graceff

The only thing they consider is GPA and meeting the prerequisite requirements. I don't think it matters if your credits were from an ivy league school in biology or a state school in art. That's the extent of their selection process. They seem to let in as many people as possible. Just a word of caution: Many of the people they let in do not make it through the program.

Current ACE student. Getting accepted is not difficult. You have to meet the minimum GPA and have all of your prerequisites. Everybody gets in. They don't screen their applicants, and they don't really care if you succeed, they'll be happy to take your tuition regardless. They will scramble to pull instructors off the street from anywhere they can in order to accommodate the largest incoming class they can. It is a business. The 'ex-ace guy' a couple comments above this is exaggerating, but there is also some truth in what he says. While there are some very good instructors, there are also a lot of incompetent instructors... and certainly more incompetent ones than good ones. The administration is adversarial towards the students in the extreme. Communication and coordination is terrible. The pressure is tremendous, not because of the difficulty of the academic material, but because it is such a poorly run program. Consider this: you need to have a final grade of a 77% to pass a class. If you get below a 77%, you fail out of the program. Consider, if you have just one incompetent teacher, as you most definitely will, who doesn't teach you what you need to know for a test, and you do poorly, on just one test (because most class grades consist of only a midterm and a final) it puts you in danger of failing the entire program. I promise you you will discover this for yourself. Ask around in the community. It has a poor reputation.

... And just to be perfectly clear on what this means, it's a disgustingly unethical practice. You can satisfy all graduation requirements but not pass the HESI and the school will not allow you to graduate. Consider this: You go through a year of studies, satisfy all the requirements of all your courses, which means you've learned everything your instructors have taught you and passed all of the courses. If you were instructed properly, and proved you learned what you were instructed by passing the course, you should already be prepared to pass the NCLEX. You should at least have the right to graduate and sit for the NCLEX, but the school will not allow this. If at the end of the program you've satisfied all of your course requirements but can't pass the HESI, it's because you weren't properly instructed. And then you are weeded out in the end, after you've paid your tuition in full, so you don't bring down the school's NCLEX pass ratings. If you read between the lines this policy will give you some insight into the mentality of the program towards its students.

The ACE HESI test is a tool the school uses to prevent students from graduating who may have problems passing the NCLEX. The school basically requires student's to pass it because if you pass the HESI you will in all likelihood pass the NCLEX. So it is a way for the school to keep its ratings up.