Harcum Day Program Sept. 2011 anyone?

Champsgirl88 · Jul 4, 2011

i emailed her a couple days ago, and she is out of the office until july 5 :-/. i guess i will call again then. thanks for your reply!!!! did you just get the letter?

CatGolden · Jul 4, 2011

I received my acceptance letter at the end of May. I took the teas test mid april. You probably will get a response from Beth sometime tomorrow. I had emailed her over a holiday weekend before and she emailed me back as soon as she got back in the office.

chuckster, ADN, BSN, RN, EMT-B · Jul 5, 2011

hi, i am curently in harcum evening nursing program. it is very intense almost 75% of the class is failing and 50% of the class is not coming back next semester. harcum has the lowest passing rate for nclex in philadephila, so they have been placed on probation by the state board. they are only passed the people they know for sure will pass the nclex. save your money and your time and go to lasalle university.

i agree with sentiment but not because of the low nclex passing rate. the job for market for rn's in general is very poor and is extremely challenging for all new grads. the job market for new grad rn's with associates degrees is much worse than for bsn's however.

the reality is that there are very few new nursing jobs being created in the philadelphia area (this is almost certainly the case nationally but i have not looked at the data for areas outside of phila). between 2008 and 2009, the most recent full period reported, the us bureau of labor statistics nursing employment data showed an increase of exactly 80 rn jobs (from 42,740 in 2008 to 42,820 in 2009). over that same period, the 23 nursing programs in the 4 county phila area (5 diploma, 7 adn and 11 bsn) saw the numbers of their graduates who passed the nclex increase from 1,986 in 2008 to 2,142 in 2009. assuming that all of the 2008 rn's found jobs, not likely since the bls data for number of new rn's only increases by 320 (from 42,420 in 2007 to 42,720 in 2008), this could mean that in 2009, there were 2,142 new nurses competing for 80 new nursing jobs. it's not that simple of course but you get the point. if you want to see for yourself, here's a link to the website: http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes291111.htm

if you are still convinced that nursing is for you, think seriously about a bsn program rather than adn. as indicated above, the job market for all nurses is poor but it is absolutely dismal for associate degree nurses. do some research on job postings at local hospitals and even nursing homes. in the recent past, most would say "bsn preferred". in the current environment with so many new grads out there, most now say "bsn required". some more grim statistics: the overwhelming majority of my 2010 graduating class from dccc have not be able to find nursing jobs (i've heard that the figure is about 75% but don't have the data to verify this) and i'm also told that the comparable figure for the 2009 class is still only about 50%. don't take my word for things though - go and ask someone at harcum. at the very least, find out from the placement office what percentage of new harcum grads from 2011, 2010 and 2009 were able to find nursing jobs. post it here when (more likely if) you get it. my bet is that it's not dissimilar from dccc.

nursing school is an expensive proposition, especially at harcum. you really need to carefully consider if it's worth the cost. if you are borrowing money, can you afford to be looking for a job for more than 12 months after graduation? keep in mind that 12 months is the national average for bsn's to find nursing jobs after graduation - the adn figure isn't readily available but i suspect it is much longer. be aware that thanks to lobbyists from the big banks, student loans are not dischargeable in cases of bankruptcy. think long and hard before investing tens of thousands of dollars into an adn that may not help you land a job.

CatGolden · Jul 6, 2011

champsgirl...did you hear anything yet?

tootsie2184 · Jul 9, 2011

I was a student at Harcum. Program was horrible experiance. Waste of money. Look for yourself, lowest nclex rates in the state of PA. http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=572050&mode=2

Champsgirl88 · Jul 19, 2011

yes i got in!!! i will see you aug 29th!

CatGolden · Jul 20, 2011

Congrats!! That is awesome Champsgirl!! :yeah: I look forward to meeting you!

Jayden8139 · Jul 21, 2011

Congrats to all who were accepted! I was accepted but at the same time I was accepted to 2 other schools and decided to go with Roxborough. We start in about 10 days I'm so excited.

As far as what Chuckster said just study hard and you'll make it through. You've come this far! Although, their NCLEX rates suck and they are going through review just look at the people who did pass. With hard work you guys are sure to be one of them too!

Chuckster, I don't think ne of us plan on stopping at DPL or ADN I believe it is on most of our agendas to get the BSN if not right after shortly following graduating.

Congrats to us ALL!

kayak133 · Nov 7, 2011

Please do not enroll in the ACHIEVE program at LaSalle University. My experience was and continues to be horrible. Myself and five other students attended a prospective student meeting on October 17th for the Spring 2012 semester. To my knowledge only on student received an acceptance letter for the Spring. The rest of us were given information on what background checks we were supposed to obtain and the deadline. The cost to set up an account with American DataBank is $134. This is not including your PA child abuse and criminal background checks. We were also told that we would be notified the week of 10/29/11 as to whether or not we would be accepted, but we had a deadline of 12/01/11. No word last week as to whether or not I was accepted. The woman with whom I was dealing with became evasive and then stated that she never said to start obtaining criminal background checks during that meeting. The response from the Dean was: "You must follow the procedures and policies of the University," and the response from the Office of the President was: "We don't solve those types of problems here."