diddyL24

Just a follow up on the whole wait time issue. I just received an email stating that, in no uncertain terms, it is our (the student) fault that the wait time is so long!! All I can say is, Wow! Without having to copy and paste the entire email, the relevant part is "When a student is not successful on the CPNE and decides to repeat the exam, that student is added to the list and increases the wait time for everyone." This answers the question as to whether or not students who fail CPNE are put back into the queue. If, as Excelsior claims, they are so concerned with students failing the CPNE, how about placing the students who fail back at the bottom of the list?? If this were done, which by Excelsior's own admission it is clearly not, then having them back in the queue would not affect anyone else waiting but them. Also, if you're so concerned with students failing, how about not making them sit and wait for an entire year after they've paid their $2000 plus and received no product?? How about sending supplies to students every couple months so they can be practicing NSL. No, I guess it's just easier to make them wait, let them fail, then blame all of their students for the wait time then hope they pay again. Wow, just wow!!

Exactly what I was told as well. Clicking the "cancellation" box once your eligible for CPNE is merely a feel-good measure, it does not mean anything. Pixie.RN stated that the wait time average was around 7 months when she went through the program (nearly 10 years ago). Clearly, Excelsior is not concerned with addressing this problem since, in nearly 10 years, not only has the wait time not improved - it has gotten much worse. I'm currently in the queue, and have been for about 7 months now. Checked all sites, cancellation dates, and one week lead time and nothing yet. I will attend the CPNE, but should the worst case scenario happen (a fail at CPNE), I will certainly not continue in Excelsior and would encourage anyone thinking about Excelsior to look elsewhere, preferably a "brick and mortar" school where they will teach you how to be an RN (skills, theory, etc.), not presume that somehow you already know these things and are already competent in them. I'm not certain how Excelsior would expect LPNs to already be adept at RN skills (that's the whole point of an RN program - to teach you).

Application approved in December 2016. Checked all sites, cancellation dates, and one week notice. Still nothing. As per Excelsior, "A few days after you pass your Clinical Performance in Nursing Examination®, we will send you a message via Message Center with a link to sign-up instructions for the Virtual-ATI NCLEX review.." So, you will not have access to ATI until you pass your clinical. Then they won't send your paperwork to your BON until you're at least halfway through your ATI, then you have to wait to get your ATT and be cleared by your BON to schedule your NCLEX, then take it, then results. None of these things happen one day after the other. There are inherent delays in all of this processing, which means, as per Excelsior's recent admission that the "new" waiting time is 12 months, the likelihood of a student waiting longer than this is guaranteed since Excelsior is certainly not going to advertise the longest wait times, they will advertise the shortest. I guess my take on all of this is that people interested in going to Excelsior need to be fully prepared that they will not be taught anything, even though it is a school with teachers and they will have to take courses. Even as Pixie.RN admitted, Excelsior is not a teaching program. This is astounding to me that a "school" admits they are not in business to educate students. As far as the wait time is concerned, Excelsior is clearly not concerned with it because if they were, they would address the issue. This does not require a master-degreed business major to figure out that if your wait times are a year or more, then you need to hire more people or go out and market your school to get more sites. From what I understand, these wait times have always been an issue with this school. I believe that enrollment hasn't suffered enough (i.e., affected their bottom line enough) for them to really be concerned about it so looking back, I would have absolutely not done Excelsior since I have several colleagues who started their brick-and-mortar school long after I did, graduated, got their licenses, and have been working as an RN for several months now. Excelsior talks up their program by saying you can simply "exam" out of all of your core courses and your nursing-specific courses in no time. That is true to an extent. Heck, if you started Excelsior and already had all of your core courses, you can probably exam through their nursing courses in a matter of 6 months or less, assuming you had the money and you passed the first try. But, the part they certainly don't emphasize is that you will then have to sit through 4 months of FCCA (which you cannot "exam" out of), then wait over a year to take a final exam.

I am also still in waiting for the CPNE and received the same email about the wait time being around a year. As far as how long after passing CPNE that you have to wait to test NCLEX, it will still be a while. Back in December, we received an email stating that the CPNE, despite what Excelsior advertises, is not the final step in the process. In fact, after passing CPNE, students will have to take another ATI review course (3 months long) and successfully pass it before Excelsior will even send your paperwork to your BON. So the actual wait time from time of application approved to take CPNE to RN license in hand is more like 18 months on a good day.

I like how you emphasized that Excelsior is not a teaching program. This is a huge deal and it is obvious why Excelsior does not advertise that despite having to take courses with instructors, they are not there to teach you anything. Perhaps I'm missing something, but it was always my understanding that a school, any school, was only in existence to educate (teach) students. If this is supposedly only a competency "school", then students should not have to take any classes and should be able to go right into the CPNE (without waiting a year and a half to take a final exam) to prove their knowledge of the RN skills that Excelsior does not teach. I'm not certain how Excelsior would expect the CPNE to be a "skills check-off" when they don't actually teach you any RN skills. How are students supposed to learn these skills? YouTube?? If that's the case, no one needs to send money to this "school".