Why Do People Fail Nursing School?

Nursing Students General Students

Published

I found out not too long ago that I've been accepted into a second career accelerated BSN program. I've been combing through some of the threads here and have read a lot about retention rates for schools, what causes people to be dropped from programs, etc. Some of the reasons for students being dropped are obvious, as with the student nurse who was throwing hypodermics at her patient like the were darts :uhoh21: Other people indicate that its the difficulty of the courses that weeds people out.

In your experience, what are the most common reasons for people being dropped from, or failing, their nursing programs? (In case it wasn't obvious, I'm trying to anticipate challenges that might pop up!)

The people I've known that were dropped from the program were mostly because of too low of grade and alot of their problem was they didn't expect things to go as fast as they did and it's hard to absorb the information in the small amount of time that you're given.

Alot of people have too many other things going on in their lives and become very stressed out about studying, family, finances, etc. During LPN school it's very hard to go to school and hold a job at the same time.

This is my first semester and the people I've seen drop out are because of time issues.

1. They don't realize/anticipate the amount of time school is going to require

2. They don't have the time to do the work necessary to pass exams

3. They are LATE or absent from class.

I found out not too long ago that I've been accepted into a second career accelerated BSN program. I've been combing through some of the threads here and have read a lot about retention rates for schools, what causes people to be dropped from programs, etc. Some of the reasons for students being dropped are obvious, as with the student nurse who was throwing hypodermics at her patient like the were darts :uhoh21: Other people indicate that its the difficulty of the courses that weeds people out.

In your experience, what are the most common reasons for people being dropped from, or failing, their nursing programs? (In case it wasn't obvious, I'm trying to anticipate challenges that might pop up!)

Along with all the other posts which describe why student nurses get dropped, I can add another. There are some strict rules that you must not break and some broke them. Like giving a med unsupervised (SOME PROGRAMS DROP YOU IMMEDIATELY). These 'rules' are not a mystery and are clearly explained but some cannot follow them. Which in the long run means they probably aren't going to be able to function as a nurse anyway.

I was fortunate to have professional instructors. Mine gave everybody a fair chance but like other posters mentioned, nursing was not meant to be for them at that point in their life, for lots of varied reasons. I never saw an instructor 'out to get' anyone to be honest. Perhaps mine was an unusual program. ???

Specializes in Med-Surg/Telemetry.

people drop out cause of the massive amount of paperwork assignments that go with nursing. its hard to study when a person has nursing assignments paperwords, care plans, teaching plans, weekly patient worksheet that is 10 pages long every week.

its the amount of written assignments thats what it is.

i would rather study, study, study, and yeah study than do written assignments that are exhausting to do and takes a lot of time.

written assignments takes a lot of time, i aint kidding.

i suck at nursing clinical skills, i have never done most of them, and i am halfway through the nursing program. my instructor always criticize me for being nervous, slow, appearing as if i dont know what i'm doing. but seriously, its just that i havent done a lot of them, and i am still trying to get use to the hospital setting and how things work, which is not easy for a student with no medical background.

in the end, i would rather study nursing information, than do written paperwork assignments.

because written work assignments doesnt compliment well with studying to take the test. in order to pass the test, the only thing a person can do is study for it. written assignments dont help.

the people that i know of that left my program were all kind of unique.

one openly admitted to me that she was "sick of being laid off" and wanted a job.

another had a conspiracy theory going that the instructors were out to get her. she was constantly complaining about something..exams, clinical, her work schedule, blah blah blah. personally i think she needed something to blame because she just didn't want to do the work.

another was just a very shy person.

i got behind doing lab skill validations and had instructors coming down very hard on me. however, i knew i was doing something wrong and got help. i think most people just don't want to put in the work. nursing school isn't that hard if you do your work.

exams: i missed one class this semester and as a result, my test grade on the next exam was my lowest all semester. if you LEARN the material, you will do fine! read the books, attend class, study your notes, ask questions if you have them. that's it! piece of cake! :)

good luck!! :) :) :)

by the way, could we create a new saying?

you can't get eaten if you don't taste good.

how's that? lol

I was in RN school years ago and I would say the first answer would have been my first response as well. Many times I saw instructors target an individual student, questioning them during clinicals to the nth degree about theory until the student finally answered, "I don't know," which we all knew meant the student was going to be kicked out. This level of theory interrogation only happened to SOME students. I watched it happen over and over again, and it was the number one stress factor at our school. You never knew if you would be next. Rarely did we lose anyone due to failing tests. The school only accepted 90 of over 500 applicants and told us at the beginning we were the "cream of the crop." My feeling is we all had what it took to be great nurses, but for some reason which still baffles me, they wanted at least one third of the class to leave. And so it was. I ended up leaving for personal reasons after one year, but I still clearly remember the "eating of the young."

Fast forward now to my daughter, who is in LVN school. It is adult school, part of the high school district. It was announced to their class of 50 yesterday that the school district has decided that too many students are in the program with A averages and they need to re-write test questions to see more C's and B's! This has been a very difficult and rigorous program, mind you, and my daughter and her friends have study group sessions all the time. They really work at doing well, and now to hear that the school is deliberately going to use trick questions to make some students do poorly just makes me sick. The goal is to see one third of the class with C's, one third with B's and one third with A's. Of course you know that this means students who already have C's will probably fail. I have already applied to this school myself for the Fall 2009 class, and these kinds of policies bring back such bad memories of my first nursing school that I am now reconsidering. Even though I scored in the 99th percentile on the TEAS and have waited my whole life for circumstances to be as they are now so I may go back to nursing school and fulfill my dream, I have to wonder if I am really needing this kind of BS in my life? And why are they trying to make people do poorly? What advantage does that give the school district and more importantly, do they need nurses or not??

I imagine in an accelerated 2nd degree program, you probably won't have many issues with immature, academically unprepared, unmotivated classmates.

However, there IS a LOT of material to cover. I mean a LOT. Like a thousand pages of assigned textbook reading over just a few weeks. That can mean covering dozens of conditions (pathophys, risk factors, signs and symptoms, treatments, prognosis, nursing care for each condition) in EACH lecture. As well as projects and careplans that can take up several hours each week. There's little time to digest all the information coming at you, so it can feel like for all that you've studied, you don't actually KNOW much. You could maybe skim a couple of the textbooks you'll be using to get a taste of the content, structure, depth, and quantity of material.

There are also those pesky "critical thinking" questions. You could know about a particular issue inside and out and still get questions wrong because of the quirky style of nursing test questions. So, as another stated, it's especially hard to do well on the first couple of tests and in most programs anything less than 75% is failing. NCLEX review books that focus on test-taking strategies can help one get a feel for how to interpret and answer these types of questions.

Finally, there's still rather a "sink-or-swim" mentality in many nursing program (and for new grads as well). I don't expect to be "spoon-fed" or have my "hand held" the entire time, but I did expect a bit more preparation, practice, guidance, and support in the clinical arena, especially given that many program are supposedly geared for those without any prior health care experience. I've also observed a pervasive attitude from instructors and experienced nurses that certain things should be obvious and that a student should already know or be aware of or feel more confident about even if it was never covered before and even if you're not very far along in your program.

Patience with struggling students and newbies can be lacking, perhaps since nurses are often working with tight time constraints, juggling several competing demands. I don't know if you can prepare for this. Working as a nursing assistant or unit secretary would help give a taste of the interpersonal dynamics in nursing. At the very least, volunteering or shadowing on a inpatient hospital unit prior to starting nursing school would be better than no previous exposure at all.

1 person failed due to poor clinical abilities (due to, I believe, pstd, and consequent inability to be assertive in the environment)...very sad, because personally a very lovely person.

This is my current problem.

My med-surg professor told me that she would have no choice but to fail me if I don't stop being shy and that I should seek professional help for it. I understand the need to be more assertive, but I have no problem once I know how to interact with the patients (she has noticed this and it was only with one patient who was noncommunicative). I am still offended by this conversation.

There's a guy in our program who only shows up for exams. Despite his natural intelligence, he is on the verge of being kicked out of the program for poor attendance.

Like others have said, a lot of students aren't prepared for the amount of work that is involved in nursing school, and it is hard to juggle with other issues that are likely to arise.

Best of luck

people drop out cause of the massive amount of paperwork assignments that go with nursing. its hard to study when a person has nursing assignments paperwords, care plans, teaching plans, weekly patient worksheet that is 10 pages long every week.

its the amount of written assignments thats what it is.

i would rather study, study, study, and yeah study than do written assignments that are exhausting to do and takes a lot of time.

written assignments takes a lot of time, i aint kidding.

i suck at nursing clinical skills, i have never done most of them, and i am halfway through the nursing program. my instructor always criticize me for being nervous, slow, appearing as if i dont know what i'm doing. but seriously, its just that i havent done a lot of them, and i am still trying to get use to the hospital setting and how things work, which is not easy for a student with no medical background.

in the end, i would rather study nursing information, than do written paperwork assignments.

because written work assignments doesnt compliment well with studying to take the test. in order to pass the test, the only thing a person can do is study for it. written assignments dont help.

Do you go to Radford, or perhaps you're my long-lost twin? :p

I swear I know exactly where you're coming from.

Best of luck to you, you'll get through this just fine.

So, my question is, why do nursing instructors target students? Is it because the student is not learning the information fast enough? Is it really a personality conflict like another poster said, and what type of personality conflict (i.e. was the student rude or stand-offish to the teacher)? I have a very strong, type A personality so that's why I'm asking not that I would ever be rude to a professor though. Now, I'm scared.

To be completely honest, not everyone that wants to be a nurse should be a nurse.

Specializes in Case management, occupational health.

People fail nursing school because they think that what worked in every other course will work in nursing classes. The content is hard, and yes some instructors are really tough, but it comes down to personal responsability.

I hate to hear people say they failed because the instructor was to hard, etc. Take responsability for your education, do the work, take it seriously, and you will succeed. If you fail it is no ones fault but your own. Nusing instructors do not pick on students unless they have a reason, then they do it because they know that student has potential, and are slacking

I listen to students whine all day about the instructors, the reading is to much etc. It frustrates me to no end. If they spent half the time studying as they do complaining maybe they would not be failing

+ Add a Comment