avi8tor69

You can of course live in La La land and pretend that it doesn't exist. That is the harsh reality of today's nursing. New grads especially in California face a near 60 % unemployment. No hospital is hiring foreign educated nurses. That is a fact. Where I work we had a new grad opening, 9 positions over 700 applied. I suspect the situation is similar in other hospitals. Like I said, you can pretend this isn't happening and give false hope or you could get off your high horse. Or better yet why don't you dispute what I said about the employment situation. I am not shooting down the hopes of others, I am merely laying out what is out there, and what is out there is harsh. It is not a federal crime to not hire applicants with a foreign education. In addition, where did I say employers should hire on the basis of gender and race. You made that up yourself. Hiring locally trained nurses is a preference by employers. Get your facts straight or keep your erroneous opinions to yourself.

It's pretty much the same thing at MC. You need to pass a medication test with a 90% (2 x tries) or you are out. Exams are 4 times per 8 weeks with a cumulative final. Care plans are one every 8 weeks but 35 pages long. The instructors are fantastic but they do expect students to know their material when they are in clinical. The program is very organized and the staff are great. They have a new building with a skills lab that is top notch. But as with all nursing programs, MC's program is very difficult. The exams are hard and becomes even harder as you move from semester to semester. But like someone said, they have a 100% NCLEX passing rate. BTW I graduated from VC 16 years ago.

Are you a US citizen or legal immigrant? If not don't waste your time with applying to take the NCLEX. Even dual citizens would did nursing school in the Phil will find it very difficult to find a hospital job. In my hospital we have a new grad program. 9 positions opened, over 700 applicants. My friend in HR told me they don't entertain foreign graduates regardless of citizenship. Employers hold the card now.

I would suggest you read the threads by a poster named steppybay. Very informative. It seems to me you do not have a clue to what the issues Filipino/foreign graduates are facing. They are daunting. It's not the length of time it will take you to finish medsurge. The issue is there are no nursing programs offering those subjects here in California. And you have to take those classes here in Ca.

Do you have a SSN? (Social Security Number) or a you a US citizen or legal immigrant. If you are neither of the above, do not waste your time and money to sit to take the NCLEX. Even if the BON lets you take the NCLEX, as steppybay said, it will not issue you a license. Even if in the remote chance they do issue you a license without an SSN, no hospital will hire you. SSN is needed for employment. Hospitals will run a background check on you and if you don't have a social security number, your application to work will be tossed in the trash bin.

Don't be devastated. You have experience and you know in your heart you are a safe and competent nurse. Just take the damn test and be over with it. Act and deal with the cards you are dealt with. Don't sit around and fret. The whole thing sucks but it is not the end of the world. It is a terrible setback and injustice but to fret and dwell on it will not lead you anywhere. Don't let this injustice prevent you from what you dream to be.

First make sure your clinical was taken concurrently with theory. Meaning If you had your theory OB in the lets say the 1st quarter of 2012, your clinical OB should be in the same time period not months or years after. If they weren't taken at the same time, you will be facing the same issues Phil grads are facing. CABON will not let you take the NCLEX if the theory and clinical weren't taken concurrently.

In California if you go private school it can go from 50k to 100K. But if you go public it can go from anywhere between $2K to 4$k. The $2k is ADN from a community college. I think there is a tendency to forget that the whole nursing thing is somewhere between 3 to 4 years. 1.5 - 2 years for prereqs and 2 years of pure nursing (ADN) or 3 years (BSN).

Inna_vela I have to call you out on this. First do your homework. With BON posting their requirement online, there should be no excuse for not knowing what you applied for. Second, of course the BON will take your money and they have a right to do so. Once you send in your application, it will be processed by the staff at BON. You know these employees get paid. Every application they received and process takes x amount of man hours which cost us taxpayers. The BON is funded by our tax dollars to provide service to us. So you over there in another country complaining about the non refundable fees should take a deep breath and see the big picture.

If you can get by without working I would highly recommend you try out not working in the first semester and get a feel for the workload. If you think it is doable and you can handle the pressure (pressure like you have never known) then by all means go ahead. Nursing school is tough. Your schedule is all over the place once you are in nursing school.

You pretty much have the same problem as nurses from the Philippines have. Username Steppybay has a pretty good insight to this issue. Try searching her username and you will get a lot of threads pertaining to this matter.

Doable but highly not recommended. Nursing schools own you for the nest 2 or 3 years. Clinicals will start fairly early and they may only let you miss one clinical (with one make up day). That's how I remember it to be.

Dmrh, Heed what steppybay has posted. She is 100 % on top of this.

My post was based in my area. LPNs come in as 2nd semester student. Since in my area, schools have dropped the lottery system and adopted points/merit system, they haven't had the level of drop out/failures that they had when they were a lottery system, hence the 1 or 2 spots available per funding. They also have no waiting list since every applicant must submit an application every year, but it also means that you will be competing with the 4.0 applicants. The schools were able to get 95 % to 100 % NCLEX passing when they adopted the new system.

If you go the LVN route and if you go private the program cost range from $25k to $35K ( I could very well be wrong). If you go public like a community college LVN program the cost is $2-3k but there will be a long waiting list or the requirements to get in are stiff. Its always a tad easier to go private but you must be willing to pay. Once you finish the LVN program you can attempt to bridge to the RN (ADN) program. This is where it gets tricky. The slots available for LVN bridging to RN is very very small. Something like 1 - 3. But mostly it is just 1 available slot per semester with 100-200 applicants. If you are the lucky one and gets accepted you will start second semester. You get to only skip one semester. So you will still do 1.5 years of nursing school. If you go BSN add another 1.5 years. Now if you come in as a first semester student and you have fantastic grades your chances of getting in will be slightly better. There may be 40-50 available slots for the first semester and something like 400 applicants. The chances of getting in is slightly better.