jlibers

Hi all. I just wanted to get some advice/feedback on becoming a military nurse while also a wife and mother. I'm currently still in nursing school for my ADN and plan on continuing right away to get my Bachelor's and am considering commissioning into active duty Air Force after I graduate. I'll give a little background, because they tie into my concerns: I am a wife and mother of an 18 month old boy. My husband works as a claims manager at an insurance company and is our main breadwinner at this point. His company does have offices around the CONUS, but in his position he probably does not have the flexibility for transferring around the country (or otherwise) every few years. And, there is 0% chance he wound want to be a stay-at-home dad to follow my career unless I would be making significantly more than him (which I wouldn't be). So, I don't know if he would be able to move with me when I am stationed. So, can any current military nurses give me some advice or feedback about their own situations or others they know in similar situations? I want to become a military nurse not only to provide for my family, but for personal enrichment and satisfaction. I'm fearful of how often I would be able to see my family if they remain in our hometown. If I did live on base elsewhere and my family stayed where we are, how often could I realistically plan on seeing them? Could I take my son with me when I am stationed but have my husband stay back in our hometown, or would he have to come with to care for our son? How long do the deployments usually last? Would I be able to even entertain the idea of having more children while in active duty? And, overall, for those that did decide to join (whatever your family circumstance), has it been worth it? Any other tidbits of information, experience, or advice you can think of would be great!

Hopefully this makes you feel better, but on the test itself my percentage of correct answers for science was 70%. Yet that still placed me at the 88th percentile rank compared to others that took the exam. So it sounds like you'll do just fine! Do you know what your school requires as far as ranking or scores to be accepted into the nursing program? The questions on the exam were very similar to the practice tests. Verbal was right on. For math, there was a broader spectrum of questions on the practice tests than on the actual Pax exam, I thought. I just remember almost every question being about fractions, percents, or ratios, even though the practice tests had so much more than that. The science part was pretty accurate too.

I just took the NLN Pax-RN today and passed (thank god!). I'm in Illinois attempting to get into an ADN program for the Spring. To prepare for it I used the National League for Nursing's Study Guide for RN Pre-Entrance Exam. I flipped through it a bit and then took most of the practice tests. Honestly, I was not very confident going into the actual test. I wasn't getting that great of results on the practice tests. However, just keep in mind that, for most schools, your raw scores don't matter. Most schools look at how well you did in comparison to everyone else. I felt like I did okay on the verbal while taking it (English is definitely my strongest subject). The math portion made me nervous, and I ended up running out of time and guessed on maybe 5 questions at the end. Math is my typically my worst subject. The science portion was very difficult. When I was taking the test, I thought for sure that I was going to fail. My scores: 94% composite percentile rank, 87% verbal percentile rank, 90% math percentile rank, & 88% science percentile rank. I wish I had done better, but I'm just happy that I passed and can move on to dedicating my time/stress to something else! As far as advice for each section, I don't really have any for the verbal portion. Either you will know the words or you won't. Like I said, English has always been my strongest suit and I did the worst on that part. Go figure. Math was mostly ratios, fractions, and percentages. Make sure you study those like crazy if you're not very confident with them. As far as science, the best thing to do is to know the formulas for converting temperature between Fahrenheit, Celsius, and Kelvin; and all the physics formulas that you'll find in any study guide. Let me know if I can answer any other questions, because I was searching up and down online too for advice/wisdom/etc that could have helped me!