Kaplan, yay or nay?!?!

lunakat · Jun 5, 2006

I am taking hurst review tomarrow. Our school told us not to take Kaplan becasue of the problems in the past. The class before us had arranged for Kapalan to come to our campus. On the first day, the woman was late, and when she was questioned on some key points that she had wrong she flipped out. She did not return the next day and the whole thing had to be canceled. By then it was too late to attend a review elsewhere offered by kaplan. The students were offered a partial refund (becasue they had attended one day) or were offered access to the online version. Good luck in your choice....

GrnHonu99, RN · Jun 5, 2006

I am taking hurst review tomarrow. Our school told us not to take Kaplan becasue of the problems in the past. The class before us had arranged for Kapalan to come to our campus. On the first day, the woman was late, and when she was questioned on some key points that she had wrong she flipped out. She did not return the next day and the whole thing had to be canceled. By then it was too late to attend a review elsewhere offered by kaplan. The students were offered a partial refund (becasue they had attended one day) or were offered access to the online version. Good luck in your choice....

awww our puppies could be twins:)

Daye · Jun 5, 2006

i was wondering what you guys think of the kaplan review course. my school is offering it for 300$. unfortunately i can't afford it:( i'm so poor. almost everyone else in my class is taking it. i will be devastated if i don't pass nclex and i didn't take kaplan. for those of you who have taken it, what did you think?? i ordered the book offline so i'm hoping it has most of the same stuff in it. i'm so nervous about nclex..im not a great standardized tester. the one problem i had was that it wasn't a content review...but i heard it does give good stratagies...sigh...

i took the kaplan classroom course and have 3 months of on line nclex questions that also includes tests with alternative formating

i love it

it might seem like a rip off to some but i got sooooo much out of the course and do not feel at all cheated. in all fairness i just graduated and have yet to set in for boards but i really feel so much more prepared with what i learned from the kaplan review. i personally would recommend it

ortess1971 · Jun 6, 2006

The good thing is that a lot of the NCLEX books published this year format their questions in the new, alternate format. Ultimately, whatever helps you is worth doing... but still, I think 400.00 is way too much money to charge for teaching you how to answer a test question and I think it's horrible that they know how important this test is to people so they charge an arm and a leg for it. Just my personal experience, most people I know didn't do the Kaplan review and all passed. I'm doing the free review through my hospital that has an excellent record...

Daye · Jun 6, 2006

the good thing is that a lot of the nclex books published this year format their questions in the new, alternate format. ultimately, whatever helps you is worth doing... but still, i think 400.00 is way too much money to charge for teaching you how to answer a test question and i think it's horrible that they know how important this test is to people so they charge an arm and a leg for it. just my personal experience, most people i know didn't do the kaplan review and all passed. i'm doing the free review through my hospital that has an excellent record...

you are blessed to have a review provided to you by your place of employment...that is a wonderful way to go if given that option i would certainly go that route too if it were available to me. everyone has their own strengths and testing ability and for those who test well and feel confidant enough about going forward w/o spending the extra money absolutely. i freeze up when i test so i feel i really benefited a lot from the additional strategies i learned also the pre/post testing for areas that i needed to work on some more. jmo

mtngrl, ASN, RN · Jun 14, 2006

I was wondering what you guys think of the Kaplan review course. My school is offering it for 300$. Unfortunetly I can't afford it:( Im so poor. Almost everyone else in my class is taking it. I will be devastated if I don't pass NCLEX and i didn't take Kaplan. For those of you who have taken it, what did you think?? I ordered the book offline so i'm hoping it has most of the same stuff in it. I'm so nervous about NCLEX..im not a great standardized tester. The one problem I had was that it wasn't a content review...but I heard it does give good stratagies...sigh...

Several of my classmates took it. I did not have the money for it. I am glad I didn't. Everyone said it sucked..that the instructor knew nothing about nursing, would give wrong info, etc. Just get a review book...and now most come with computer CD's that have lots of questions to practice with. I just studied from one book and I passed the NCLEX just fine.

Daye · Jun 14, 2006

several of my classmates took it. i did not have the money for it. i am glad i didn't. everyone said it sucked..that the instructor knew nothing about nursing, would give wrong info, etc. just get a review book...and now most come with computer cd's that have lots of questions to practice with. i just studied from one book and i passed the nclex just fine.

a poor instructor would have wiped out this otherwise good program. our kaplan instructor's were also our 4th semester classroom and clinical instructor's who were awesome in every way. it was the best we were able to learn strategies taught by the kaplan program in addition to endless knowledge and resource of nursing itself. i feel blessed to have had an ideal situation w/kaplan for me it has helped lots.

Hebrews 13:5 · Jun 15, 2006

KAPLAN is the way to go!! Here's why..

I finished nursing school and studied mostly Saunders. I used it also for my HESI EXIT exam and did great. I went for Kaplan course. I had access for 3 months so that even after the classroom course, I still went back and reviewed the same questions online with three different instructors lecturing. I also had access to content review so that i went back and review areas I needed to do after taking their Q bank questions. One thing people don't know is that their is alos an online content review on their website if you feel need extra help on each of those. Categorised according to Nclex format- Psychosocial integrity, Health promotion and maintenance, Physiologic integrity etc. They used the course book given at the purschase of the course and went into details about frequently tested topics. But didn't do that in class, their emphasis is on test taking so that if you need to review the content, you can do that online at your convenience. But they want you to have reviewed it before coming to class.

That some instructors are not that good DOES NOT make the course bad. You also have access to the same questions online. I did Nlcex and called everyone I knew that i passed. And honestly, I knew i passed. It was very easy for me to narrow down my options to 2 and choose the right answer. Having said that, I believe you go with what you think would work best for you, but for me, I'm telling all who cares to listen to go for Kaplan! There's no rip off! If you think you don't have the money, get their book, i bet you, you won't regret it. I never want to do anything twice especially things like nclex..i don't feel ripped off at all 'cause i got what i want and passed with confidence!

Goodluck!

healer27 · Jun 15, 2006

Hi, I too am currently taken the course and have been very disappointed. I will say though that Kaplan questions seem tougher then (Saunders) at least that's what I think. So I think they've been good to study with. My class time though I feel is all stuff I could have done on my own and has been a waste of time. It sounds like depending on where you take the course that you either get good instructors or not so great which probably accounts for the differing reviews.

Personally, if you can't afford the class I wouldn't sweat it and I wouldn't waste the $$$. If anything just get a Kaplan review book in addition to any other review books (I do like saunders good rationales.) and do they questions they give.

Just my 2 cents. Best of Luck.

MIA-RN1, RN · Jun 15, 2006

I am taking a Kaplan class once a week for 6 weeks. Its provided by my employer and they are paying me to go as well. So I thought I may as well do it. I don't really care much for Kaplan's review book but maybe it will help.

ashley_michelle · Jun 17, 2006

I took the Kaplan course a few weeks ago... and if you got the book.. then you'll get just as much out of it. Every point the instructors made was right out of the book. The only good thing from those 4 days was... having someone 'tell' me those points and also having a little bit of content review thrown in with some questions. But for me, it was hard to pay attention for 8 hrs doing questions. So... it was not worth my $500 dollars. But, I'll be getting it back... because I failed. =(

So, you'll be fine with your book if you want the 'highlights' that kaplan has to offer. They do have some good points and it's an easy read. But I think the most important one is knowing that you CAN pass nclex. It sounds kinda stupid, but telling yourself you CAN do it.... gives you the confidence that you'll need. If you didn't have the knowledge... you wouldn't have finished school. So, know that you can do it. Just trust yourself and your instinct. =) Good Luck!

NJNursing, ASN, RN · Jun 21, 2006

When I first posted in this thread, I thought it was worth it. Now that the class is over, I've completely changed my position. It was not worth my $300 that I had to pull from every source I could to pay for it. The first day with the strategies was good. After that it was nothing but questions to where one of the instructors sucked majorly becuase she wouldn't effectively explain the rationales or tell us how to break the questions down. I really did no better on my readiness quiz at the end as I had with the initial one. The only thing it did was get me out of the house in a forced study session, so for that I'm thankful. And it showed me what I really need to work on - lab values and med interactions.