Questions to ask when looking at a school?

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I'm in an odd situation right now. I'm taking my pre-req's at the local community college. The neat thing about the state of Colorado is that every school I've talked to will take the credits as a transfer, and so by the end of this semester I'm going to be applying to schools.

However, I'm just curious what some of the "Must Ask" questions you have before applying to nursing schools?

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I have visited some nursing schools and these are the questions I have asked:

1. What is the percentage of applicants they accept compared to the number whom apply?

2. Hours of program-clinical hours,also

3. How many applicants they accept.

4. How long will the program take since you already have the pre. reqs out of the way?

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NCLEX pass rate

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Specializes in Maternity, quality.

Is the program accredited?

What is their retention rate?

How many students pass the NCLEX on their first try?

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My main concerns are the following:

The percentage of students passing the NCLEX the FIRST time.

Is there a waiting list and if so, how long is the wait?

What is the GPA cut off point (although they may say you need at least a 3.0 to get in, sometimes they don't even make it to the 3.0)

Is the school accredited?

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Specializes in PICU.

Be sure to ask what percentage of the starting class graduates. My friends class started with 75 students and less than 40 graduated. The program was very poorly run, the teachers were terrible and couldn't teach the material, and the program rules were ridiculous. My friend found out after she got in that the state board of nursing had put the program on probation because of low NCLEX pass rates. Rather than make the program better, the school just started kicking out everyone who might not pass. When she applied they told her they had the highest NCLEX pass rate of any school in the area. So just NCLEX pass rates can be misleading.

Also, if there are a few schools you want to learn more about, see if they have a senior you can talk to and ask them questions about the program. You will get a better feel for it from a student than an admissions officer.

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I'm just curious what some of the "Must Ask" questions you have before applying to nursing schools?

along with the above,

esp how many of the original class actually pass NCLEX

also ask

ratio of students to clinical instructors at clinical sites (8 or less)

where are the clinical sites

how many instructors are BSNs, MSNs, APRNs, PhDs

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