This year has been a bit stressful for me! I'm mother of an 19m old, a waitress at the airport, a sophmore at college, and is now trying to get into nursing school. I decided to apply to a RN diploma program b/c their n-clex pass rates are 98% and the local colleges pass rates for the ADN programs are around 60% so I figured that maybe the teachers aren't as good as the diploma programs.
I applied for the school and recieved a letter in the mail stating that I needed to take the entrance exam at 5pm on the same day that I recieved the letter(I got the letter out the mailbox around 4:15pm) Needless to say I called the school and explained my situation and rescheduled for the next day. I briefly looked through the study guide and figured that it shouldn't be hard, after all I got a B+ in statistics and the entrance exam was middle school math.
I was so wrong!!!! The math seemed so easy but after years of doing higher math and using calculators I did not know a thing about fractions(I guess I missed that day in elementary school, at least that what it felt like) Basically I failed the math part of the test only by a few points b/c I took too long trying to jog my memory on how to convert fraction and decimals and percents without using a calculator and didn't get to finish the math portion. On the hand, I excelled in the reading part of the test.
The director read my results and told me that I am qualified to get in the school and knows that I can do the math and that I have to re-apply to the program to take the exam over.(I think they just want the app. fee)
I walked to my car crying my eyes out. How could I be so cocky and not study!! What the heck was I thinking. I feel like I blew my chance into getting in the program. I'm sure that nobody fails an easy test like that.
I re-applied to the school soon after that and hasn't recieved anything in the mail from them except a reciept for my check. I'm nervous b/c the first time I got a response within days and now it's been weeks for the second one. I called up there and they said that they recieved my application. I thought that it may seen rude for me to ask when they were going to send me anything in the mail about taking the test over.
Also A&P is kicking my butt. My teacher sets up his exams as if it they were the MCAT which gives us practice for the real thing. I just took my first exam and got a freaking D+. It seems like what I study isn't on the test. His question are so in depth that they seem tricky to me. When I sit in class sometimes, it seems like I am in a foreign language class. It's like everybody understands but me. I started to realize that most of the students in my night class are already working in the medical field or have relatives that do. Like the other week, this one guy was telling my teacher how to take crystals out of a person who has gout and what color they are. Now what avg. person can do that without a general form of education?
My question is am I really stupid or do it seem that way since most of the students have an upper hand? I really need some reasurance b/c i'm starting to think that nursing might not be for me. If this don't work out, I don't know what to do b/c my whole life has been geared towards becoming a nurse.
Our school library had extra "muscle men", "bones", and "organ donors" that we could check out like a book (for a day - on campus). However, another great study habit I had was finding either a worksheet or diagram, making several copies, then filling in the names of the muscles/bone/organs by memory until I got 100%. And finally, yes, I was one of the geeks that bought an A&P coloring book and actually used it! Does your school offer tutoring?
I did the same and made several copies and filled in the blanks over and over and over.....:chuckle Repetition is the key to memorizing the mountain of stuff in A&P!
Here goes something else to put the icing on the cake (it is also about to make me so depressed) My friend called and inform me that she just got her acceptance letter in the mail. And she doesn't even want to go to the freaking school. I think that I blew my chance by taking too long to finish the math portion of the entrance exam(and not touching up on the math) b/c this caused my to fail by a couple of points. The school officials are probably thinking like she couldn't even pass this simple math test and that she isn't worth considering for the RN program. I re-applied like they told me to do and I still didn't recieve anything in the mail about re-taking the test. I don't know what to do if I don't get in this school since their isn't alot of other options for me since I have a child and need to be close to home. I am just going to stop being so negative and hope for the best.
Don't be so hard on yourself. My advice is to, in a friendly and professional way, call the school perhaps once a week or so. Here's why I think that: when I applied to my ABSN program, I found out on this message board that the school was already calling people for interviews. I called the school and they said they were still waiting on my GRE scores. I panicked, but managed somehow to keep my cool - I had a receipt from the testing service saying that the scores had been sent three weeks before.
The admissions director rechecked their system (apparently the scores are sent electronically to the school) and the scores were there - they arrived on the same date as my receipt (which is what one would expect).
My application had missed the first review because they thought they hadn't received my scores by the deadline - but they had. She said that the person who processed my application basically made a huge mistake.
I made the second review - which was actually the next day! - got called for an interview and got in!
I am a firm believer now in staying on top of your application materials. You are the only one who is going to look out for you, and essentially the rest of your life is at stake. What if I hadn't called the school that day?
Don't Give up! You are learning a foreign language and just because your classmates are more familiar with it does not make you a dummy. In the back of my A&P book are the suffixes, prefixes, and combining forms of medical terms. After I learned those, things got much easier. What I love about medical words is that you can break them apart and they tell you what and where something is.
Everyone is right about getting into a study group. It's a great way to review info. Also, if your tests are designed after the MCAT maybe you can find a MCAT study guide. Don't be afraid to talk to your teacher too. Share with him how your studying and ask how you can improve. Talking to him might make him realize that not everyone in class has so much prior knowledge. Good luck!
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stpauligirl
2,327 Posts
I did the same and made several copies and filled in the blanks over and over and over.....:chuckle Repetition is the key to memorizing the mountain of stuff in A&P!