Re-admitting nursing students into the program after a failure

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Hello everyone:  I am on a committee that makes decisions about which students get re-admitted to the program after they've failed (at our college, it is two courses or the same course twice).  We need a fair, clear cut rubric to help us make these decisions.  Does anyone have suggestions or a rubric that they use that they would be willing to share?  Thank you in advance. 

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Specializes in Emergency / Disaster.

I'm confused.  It sounds like you have one.  Otherwise I would try looking for other University handbooks online. I know at my school it was clearly laid out in their handbook that was available publicly - online. I'm sure they would be willing to share with other educators as well if it wasn't publicly available.

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Specializes in Occupational Health.
On 10/9/2021 at 6:41 PM, historyfan said:

at our college, it is two courses or the same course twice

this sounds like your rubric...what's wrong with it?

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10 hours ago, sleepwalker said:

this sounds like your rubric...what's wrong with it?

This is the criteria of who is kicked out of the program.  But I think OP is looking for a rubric for readmitting those students who reapply.  Who deserves another chance and who should be told to go elsewhere?  And why?  

There are many different reasons people have for their failure, so it makes sense to have criteria for determining who might be successful if given another chance.  Like, do you take into consideration how low the fail was? Does failing by 1 point merit another chance, but failing by 10 points is a lost cause? Do you consider health problems (mental or physical) that might have contributed to poor performance? If so, what documentation do you look for, and how far can/should you go to determine the candidate is healthy enough to try again? Do you consider situational stressors (death in the family, abusive relationship, etc.) mitigating circumstances? Do you require a candidate to make a case for why s/he would be successful, if given another chance, and what would you expect to see in that plan?

Of course, it's important to look at a candidate holistically, too, because a rubric might not catch everything. But if you don't have clear criteria at baseline, you're just going by your overall gut feeling about people, which opens the door to inconsistency in decision making.

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Specializes in Occupational Health.
11 hours ago, turtlesRcool said:

This is the criteria of who is kicked out of the program.  But I think OP is looking for a rubric for readmitting those students who reapply.

I believe you're right?

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On 10/16/2021 at 10:28 PM, turtlesRcool said:

This is the criteria of who is kicked out of the program.  But I think OP is looking for a rubric for readmitting those students who reapply.  Who deserves another chance and who should be told to go elsewhere?  And why?  

There are many different reasons people have for their failure, so it makes sense to have criteria for determining who might be successful if given another chance.  Like, do you take into consideration how low the fail was? Does failing by 1 point merit another chance, but failing by 10 points is a lost cause? Do you consider health problems (mental or physical) that might have contributed to poor performance? If so, what documentation do you look for, and how far can/should you go to determine the candidate is healthy enough to try again? Do you consider situational stressors (death in the family, abusive relationship, etc.) mitigating circumstances? Do you require a candidate to make a case for why s/he would be successful, if given another chance, and what would you expect to see in that plan?

Of course, it's important to look at a candidate holistically, too, because a rubric might not catch everything. But if you don't have clear criteria at baseline, you're just going by your overall gut feeling about people, which opens the door to inconsistency in decision making.

You read my mind!  Thank you.  

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Specializes in Occupational Health.

take the easy way out....once you're dismissed from a program you're out. No readmission period OR readmission after "x" amount of time requiring redoing of all nursing courses and clinicals, redoing of expired classes (patho, bio, etc), and meeting all other current admission criteria

I would recommend avoiding the installation of two many variables. The policy should be simple to understand with an easily applied algorithm

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That very well might be the route we take, after all this!  Thank you!  

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Specializes in Hospice, corrections, psychiatry, rehab, LTC.

At my school, it was pretty straightforward. If a student failed, he or she could reattempt it once, beginning at the point of failure. If they failed again, it was sayonara.

Generally speaking, students withdrew administratively before it got to the point of failure if there were mitigating outside circumstances. Provided that they were in good standing up to that point, they could resume at the semester that they withdrew from. A couple of women in my class became pregnant during school, and they resumed a couple of semesters later.

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Specializes in CEN, Firefighter/Paramedic.
On 10/9/2021 at 6:41 PM, historyfan said:

Hello everyone:  I am on a committee that makes decisions about which students get re-admitted to the program after they've failed (at our college, it is two courses or the same course twice).  We need a fair, clear cut rubric to help us make these decisions.  Does anyone have suggestions or a rubric that they use that they would be willing to share?  Thank you in advance. 

If your program has ever re-admitted students who were removed from the program, look at all of the circumstances surrounding those cases and start there.  You may find a common theme.. 

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I think you have a responsibility to look at your own data too. For example, if a high percentage of your fails are from the same tenured professor's course, then that needs to be evaluated with due diligence. 

Please keep in mind, we are educating PRE licensure RNs, and preparing them to function safely as new clinicians. They are not going to be NPs the day they graduate.

I have worked with new grads these past few years who know so many great things, but frightfully, lack some basics - for example: bridging off heparin to warafin or bridging back on to warafin post op. Yet they can recite the entire breakdown of the WBC count.

I would also ask your graduates to complete a survey after one year to assess what prepared them well, and what didn't; especially NOW.

Keep safe everyone!

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