Should I risk getting PCT training at Everest?

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Alot of people badmouth Everest, including me. I've been saying I would never pay 12-15k to enroll at a program with such a dubious reputation. I've also heard sometimes they don't teach you what you really need to know to become certified in your chosen field and that scares me even more than the cost. I am an advocate of going to publicly funded schools over private, for-profit schools, but now I find myself in a situation where Everest is my desperate last option.

I am planning on moving to an area where it is difficult to find CNA work without training in EKG/Phlebotomy. Ironically, it seems hard to find any schools close to where I will be living that actually offer this kind of training. To the best of my knowledge hospitals there don't do on-the-job training. There are at least half a dozen state-funded schools that provide that kind of training where I live now, but every last one of those schools only offer fulltime day classes and I work in the daytime. Everest offers evening classes so it looks as if this is my last resort only option.

I've heard lots of negative things about Everest, but nothing in regards to their PCT program so I don't know how bad or how good it is. Does anyone have any opinions or information?

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I'm sorry if you have answered this somewhere else, but I'm just curious, are you not interested in nursing? In my area the whole nursing program is less than 10,000.

You've probably already considered that and have your reasons. I guess I'm just being nosy, sorry. LOL

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I have thought about it and after careful consideration decided I am not smart enough to be a nurse. Most nursing schools require you to have at least 3.5 GPA in all the subjects I'm awful at, like math, chemistry, biology. I took a class in general biology once and wanted to cry with frustration because I couldn't comprehend alot of the material. I could never pass a Stats course. So I think being a CNA/PCT is the highest rung on the nursing ladder for me.

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When I was considering going back to school, I took a look at Everest. After one visit there, I was automatically turned off. The school is over priced and ran like a car dealership. I was pressured to enroll ASAP and constantly received phone calls. And then the credits from Everest aren't transferable to other schools. Have you ever thought about community college? I'm sure there are other health and non-health careers that will interest you.

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Yes, I have looked at CC. In my area we have 2 community colleges and about 6 publicly funded tech schools all of which are more reputable and offer cheaper vocational healthcare courses. And I always thought when I went back to upgrade my skills it would be at one of those schools. Believe me, Everest is not where I want to end up. But none of these schools offer night or weekend classes...you have to go fulltime in the daytime and I just can't do that with my work schedule. That's why I started this thread...I have been burned by tech schools before, Everest has an iffy reputation, and I really don't need another 15k in debt. But they are the only school that offer the classes I need to take in the evenings. When it comes to this school and all of thie things I've heard about them...I'm just very, very afraid to take the gamble.

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If I may gently suggest, if you do not see yourself advancing any further than CNA, is it worth it to you to invest that much money in what may be a dead end? Will you want to stay a CNA or PCT your whole working career?

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I have other goals. I would like to go back to college and finish up the degree in English I started back in my 20's. I might even try taking nursing pre-req's after all. In spite of what I posted earlier I would like to maybe try taking nursing pre-req's and see if I could be succesful with a little extra tutoring and studying, although I honestly don't know if I could crack some of those classes. The reason I was drawn towards healthcare and away from doing the clerical work I did before is because of the flexible schedules in healthcare facilities that I am hoping will make it easier for me to go back to school. But right now since I am planning on moving to a very competitive area of the country, I think I had better upgrade my CNA skills before doing so and while I do feel schools like Everest are highway robbers having weighed all my options this is probably the only feasible one.

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It's good to know our limitations, but I would still respectfully wonder if you have truly done enough research, fact-gathering, and soul-searching to know whether you would succeed at nursing or not. It does sound as if you are at least wavering in that direction. :)

The reason I ask is that I always believed myself to possess a strictly liberal-arts sort of mind, and yet I'm now planning to go into a DE-NP program in about two years. You may be very surprised by how things turn out for you if you find your passion and work towards it. Personally, I know that in order to be successful in nursing, I need to be in the psychiatric field. I couldn't take biology or stats classes towards some undefined goal, but only in light of that goal, and that's what can make these kinds of classes work for me. I know that I won't do exceptionally well in them. However, I keep thinking of what a dear friend who's now in medical school said to me: he was so sure that his wonderful math skills would make everything so easy for him, and they haven't helped at all. The reason is that he just isn't able to relate to his patients in the way that he'd need to in order to be a truly good physician. It just seems that that's the question you really need to ask yourself more than anything else: can you relate to people in this way? Do you want to do this as a career?

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If you're asking if I think I would be a good CNA/PCT, then absolutely yes. I'm a very empathatic person. When my mother was in a rehab center I would watch the abrupt way some of these CNA's talked to patients and without little doubt I believe I could do better than that. I am not going to loose my patience with people who are sick, elderly, or suffering from dementia. I also don't shy away from hard physical work. I've studied this forum enough to know that being a CNA can be very grueling work but it's still something I want to do.

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are you moving to fl? where?

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I actually live in Florida now, in South Florida. I'm planning on moving out of state.

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Miwila, almost all of the nursing homes here will train you for free in exchange for working there for awhile.

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