help with purchasing study material for excelsior.

BarbaraNM, ASN, RN · Jun 29, 2011

New to all nurse. I am wanting to do the excelsior lpn to rn bridge program. I have all my general education courses complete.
Having,trouble deciding between what,study guides to buy. There are several sellers on ebay, chancellors,and college network. Please provide any information that,will assist me in making a decision. Thank you.

Hi Lhoward3... welcome! This board is a GREAT resource... tons of good information!

First, let me say do not sign up with a 3rd party publishing company... College Network, Rue, Istudysmart... there may be others. They will lock you into an expensive contract, and they are no more than a very expensive bookstore. You can often find their study materials on Ebay for a fraction of what they cost.

Check to see what textbooks are required for each EC Course, and you can usually find them on Ebay, for a fairly reasonable price. That is where I purchased all my study materials. Others will probably jump in with more recommendations.

Good luck! :)

Lhoward3 · Jun 29, 2011

Thank you. I will check out the require textbooks.I

caliotter3 · Jun 29, 2011

Write down a list of the required texts, then if you want to take the time, go to your libraries and check out as many as you can for free. You can do an interlibrary loan for those that are not held by the branch you visit. It never takes more than a couple of days or so to receive them. Then, whichever ones you can't get from a library, look for on the online websites. Another place you can look is the bookstores of local colleges that have nursing schools. They don't sell them inexpensively though. Like the previous post said, stay away from The College Network, Rue, and the other publishing companies. If you want any of their material, buy it on ebay for pennies on the dollar. Good luck.

scorpio82lse · Jun 29, 2011

I agree with the above posts as well. Stay away from any company that wants to lock you into a contract. They are way too expensive. Amazon, E-Bay, local libraries are good places. I have also found chegg.com and textbooksrus.com to be very helpful. I would also recommend getting the previous edition. If a book has a new edition published in 2010 I would get one edition prior to that one. Majority of the time, the information is very similar with only minor changes.

DarcyLPN99 · Jun 29, 2011

I have another question that goes along with this topic....what books to I ABSOLUTELY have to have to do my nursing courses? I'm paying out of pocket for everything and I am using Study Guide 101 to study for my Transitions exam and I love their format, but I know along the way I"m going to need books for something. I'm trying to do this without spending a lot of extra money. Any input would be appreciated! Thanks!! :)

DarcyLPN99 · Jun 30, 2011

*BUMP* I still need a little advice, so I'm bumping this one back to the top!

nursemomma11 · Jun 30, 2011

I made it just fine with my fundamentals book and med-surg book from LPN school. If you don't have any books, then I would buy what Excelsior recommends for fundamentals and med-surg. I started out buying all the books Excelsior recommended, then realized I wasn't even using most of them. You may also like Lisa Arends notes for sale on eBay. I used StudyGroup101, Lisa Arends, and Excelsior practice tests and nothing else and passed with A's & B's.

The most beneficial thing you can do, as far as the exams go, is to pay the $65 for Excelsior's practice exam. You can take it twice. I always took the first one just to see which areas I need to study more of. Then would take it again after I felt like I was ready to take the real deal. Best of luck to you!

BeachieRN84 · Jun 30, 2011

I second the advice to spend the extra $ for the Excelsior practice exams. They are worth every penny, seriously.

DarcyLPN99 · Jun 30, 2011

I made it just fine with my fundamentals book and med-surg book from LPN school. If you don't have any books, then I would buy what Excelsior recommends for fundamentals and med-surg. I started out buying all the books Excelsior recommended, then realized I wasn't even using most of them. You may also like Lisa Arends notes for sale on eBay. I used StudyGroup101, Lisa Arends, and Excelsior practice tests and nothing else and passed with A's & B's.
The most beneficial thing you can do, as far as the exams go, is to pay the $65 for Excelsior's practice exam. You can take it twice. I always took the first one just to see which areas I need to study more of. Then would take it again after I felt like I was ready to take the real deal. Best of luck to you!

Thank you! I'm already using Study Group 101's Notes, and I've heard about Lisa Arends and have looked her up on Ebay. I did notice for her stuff though, it seemed like some of it was from 2008. I was wondering if it was up to date enough to use. I'm going to have to do the practice exam. I scheduled my first exam for next Friday!!!!

I've also seen on here about using books that are a previous edition. I'm going to go that route too. I got all of the books that Excelsior recommends from BookRenter.com for the Transitions exams, and I haven't opened a single one of them since I bought Study Group 101's notes. Thanks again. I appreciate the input!!!

caliotter3 · Jun 30, 2011

It has been posted before that L. Arends does not update her material. SG101 does update their material on a regular basis. You might want to try one of their offerings to see if it is helpful.

DarcyLPN99 · Jun 30, 2011

It has been posted before that L. Arends does not update her material. SG101 does update their material on a regular basis. You might want to try one of their offerings to see if it is helpful.

That's what I thought. I could see that from what I was looking at on Ebay and that is why I was a little wary on purchasing her study guides. I did see that SG101 does update theirs often, which is good. Thanks!