dictionary definition Overachiever - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary "one who achieves success over and above the standard or expected level" I would say that people who consistently get A's in classes as difficult as nursing classes are overachievers, or a person who achieves success over and above the standard or expected level. They are not only achieving (passing their classes) but they are overachieving by consistently succeeding above the standard. I'm curious as to what you would call people who get A's.

I wasn't asking the definition because I know what the dictionary says. I was asking you why because it just came across as if it was a bad thing that there were students who always got A's.