HESI Exit Exam

Published Feb 20, 2014

7 Posts

Hi everyone!

I've been wanting to post for a while now and finally decided to do it... I recently graduated from Texas A&M University- Corpus Christi (TAMUCC) with my BSN, December 2013! It was tough, but I'm glad I got through it..

At TAMUCC, we are required to pass the Hesi Exit Exam with a 900. They recently changed the rules, however, for my graduating class. Before, students were able to take the Exit Exam an unlimited amount of times and they wouldn't be penalized (except they couldn't register for NCLEX). Well for my class they changed it. They gave us three (and than changed to four) attempts to make a 900 and then we failed our Leadership class. No graduation! To make it worse, they told us the first day of our last semester!!! As you can imagine this added lots of anxiety!

To study, I used Hurst review and just did practice questions. I didn't really know what to do. There was no way I was going to be able to go over everything, so I just study general information. Hesi day came and... I failed the first time; I made an 865. I was upset, but gave myself a pep talk and did more questions and more Hurst. I was able to take the Hesi alone the second time, which was nice! And when my score was revealed.... I failed. Again. 888. I was really upset! I cried and I just knew I wasn't going to graduate. I didn't study after that. Because I told myself, if I don't know the stuff now, I won't know it for the next test.

The week of my 3rd attempt was the week before graduation :bag: .. I went over test taking skills from the Purple Saunders book. I felt confident, but I said no matter what happened, I just wanted God's will to be done for my life. I knew God called me to be a nurse, so eventually it would happen! I kept repeating, "I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me.." I really felt different about this time. I was calm. I took a lot of breaks... And finally I passed the Exit Hesi on the third attempt with a score over 1,000!

So... Don't give up! An instructor once told me, a test score does not determine how good a nurse you will be. You DO know the material! You CAN pass the test! And you will be a GREAT nurse!