Linfield Good Samaritan School of Nursing Review

[guest1071140]

Kind of a public service announcement for all future nursing students applying in the Portland Metro area. Currently a student at Linfield in the ABSN program and I wanted to give any future students a little helpful information about the program.

1. Expect to say goodbye to your family and friends for the next 15 months because you will have no social life if you want to get good grades.

2. The dropout rate is REAL. Approximately 18/58 students from the current graduating ABSN program dropped out or will be graduating at a later date. This is one reason why their NCLEX pass rate is so high.

3. In order to pass your classes at Linfield, you must obtain at least a 77%. 76% is considered failing. This is do-able but definitely requires some studying.

4. You will be expected to be self-sufficient and figure out how to complete tasks by yourself with little help from the staff unless you are extremely lucky and get a super nice clinical instructor of which there are about 2-3 (this is a new thing as of the summer).

5. You will likely get placed at clinical sites outside of the Portland area and expected to provide your own transportation while still showing up for class in Portland 2 days a week. Salem to be specific.

6. Expect to do a lot of busy work. The professional communication course and evidence based nursing course you take during the first semester are relatively easy but have lots of "extra" things for you to do. Useless classes in my opinion but I guess they could be helpful for someone who has never read a research article or held a healthcare job before.

7. There will be endless group projects, make what you will of that.

I highly recommend that you only start this program if you are able to devote yourself 100% to school. You will not have a lot of free time and probably won't be able to pick up your kids from school/activities. Or your group will resent you for never working on the MULTIPLE projects with them.

This is a rigorous program and if you make it all the way through, you will definitely be qualified to be a nurse. You will likely be unemployed for several months after graduating but that's another story....

[oops I bradyed again]

With the exception of the dropout rate, it sounds like a typical nursing program.

[Triddin]

I was going to say aside from #4, sounds right for most nursing schools. My BSN was 3 years straight

[guest1071140]

This is really more for the students currently applying to Linfield. I have no idea what the nursing programs near you were like but Linfield is a pretty unique nursing school in the Portland area. This information is all stuff that no one in my class knew before attending orientation (like a lot of us thought the busy work stuff was behind us since we're all accelerated students or that we would have to drive 2+ hours to get to clinical sites) and we actually had a classmate drop out in the first two weeks of classes. Just trying to keep future Linfield students informed!

[oops I bradyed again]

I'm familiar with nursing programs in the Portland area and that's why I commented...so students/applicants won't expect any other program to be drastically different, better, or worse! Again, the information you and your classmates were unaware of before attending orientation is pretty common.

I attended a 3 year program, but also had classes with accelerated students. Regardless of our backgrounds, we were all surprised by the amount of busy work required. Because clinical placements can be difficult for schools to coordinate, we often didn't know our schedule until shortly before the term started. Many students had to be flexible with work schedules, child care, and commute long distances.

Pretty typical nursing school problems that any student will likely come across in most programs and be unaware of when just starting out, unless they know someone who is already living it!