jaeldanielle

jenn, you can follow-up with the nurse recruiter at each hospital by telephone. be persistent. drop by and introduce yourself. bring her an orchid. you want her to get to know your name. ask two or three of your teachers to write you a letter of recommendation and that can be your excuse to drop by and "add" it to your application. do this at each hospital you have applied to. the hardest part of any job is FINDING the job. this is the hard part (aside from nursing school, hah, hah!) and meanwhile, get your ACLS. take a tele course if you can afford it. and do volunteer at the hospital you dream of working at. it will be your IN. be social and talk to every single person you meet. call up your friends who found jobs and ask them if they have heard of anything. it takes diligent, hard, persistent work and many smiles to find a job as a new grad. i understand, truly. i graduated with a 4.0 and had dreams of ICU, but ended up on the floor which was the best thing ever. awesome foundation. don't get discouraged. use your time wisely. wake up and spend your days well. keep us posted, okay?!

As above, put in applications at all area hospitals, then follow-up regularly ie weekly with each hospital's nurse recruiter. She is your new best friend. Meanwhile, continue taking courses ie ACLS. Do volunteer work - great way to meet people in a hospital. And keep talking to the nurse recruiter. She is your "in". We were all there, trust me.

i think Kaplan and NCLEX are super similar, but in the end i still think NCLEX is harder. after 1500 Kaplan questions, i was getting their gist, and then i took NCLEX and was fooled all over again. after my exam, i thought i guessed 80% of the questions and yet still managed to pass. go figure. but i def think everyone should do the Kaplan, esp the Qbank because it teaches you how to think and is def the best barometer for NCLEX style questions. and i did try saunders, hurst, 3500, and a few others.

i used an a great book called Frye's 3300 Nursing Bullets by Charles M. Frye, published by Lippincott. it's 250 pages of just bullet points, all types, no order, but they're great. often i would read pages and then take a kaplan test and the bullets would totally help me. i highly recommend this book. it's small and i always kept it in my purse/car so i could always check off a few. but between that and kaplan, don't bother doing more. i think it's more critical to study up on things you're weak in, ie really understand hyper/hypothyroid or diabetes or SIADH/DI, and Addison's/Cushings. review your F&E and go over s/s of major meds ie HTN meds, HF meds, anti-lipidemics, etc. i would def do all the kaplan questions, but all the questions in the world won't help you on a SATA question that's asking you to check off all the s/s of hyperparathyroidism, for example.

i guess you're right, but i think you could fail on transmission-based protocol questions, because they are critical to nursing. and some of them are just plain tricky. like sometimes an infection is droplet during the first 24 hrs and then becomes contact or standard. or sometimes it's contact for children and standard for adults. and if the question stem doesn't specify?? the H. Influenza stumps me because some say it's standard BUT Influenza is droplet. argh!

i found this *awesome* link online that really helped me prep for interviews, you should def check it out http://www.son.jhmi.edu/resources/career/center/documents/interview_guide.pdf

i know this is an old thread, but i am still so confused re H. influenza. i did go to the cdc website and printed out a great pdf file on transmission-based protocols. sometimes H. influenza is droplet and sometimes standard. very very very confusing to me. don't want to fail on that.

these are referred to as "peer" interviews. they often have a list of questions they have to ask you, ie give us a specific example of how you handled a conflict with another colleague, etc.

also, check the california BON to see what RN's can and can't do - in some states they can administer botox, but not all ... you can research that on the dept of health website.

so did you pass????!!!!!! i am taking it friday and today is monday and already my stomach is sick with knots. just finished the entire Kaplan q-bank and all the trainers. my scores were very similar to yours. i'd get a 70% sometimes and a 50% sometimes, guess it depended on content and wording. have a zillion pages of notes to review now, and try to memorize entire drug book, hah, hah. please let me know how you did (!) to give me hope, and also how you thought it compared with Kaplan r/t level of content and difficulty. ps what is an ATI predictor test?? is that a free online test of sorts? thanks!

congrats guys!!! i know your angst - i'm sitting march 5, am cramming these days. not sure who asked, but if you're scoring in the low 60s with kaplan, how does that compare with nclex? did you find nclex harder or easier than kaplan? lots of pharm questions (my weakest)? thanks so much

hi there - did you pass your boards?? i'm taking it march 5 and have the exact same questions as you. am scoring low 60s on the Kaplan trainers and am very anxious. please advise how the actual NCLEX compares to Kaplan's questions.. because sometimes i find i am just purely guessing, despite all the content and knowledge i have... thanks so much!!

hi JudithL_in_NH ... can you please email your report sheet to me? thanks, ja'el in florida (almost graduate nurse!)

dear roxy0628 you can't really study for the english lit portion, short of reading the dictionary. make sure you are strong in the algebra section. that is perhaps the most important part of the exam (in terms of real life). find a tutor and spend a few hours going over all the math questions in the book. well worth the money since if you pass HIGH on the first attempt, it will surely bode well for your access into the program. the science is def hard, but what i did was spend 2 solid weeks studying each day. i did every single one of the tests again and again until i got them perfect. not by memorization, but by understanding. you need to THINK how they are asking the questions in the reading section. you need to KNOW how to do ALL the algebra questions, they are not hard if you get help with them. and the science... well, some of it you'll know and some you'll just have to deduce or memorize. but you will def see a few of the questions from the practice book on the exam, so every one counts. be SURE to watch the clock. do not leave one single box unchecked. if you have a hard questions, don't dally on it - note it and continue and go back to it. just to give you some confidence - it's been 17 yrs since i went to high school (and this is my first go-around at college) and i thought i bombed the test. i cried all the way home... turns out i scored in the 98th percentile and got into nursing school (am now in 3rd sem). so, just study that book inside out. that's all i did, as well as get a math tutor and i aced the math section (def not the science, tho!) all the best!

i can only recommend what worked (98th percentile) for me ... take each and every one of the tests in the book as many times as it takes for you to get them all 100% right. if you don't understand some of the electric or science questions, etc, then do research. math you should know 100% and if not, get a tutor. science is too comprehensive to know every possible topic, so just know the stuff in the book 100% in case you get (and you will) similar type questions. i took 2 solid weeks of 8 hrs/day studying and aced it. but i need all those points to get into my college (florida). after test was done i thought i had bombed (due to science) but ended up scoring high, thank god for percentiles. in the interim, try to do extra reading ie Newsweek, New York Times, anything, and always look up every single word you don't understand in the dictionary. surprisingly, reading comp - esp vocab - was rather tricky. math was the easiest section for sure. final thought - just be sure you know that book inside out. write your answers on separate pieces of paper and score yourself - and DEF time yourself. you will def be rushed. but go over and over the exams in book till you know them inside out and you'll be great. compared to the actual nursing program ... that test is a breeze!