HESI

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What is the HESI exam and what is it purpose? There are students at Kennedy-King College in Chicago who are not able to take their boards because they can not pass the HESI. What is the difference between HESI and NCLEX?

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The Hesi is an entrance exam that ITT gives its nursing students to get accepted into the program, not anything like NCLEX.

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It's an exit exam that you take before you graduate. It's suppose to be a review of everything that you have learned throughout nursing school. If you don't pass it, then you are not able to graduate and take boards (NCLEX)

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one test and two different uses. I don't get it

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The HESI exam is used to weed out the nurses who wouldn't pass the NCLEX. If a nursing school doesn't get about a 90%+ passrate on the NCLEX for a couple of years then they could eventually lose approval with the board of registered nurses in the state. So in an effort to raise NCLEX test rates, some schools will never let a nurse graduate without passing the HESI exam with at least a certain score number. Because of the HESI exam, schools that would have 50% NCLEX pass rates would be getting 90%+ pass rates but only 1/4th of the students would graduate. The HESI test greatly helps nursing schools to get good first time NCLEX pass rates even though they should be shut down immediately.

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one test and two different uses. I don't get it

Exactly. HESI has more than one use and different types of assessments. Some schools also use the HESI exam to evaluate students before allowing them to move forward from one course to another.

My school used the HESI exam as an exit exam and now as an entrance test as well. Very few people failed the exit exam. If many students are failing the exit exam, the program needs work!

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Specializes in pediatric.

my school (an acclerated 3 yr BSN program) used the HESI for absolutely EVERYTHING, and i HATED IT! for every NUR corse, instead of our professors making up the final exam we would go into a computer lab and sit in front of a computer and get tested on the material that way. What I disliked about it was that the questions are not controlled by the professor, so the material that s/he went over may or may not show up on the HESI and visa-versa. The HESI would also tested us on material that the professor didn't even talk about in class, but we were expected to know it anyways. (we basically taught ourselves at my school)

We had a HESI exit exam at the end of our school year as well. It is supposed to be just like taking the NCLEX, but let me tell you- ITS NOT. It is worded differently from the nclex.

Basically- it sucks, and im glad its behind me!!!!

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Specializes in CDI Supervisor; Formerly NICU.

Basically- it sucks, and im glad its behind me!!!!

Quoted for truth.

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Specializes in Going to Peds!.
The HESI exam is used to weed out the nurses who wouldn't pass the NCLEX. If a nursing school doesn't get about a 90%+ passrate on the NCLEX for a couple of years then they could eventually lose approval with the board of registered nurses in the state. So in an effort to raise NCLEX test rates, some schools will never let a nurse graduate without passing the HESI exam with at least a certain score number. Because of the HESI exam, schools that would have 50% NCLEX pass rates would be getting 90%+ pass rates but only 1/4th of the students would graduate. The HESI test greatly helps nursing schools to get good first time NCLEX pass rates even though they should be shut down immediately.

Exactly. My school's program should probably have been shut down. About 25% of our class was unable to pass the HESI. They were then given "tutoring" (really coaching on the questions that were to be asked) and were allowed to take it again. About half of them were able to pass it by their third and "last" chance. The other half sued the school to force the school to offer a remedial class. Last thing I heard, all of them were remediated, passed HESI and allowed to graduate and sit for NCLEX. I don't know what their NCLEX pass rate was for that group.

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I believe that the HESI entrance and exit exams are two completely different tests. The exit exam tests over nursing material that should have been learned while in nursing school. This is said to be a good predictor of passing the NCLEX.

From my understanding he entrance HESI is a good predictor of success in passing nursing classes. I did not take an entrance HESI, only the exit.

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Specializes in critical care transport.

It's worthless...not improving education by yet another test, IMO.

HESI is a optional test that some nursing schools use to see how their students have done in school. Some use the HESI as a part of their grade, some use it as a required "pass" to graduate...

It was difficult, and somewhat like the nclex. There is a probability rating of passing NCLEX if you obtain a certain score.

That is all it is.

Actually, it's probably funded by pharmaceutical companies (the ones who make antacids...hahaha)

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Specializes in Professional Development Specialist.

My school uses them at the end of every 1/2 semester. If we don't hit a certain grade (850 I think?) we have to do a certain amount of NCLEX questions as remediation. I find it pretty worthless, I've never had to do the remediation but barely scrape by the 78% on the 125 NCLEX questions required before each test. The semester I didn't pass, I got a 900 on the HESI. :confused: I find the questions a lot more straight forward than either NCLEX or my instructors double negative laced nonsense.

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