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Discussion

Schools misrepresenting competitiveness?

So I just noticed that the college I'm going to absolutely misrepresented how difficult it is to get into the nursing program. They told us that they only allowed something like 24 RNs at a time. However, if you look through the course offerings, there are spots for 84 students in every course. Yes, RN-only courses, I'm not looking at classes offered to LPNs. It's usually 12 classes of 7, some classes are 8-9 where they were short on instructors.

Has anyone else noticed a school misrepresenting how competitive its program was? What would even be the benefit of doing this?

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    Are you sure they don't have different tracks? For example, our school has 4 different tracks: 2 Year (full-time), 3 Year (part-time), 2nd Degree Accelerated (14 months) and LPN/Paramedic Advanced Standing (2 semesters).

    While it looks like there are a lot of the classes, there are limited seats for each track and students do not intermingle with the other tracks. Different professors, different time frames, etc.

    That may be the case with your program. Our 2 Year track only has 64 seats. If you added in all the other tracks, it would appear as if we had 160 seats.

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    There may be part- and full-time, that's a great point. There's only a 5-semester ADN program though. I thought it might have included LPNs as well, but it extends all the way out to the final semester classes for the ADN. It's weird, I'll have to go and ask them what's up with that.

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    I don't think that simply looking at the number of slots open during the registration process is a fair assessment on your part. Our university the nursing courses are for nursing students only and they only admit 40 each fall... but looking at the online registration it defaults to allow 99 students to register..

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    Look at the clinical spots available.

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    There is usually more seats for lecture than clinical. I agree with the previous poster to look at clinical slots. A lot of those extra lecture seats could be for people who have previously failed a class. A lot of people fail theory classes and must retake them.

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    Why does this matter? If you're a competitive applicant, you have a shot at admission. If you are a marginal candidate, not so much. Only you know how your GPA and recommendations are, but you have no idea how good your competition is. Do your best and don't worry about other people, and let the chips fall where they may.

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    They're not open slots, they're slots with students in them actually. And I'm not certain if there's another way to tell, but even courses that are lecture, lab AND 6-9 clinical hours/week are filled with 84 students.

    I'm confident in my ability to get into the program, no problems there honestly. I was just interested that we'd been potentially misled for whatever reasons. Really it's an interesting concept, perhaps it's to get applicants to work harder on the TEAS test? I know our school's average scores are significantly higher than the stated average.

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    They probably just break you up into cohorts of 24.

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    Yes I have ....and I find it appalling. Academic elitism is the name for this and I find it disgusting. Schools that I know will only accept freshman into their programs so if you are not 18 and fresh out of high school you may never attend their program they take NO transfers....EVER. WHAT??? TWO, 2 programs have changed the SAT requirements mid application TWICE...why are the SAT's allowed to be taken over and over again? Fake it until you make it? Should score of 1780 (math critical reading 1230) on the first try be the same as a 1780 on the 5th try? 4 months go by and NOW my daughter is 20 points under because YOU decided to change it???? Are you allowed to take a test in college over and over until you pass? NO YOU AREN'T. But guess who is taking the SAT again? My daughter.

    4.0? really? EVERYONE? Yeah right....well I want to know where all the academic scholars go after graduation for I don't see the 4.0 at the bedside. NO INTERVIEWS why no interviews? You might have good grades and have NO ability to communicate or relate with the general public. ADN schools take NO HIGH school students into programs? WHAT??? I need to move back to Indiana.

    How does a 3.87 honors active student fall short of academic requirements? It makes me sick to my stomach

    When I asked why I was told....."Because we can". REALLY???? ARE YOU KIDDING ME????:madface: when she applied the GPA was 3.2 ( now 3.5) and SAT math critical reading 1000 (now 1250)....now they want more again....they aren't HARVARD for heavens sake.... each time it's more and more money, it's a ponzi scheme is how I see it. ....Academic elitism. I am so disappointed in nursing and their arrogance right now. I thought it was ridiculous before even more so since I have been visiting collages with my daughter.

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    why are the SAT's allowed to be taken over and over again? Fake it until you make it? .

    Should we ask the same question of the NCLEX?

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    I respectfully disagree about the academic elitism. Teaching adult learners is much different than teaching straight-out-of-high-school young adults; I think it is reasonable the academic institutions to cater their programs to a specific group for the good of all. Most academic institutions are businesses, for-profit or not, and are run as such. They select the best available candidates and admit them.

    I think the issue of grade-inflation is a much worse problem, and you hinted to that as well. This is a major problem from many angles. I have a close friend that is a high school teacher at a prestigious private school and she mentioned over the holidays that 90%!of their students get As and not one student got less than a B-.

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    4.0? really? EVERYONE? Yeah right....well I want to know where all the academic scholars go after graduation for I don't see the 4.0 at the bedside. NO INTERVIEWS why no interviews? You might have good grades and have NO ability to communicate or relate with the general public. ADN schools take NO HIGH school students into programs? WHAT??? I need to move back to Indiana.

    How does a 3.87 honors active student fall short of academic requirements? It makes me sick to my stomach

    When I asked why I was told....."Because we can". REALLY???? ARE YOU KIDDING ME????:madface: when she applied the GPA was 3.2 ( now 3.5) and SAT math critical reading 1000 (now 1250)....now they want more again....they aren't HARVARD for heavens sake.... each time it's more and more money, it's a ponzi scheme is how I see it. ....Academic elitism. I am so disappointed in nursing and their arrogance right now. I thought it was ridiculous before even more so since I have been visiting collages with my daughter.

    Having taught in ADN and BSN programs in perfectly ordinary public schools, I would say it's not "academic elitism" or "arrogance" as much as simple math. Because of the insane increase in popularity and demand for nursing programs, even schools no one has ever heard of are inundated with applications, many more applicants than the programs can accomodate. They have to thin the applicant pool, and decide on a small number of applicants to accept, somehow. And why no interviews?? Because as soon as a school starts using any kind of criterion that is not purely, strictly, numerical and objective, like grades and SAT scores (and "point systems"), some disappointed applicant cries foul and sues. "You're not being fair!" The schools know it's not a good idea to go strictly by the numbers, but they don't feel they have a choice. I've seen it happen (well, I haven't actually seen a lawsuit happen; but I saw a student get admitted after she wasn't admitted on the first go-round and then her daddy had the family attorney write a letter threatening to sue (I saw the letter) -- suddenly, she was admitted.) Very few of these schools have any illusions that they are "HARVARD," but how would you suggest that schools fill 40 "slots" out of a pool of 200 or 300 qualified applicants?

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