Olive Harvey &CityColleges accredition

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Hey Guys,

New to the forum. I just wanted to speak my peace about the City Colleges and reputation. O.K. Well first of I am not aiming to offend anyone but give a little insight. I am a University of Chicago Hospital employee (15 years) and have seen the diversity in nurses from all walks of life ranging from A.D.N., B.S.N., NP, to CRNA.

Not once have any of my co-workers asked what school did you go to during an emergent situation or crises regarding patient care. Every one must work as a team regardless of credentials, race, gender or dislikes. By the way I work on Labor & Delivery.

I guess my point is this. Do not get caught up in what you think is consider the best school, better program or the most qualified. For example West Suburban College is accredited and look at all the mess going on there. Daley College is good-but they are on a conditional accredition basis until 2016. Truman , yes, great program, but Triton, Moraine Valley and Prarie State are excellent programs also. South Suburban was consider good before a time, but they have run into problems such as the whole 2009 graduating class took the HESI 3 times before passing. All the while, Olive Harvey 2009 class had 67 students take the HESI and 63 passed on the first try.

The whole accreditation process is voluntarily by colleges submitting applications. Some schools do it for status, others for money and actually some do it because they know they have a good program that works. Believe me , the NlNAC does not come to a school by suprise and say "Your program failed" . It is all a voluntarily process.

The real deal is the Illinois Higher Education of North Central and the Illinois Department of Profressional Regualtion-who by the way determines if your program is accreditied and the courses/classes are transferable. And ALL of the city colleges are approved by the IDPR. Kennedy King just got back on the list and only accept LPN's into their RN program due to them coming off of suspension. Olive Harvey stopped their program for 2 years back in the late 90's due to them foreseeing the same fate. However, I must say, Olive Harvey is back on track due to them retaining Dr. Terrell from Truman in 2008. She was the one responsible for Truman's success and she is responsible for the passing rate of the HeSI exam for the graduating 2009 Olive Harvey nursing class.

Sure, some schools have a ways to go, but you can not brush them off entirely with out knowing the facts. Daley is an intense program that is non traditional-meaning: if you can withstand doing psych one week, ob/gyn 2 weeks and med-surg the next and be tested on all at one time than that school is for you. I have several co- workers who endured Daley and can tell you every meds there is to know. But I also have 3 co workers that graduated from Olive Harvey and one became a Family NP, the other a director of L&D and lastly, a CRNA.

Nursing school is what you make of it. Of course go to the school you feel have the most to offer you as a nursing student. But please do not think for once, people who graduated from schools that you see as inferior to yours is less of a nurse than you. The majority of us attend the community colleges due to cost, finance and the convience of time and closeness to home. Oh, by the way, I transfered 76 credit hours from Olive Harvey to major universities across the Chicago area. ALL but one Math 099 was accepted by all of the univerisities. And St. Xavier accepted 72 hours which allowed me acceptance iinto their nursing program.

As the saying goes "What is a doctor that get C's ? .... A doctor ! A ReaL nurse is one that goes the extra mile, pray when tears are not enough, hold the hand of death while knowing all was done to help, serving others with out feeling inferior and being the hand of God when others can not see him. :redbeathe

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twinsister,

Very profound and very well versed. Thank you for your insight. I hope that others take heed to your post and realized time can be wasted on indecisiveness (sp?) when selecting a school due to whatever flaws of the institution. At the end of the day everyone has an opportunity to sit for the NCLEX if approved by IDPR. Transfering classes (pre-req.'s) is a entirely different story through a different accrediting agency/organization.

I agree with you, attend the school that best fits "your" specific needs. As one member indicated...she paid 20K for a LPN program due to location and its accelerated program based on "her" individual needs (time, location, finance, family, small classes, evening classed, etc.). While others may shun her decision, this LPN is now working and paid her student loan off because she made a wise decision to take care of "her" business as needed.

In other words, what works well for one may not work well for another. Sharing information is exceptional however looking down on a specific school without facts (not to indicate all individuals did not complete research) is unfair (and an underlying attack) on those who may have to attend due to personal reasons. This post is not intended to offend anyone...just my personal opinion.

May God bless you in your future endeavors in nursing school and as an extraordinary nurse.

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:yeah:Very excellent information :bow: !!! I wish I could have found this post a lil earlier. I made a huge mistake:cry: !!! I lost my seat with Truman and now I have no choice but to attend Daley college:crying2:. Hopefully I can retain all that information with their non traditional teaching methods. I hope and pray to God everything works out. I wonder why they're the only school that teaches that way unlike all the other ccc schools. Its not right, and I believe it's set up like that to create failure purposely:nono:. I dont know if it would help me that all of my other Gen Ed. classes are complete. If you get a chance can you ask your co workers how many students graduated with them compared to the actual number of students that started the program ? Thank you so much !!! Great info and feedback.

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Hey BabygirlChas,

Oh No, no, no , will you feel like you made a mistake. You made the best choice that was best for you at the time. Pleease, do not feel bad or be scared about Daley College. I just gave some info about the city colleges so students would be more open minded when giving advice about the city colleges.

If I had listened to what my fellow nurse co-workers told me about nursing programs, I would have never made it this far! They told me how hard it is, how the instructors were mean and so and so. They said Chemistry, Micro Anatomy, etc. was so hard. Whatever! I got all A's & B's out of those courses.

Anyway, a little advice to you. You can do this! Fear = False, Evidence, Appearing, Real ! There is a reason why you are at Daley. It is part of a higher(God) plan. And you can not argue with that.

Do you believe in yourself ? Are you determined to make it ? Is this something you really want ? Do you believe with God all things are possible ?

If you said yes to amy of those questions, then this is something you can do. Do you hear me ?

Do not give up or give into fear. I am scared and so are many others that are starting on this journey. Just like you made it through your pre reqs, you can make it with the program.

I go to work tomorrow and I will post the answer to your question about how many students graduated, etc. Due to a percentage of my co workers graduated from Daley.

Also, yes, it is great that you got all your general ed courses out the way. This way, all you have to be concern with is Nursing 101, that is, if you have taken Anatomy, Micro, etc..

In the mean time... stay calm, relax and be prayerful.

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:thankya:You are so right Twinsister,CNA !! I just have to think positive and make the best out of whichever situation I'm in. Im just grateful and humble I will be starting a Nursing Program this Fall 2009. "All things are possible with God." Gotta stay focused and dont get discourage. ... "You are so on point" !!!

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Thank you for taking the time out to write this...very encouraging!!

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