How hard is your nursing school?

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Okay, my school is not easy at all! It's so hard!

In my program, you need a 77% to get a C. Anything below that is a D and if you fail 1 class, you cant move on to the next semester until you pass. BUT, you can only fail 2 times during the whole program.

Its really heart breaking when I study really hard, give all my time and dedication to studying for the classes, going that extra mile to get the highest grade I could get, even have sleepless nights of studying, only to find out that my final grade is even below mediocrity! All of that, I did, and my final grade turns out to be a C. I am just melancholic, and disappointed and majorly sad. My GPA went from an A to B- since starting the nursing program. I dont think C describes the things I went through. I hate this letter grade system.

its so complicated. It's making me depressed.

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Specializes in L&D, infusion, urology.

It's hard in nursing school for sure. We're all so used to getting (and working hard for) As, then nursing school comes along and kicks us in the butt! No more of those pretty As!! (or if we do get them, we work 10x harder than we ever have for them) I think A LOT of students, based on what I've seen here and heard from others, experience what you're going through. Kind of like sticker shock. In this instance, Cs get degrees. You're still in the game. Learn from what you're doing and what's not quite working, and keep moving forward. You've got this! :)

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Specializes in Hospice.

In my school, only 80 is passing. :banghead: So far, I've managed to finish out both semesters just 1 or 2 points below an A. And yes, all that time studying and all that effort would have earned A's in Gen Ed courses. It's culture shock, for sure. But passing nursing school is something to be proud of, regardless of if you make all As.

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Mine's not hard at all. And that's why most of the graduates end up going to work at nursing homes.....

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Specializes in psych/dementia.

I think it depends on more than just the grading scale. You have to take into account how difficult the tests are and what the other standards are as well. My school has the easiest grading scale I have ever encountered, no "+" or "-" on grades (which can be nice at times and annoying at others), but we have one of the highest pass rates in the state. I've heard our new grads have little to no difficulty finding jobs as well.

So, while my school would look like a VERY easy school on paper, everyone doesn't have a 4.0 because of it. Some people struggle to maintain the required 3.0 for our program. So while grading scales vary drastically, I don't think they are the best indicator of how "hard" or "easy" a program is.

All that said, to answer your questions, we have the "normal" 10 point grading scale where 90-100 is an A, 80-89 is a B, etc. We also round up so an 89.5 is an A, not a B. And as I said, there are not "+" or "-" in our grading scale so an 89.4 is a B, not a B+.

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78+ is a C, anything below that is failing. Like most programs, you can't fail a lecture/clincal and pass the other. There are only 30 people per semester max in cohorts, so if you fail a class you have to reapply to the program and if accepted, start the next semester with the cohort behind you, as long as they have less than 30 people.

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80 (B-)was passing for us..anything lower (including a 79.999999999) was failing.

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Mine's not hard at all. And that's why most of the graduates end up going to work at nursing homes.....

WOW! Really?! I take offense to this. Before getting my RN I was an LPN. I work in a nursing home. My LPN program wasn't easy at all nor was my RN program. Several of my cohorts from the RN program took position in LTC/SNF. I work there because I love working with the elderly, not because my school was too easy and I didn't learn anything.

You're school many not be hard, but the NCLEX is the same test no matter what great/poor school you went to. And where one works does not indicate they went to a bad school.

Wow....just...wow.

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FYI nursing home work is very tough work.

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Specializes in Emergency Department.

My school required an 84% to pass which was a B-.

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My school doesn't even hand out D's. You get below a C, it's straight to F-ville, kills your GPA. It's hard because people fail out with 76.9's (77 is passing) and there's no rounding up, so that F on your transcipt is really hard to swallow. And the faculty consists of reviewers and consults for the NCLEX, so our exams are really hard. The only people who really can get an A are the ones who live/breathe their nursing textbook/notes (there's always that one or two in the group LOL - they're nice people but that's just overload), the ones who are repeating and know the answers, or those who have insider info (ie, a friend or relative who went through the program and has all the notes and remembers the exam questions). Otherwise you're shooting at a B, max. Most people get C's. I just passed Med Surg, the second semester, and unfortunately about 10 of my cohorts didn't - and some of them were the ones who missed the 77 mark by a point or two.

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Specializes in M/S, LTC, Corrections, PDN & drug rehab.
Mine's not hard at all. And that's why most of the graduates end up going to work at nursing homes.....

I don't understand the correlation between your "easy" program & working in LTC. That's probably one of the toughest areas to work since there is a massive nurse to patient ratio. But no job in nursing is easy.

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