LPN to RN via College Network

caliotter3 · Jul 12, 2007

There are a ton of posts/threads on this site about this subject where nurses give pros and cons. Be aware that in a nutshell, College Network, is only a publishing company that puts out study material for Excelsior College tests. There is no necessity to use them unless you want to and want to pay the added costs. You can buy their study guides used on ebay for a fraction of their cost. If you sign a contract with College Network or any of the other publishing companies, like Rue, you will not be able to cancel the contract if you find you do not like what they have to offer. Only a couple of people have ever posted on this website that they were able to cancel, but they had to use lawyers to do so. Enjoy reading the threads in the distance learning forum and good luck on your decision.

P.S. It is against the terms of service to put your email addr in a post for safety reasons. Expect a mod to delete it if you don't delete it yourself.

txspadequeenRN, BSN, RN · Jul 12, 2007

i second the post above. i got suckered by the college network ..yep they make you think they are the degree granting college ,but in reality are just a bunch of slick, beat around the bush talkers. please do your homework before signing anything and know that you can go directly through ec for everything. they will also caution you against using publishing companies.

mikejsmithrn · Jul 12, 2007

I recently considered the College Network for the same program. Here are the things I learned. Indeed, they are a publishing company. They say that each of their modules take a month to study, then you can take the Excelsior exam. There are 6 exams we as nurses must take. So...6 months, then you can take your clinical exam, right? No...here's what happens...You cannot register for the clinical exam until after you have taken exam #7 (for LPN's, it's exam 6). There's a 6-8 month wait from registering to taking the clinical exam. I've heard of people failing the exam after years of being an lpn and paying $1800. I wanted to go through Excelsior directly at the end. Finally, I decided not to go there because the college says most people get through it in less than 24 months...the College Network says under 9 months. Well...there's one too many unknowns in the house of timing for me.

montananurse · Jul 15, 2007

You will end up paying more through college network. Call the advising staff at excelsior. I had all my pre-req done except lifespan and their information literacy course. I purchased all my books at half.com and didn't get the exact edition always. I saved money there. The excelsior content outlines tell you exactly what to study and their practice exams give you 200 questions that you can review before your test. The other places are just tutoring and will end up costing you more money! I have taken the last 6 months and am on my last test next week. Another suggestion is don't enroll until you absolutely have to. I think you can take the first 3 Concepts tests before enrolling. It might just save you some money! :idea: