jm123

first, i am sorry you have not been able to find a job yet. however, it took two months to hear back from my new facility on a na job, another two months to be hired, and i will not start until mid august, for a total of about 5 months. next, i will tell you i do not think you should sue, and i think you would permanently screw your employability up if you chose to do so. now onto some of my thoughts on this subject, please skip if not interested, as they are more for fellow students, than someone who has already completed school. i am not trying to bash you or make you feel bad; i am trying to prevent this from happening to other nursing students. i personally am amazed by how much priority people place on gpa alone. is it important to get into graduate school, yes. is it important to get a job, no. my gpa has suffered greatly because i have had to work and attend school at the same time. however, it is still a respectable 3.5. an interviewer is looking at the whole package and i probably would be more appealing than someone who had a 4.0 and whom did not work in school. managers understand that work, and family hampers a persons school time. they want the type of people that can multitask and balance busy schedules, without issues. almost all of my teachers have highly recommended finding some type of job at a facility before our last year. even without their recommendation, i had planned on doing so. i just took a $10 per hour pay cut, to take a na position for my final year of school (overall $15 an hour cut in the last year, so i could attend nursing school). i am now hired at a local large hospital, on a busy floor.i will have the next year to learn, practice and prove that i am an excellent investment as a new hire. the hospital gets the next year of my labor at a cheap price, and they save substantially on training a new grad. i will learn their systems, protocols, procedures, and other intricacies of their facility. they get a chance to see my work ethic and decide if they want to hire me as an rn. it is a win-win situation and why you keep hearing existing employees getting the rn positions, and why they do not need to hire ng's. it is sad that the job market is in the state that it is in. however, the top performers almost always have a job. there are reasons that they have jobs. it is because they make plans, implement them, and do not let issues get in their way. to me you should have been applying the year before you graduated for an entry-level job. as the one common theme, you keep hearing about, from all new graduates, is how people already working at a facility are among the first to get jobs.

Talking with some of the teachers they try to keep the admission requirements to a level that will allow the widest range of entrants as possible. However, the drop/fail rate is higher than they would like for the new program. Some of this will get better as the teachers have more experience with the curriculum, but they also are looking at raising the admission requirements to reduce this failure rate. Almost all of my classmates are from the current requirements, maybe a few of them were readmitted under the old requirements. However, a lot of people with a 3.75+ almost failed, and some did fail. A lot of it has to do with the teachers style versus your own style. If you have any questions you can PM me, as I cannot go into it any further as it would violate the sites terms of use. That being not discussing individuals by name or significant identifiers.

Yup, right now it is only for the competitive spots. Sorry if I wasn't clear on what I was saying. As far as them changing requirements; I believe they did that after the printing of the catalog back in 2007. However, those were major changes, and they honestly needed to do them to convert the program to a laddered program. So I do not foresee them doing that again. The laddered program started in 2008 and we are the second full-time class going through it. The problem is we still had about a 20-25% failure rate the first semester. My guess is they are looking at making the teas part of the 2012-2013 general admissions requirements. In hopes of reducing the failure rate, and also because they have raised the difficulty of the NCLEX exam.

They have the classes up for fall (in Kris) if you guys are interested at looking at them. It appears that they are planning on adding around 16-32 extra students which would bring it up to 144-160 admissions. I have also heard that they are looking at increasing the admission requirements for 2011 or 2012. If they do it like they did in 2007 they will grandfather everyone in, that has a completed application, even if they do not qualify by the new requirements. However, if you have not applied and thus slotted, you will be out of luck. Lastly, the new catalog is up and they say that they have added competitive to the program this year. It apparently will require the "teas" test starting next year.

Depending on your if you are a high GPA student you may get in this year. KCC has been planning an expansion for the last few years. It appears everything is in place and they should be adding about 40 spots. All 40 spots are point based, and are not taken off of the wait list.

It may have to do with the program than. As most LPN programs take one year. So they may have only allowed one year of expenses. Here is the official fact sheet, if you do not believe me. http://www.michigan.gov/documents/nwlb/NWLB_Fact_Sheet_Final_203216_7.pdf

It's 5,000 per year 10,000 total.

Depends on the program and teachers. I worked full time for the first half of last semester, and had to cut back to part-time(24hr) for the second half when clinicals started. I would not plan on working more then 16-24hrs as everyone in my class that did; either cut their hours, or wished they had. Our program has a very wide range in teaching style, and I had one of the harder teachers. I would imagine most programs are similar; in that some teachers are easier then others.

Take Pharmacology online at a different school if you can this summer or fall. KCC's class is good, but you will be swamped, and I wish I had known that other schools offered it online to non-nursing students (this for full-time more than part-time, however you can get one nursing class out of the way before you begin). I believe either JCC or LCC offer it online. I also recommend taking medical terminology before beginning the program. They integrate it into the first year, but it would help if you had a class before you start the program. Next, at KCC a 77.5% is the cutoff point for passing and failing, and the grade scale is adjusted up a +/-. Next, know which teachers are your style, as there is a large difference in teaching style at the school. Finally, if you want to get in the part-time program it will probably be 2012 before you start.

It generally takes 1-2 years to get in so if you apply this spring you may start in 2011, but most likely 2012.

Not sure how your school is structured, but mine was anatomy and then physiology. If that is the same progression and you were good at chemistry, I would say go for it. While it does help if you do not have to memorize body parts, physiology is different. It covers more of the processes. Just remember if you do not take it now, you will definitely be 1 semester back in your prereqs. However, do not overload yourself if you do take it, just in case you need extra study time.

Do you have an electronic registration system? If so, you could watch the system for the nursing classes, and see if there is an open spot. It might help pass the time, and also let you know if there is a straggler. My schools hard deadline was Monday, but the program starts in one month. So, deadlines are sometimes just for the stragglers, as I was an alternate and notified when the stragglers did not have the paperwork in on time. I believe they are still working on filling the last 5 spots that are not filled, but I am not positive (however, they have had 2 spots filled in the last 2 days).

Yes, but it would show significant remorse, and would most likely get them into clinicals. However, it is expensive, does take time to get it done, but again it should get them through the standard background checks. I was not aware of the BON having the right to accesses sealed/expunged records, but that does make sense. However, the OP was asking how to get into clinicals, and was not concerned with the BON.

Look into getting your conviction expunged, especially if it was only one offense.

Thank you. I was number 37 on the wait list, so I did not expect to get in this year. Now that I am in, I still have to get my medical check, and CPR training done. So, I have those two things scheduled, registered for classes in the fall, my background check ordered, turned in paperwork, and even signed up for my orientation. I think the reason I am in, is when they get to this point, 2 weeks before the registration deadline, they mail out letters to a bunch of the low alternates. Then whoever can jump through all of the hoops in two weeks is in. Amazingly there are still 10 spots open, but I don't think they will notify anyone else as two weeks is already extremely time pressed to get everything done, and the notifications were just mailed last Thursday. On a side note KCC does offer CPR training (BLS,ACLS,PALS) even though you don't see it on the AHA site. I managed to get into the last class possible by the deadline (BLS). I just thought you might like to know this, as you can knock it out any semester when it is convenient, but if you do it early remember that you may have to re-certify to get through the program. If you have any questions just ask.