Study guides, workbooks for Excelsior College

hawaiit · Nov 16, 2003

I am here to say you're definition of their students having acquied the 50% of their clinicals is entirely your own. They have had to tighten up on the paramedics eligibility but otherwise they allowed anyone with some kind of healthcare clinical experience to enroll, for which I applaud them, and am gratedul.

Thats the American way. Many have gone on in Calif. and else where to prove it works as EC nurses staff the hospitals successfully. Some may not have and they may have been exp. LPNs? The country needs nurses, students need jobs, lets let them know where they can get help, where they can get screwed, but lets let them decide, let them choose. Its such as the Calif. critics who want everyone to have to toe the line and earn it the hard way as they may have, who sell the program short. We just can't all be Harvard graduates!

Spazzy Nurse, RN · Nov 17, 2003

I sympathize with every person and every facility who has had troubles due to the shortage of nurses. But that does not mean that every nimrod out there who has wiped an a$$ or two deserves to be accepted into an independant study RN program. What Chris said is what I believe is to be true--- Cali talked of dumping (or has dumped, I haven't heard the latest) EC grads from it's list of eligible colleges whos students can sit for the NCLEX through Cali because of lack of clinical experience. Why? Because like Hawaiit said, (one of the few accurate points he/she made that had anything to do with anything this thread was addressing) EC was letting almost anyone into the program who had a degree and/or experience in the medical field. I'm glad they have tightened up on that. What's worse--- a shortage of nurses or enough of them, only they're all a bunch of idiot RNs with degrees from a box of Cracker Jacks out there running the show? I agree that their way of accepting/rejecting students can be weird, but they have to have guidelines. For instance, a person can have 20 years of medical assisting experience, circulating in the OR of a private practice plastic surgery office, doing everything an RN does and more. They're turned away, because they don't have the degree that EC wants them to have. Or a person who got their LPN 25 years ago, only to take their boards and decide that they didn't want to be a nurse after all. They started doing something completely different for the next 25 years, until one day they decide that they want to be an RN. They apply to EC and BAM! They're in.

Not only is EC good for those who don't have the time to go through a traditional RN program, but it really, really prepares people to take and pass the NCLEX. From day one, their material/exams repeatedly ram THE NURSING PROCESS down your throat. Why? Because if you don't know it backwards and forwards, you are toast when it comes to the NCLEX *and* to real-world nursing. A person needs to have a decent amount of hands-on experience with this program. Just the basics are essential, and if you have no experience, you don't know the basics. For instance, one student (who got their EMT-B certification {a 3 month course} for the sole purpose of enrolling with EC but never actually worked as an EMT, was talking about how they are SO prepared for their CPNE, and they have a "plan" for EVERY possible situation that could arise (HA!). While they were talking about what they would do if "this and that" were to happen, they were talking about walking with the patient down the hall to the scale to get the patient's weight. In many cases, this would be a *BAM! PHYSICAL JEOPARDY. FAIL!* Had this student had experience, he may know that scales are brought to the patient's room, the patients are generally not brought down the hall to the scale. That is why some type of clinical experience is essential. The little things will git-cha.

And Hawaiit, why are you posting that EC credits are useless at other schools????? That is the biggest load of crap that I've read on this board yet. Please don't post false information.

chris_at_lucas_RN, RN · Nov 17, 2003

Hawaiit and all:

Quoted from the website, to which I have also included the link below:

Any individual who has completed at least 50 percent of the clinical nursing courses in a registered nursing education program

Excelsior College Admission Policy

Also, as far as credits being transferrable, that goes to two criteria: the guidelines of the school accepting (or declining) the credits, and the accreditation of the school where the credits were earned.

Here's the accreditation info for EC. Compare it to any school--ANY SCHOOL llike Columbia, Harvard, etc.--and you will find it pretty much up there.

Here's the link for accreditation

I do not make a habit of stating as fact something which is "[my] own" and appreciate your resisting the ad hominem attack in the future.

What's your issue? Don't answer that, please just go take care of it somewhere other than this website.

And as for California and EC: There are 49 other states which don't seem to have an issue with EC (including NY!!) or their grads and if there is a single state which jumps out at you/one as being over legislated and underfunctional, it would be California! (Do you read or watch the news?)

Thanks, all.

lpncrazy · Nov 17, 2003

OK--

I came across this board last night while looking for study buddies in San Jose, CA.. I found this board from a post in a Yahoo group. I understand that different people have different opinions---but WHOOOOOOAAAA! ]

My experience with Excel Advantage isn't anything like Chris_in_lucas was---

I cant speak to what she encountered, but I can speak to what I encountered. I bought my first course "Microbiology" with Excel Advantage in May. I got an ad sent to me from a friend that downloaded it from a Yahoo group. I bought the thing and went through all of the items in the course. I also did 35 EC type practice exams through the course. It was never down, required no software to be installed, and I found it very useful. The EC content guides are extremely sporifice when it comes to info. I passed my Micro test and have since bought 2 more courses through Excel, Sociology and NC1.

I have had the opportunity to speak with some of the people at Excel and they have always been helpful and attentive to my requests. I have 7 EC students that keep in touch that I "met" through the Excel site. I questioned the reason that one of the people I talked to to buy the course was also in in the course---I found that many of the people that work at Excel are also EC students and work their part time while completing their studies. I actually think that is kinda kewl! What better an endorcement than that!!!!

I don't think anyone should make a decision based upon one persons experience.

Tina

[email protected]

lpncrazy · Nov 17, 2003

OK--

I came across this board last night while looking for study buddies in San Jose, CA.. I found this board from a post in a Yahoo group. I understand that different people have different opinions---but WHOOOOOOAAAA! ]

My experience with Excel Advantage isn't anything like Chris_in_lucas was---

I cant speak to what she encountered, but I can speak to what I encountered. I bought my first course "Microbiology" with Excel Advantage in May. I got an ad sent to me from a friend that downloaded it from a Yahoo group. I bought the thing and went through all of the items in the course. I also did 35 EC type practice exams through the course. It was never down, required no software to be installed, and I found it very useful. The EC content guides are extremely sporifice when it comes to info. I passed my Micro test and have since bought 2 more courses through Excel, Sociology and NC1.

I have had the opportunity to speak with some of the people at Excel and they have always been helpful and attentive to my requests. I have 7 EC students that keep in touch that I "met" through the Excel site. I questioned the reason that one of the people I talked to to buy the course was also in in the course---I found that many of the people that work at Excel are also EC students and work their part time while completing their studies. I actually think that is kinda kewl! What better an endorcement than that!!!!

I don't think anyone should make a decision based upon one persons experience.

Tina

[email protected]

hawaiit · Nov 17, 2003

I have commented for edification not degradation. Chris you should oviously address your plead to Spassy and all the "idiots RNs" in the world he has to warn us about. You may have some new policy statment from EC to this 50% policy but new or old its not real as Spassy has commented. It certainly didn't pertain to my eligibility. fORTY NINE STATES do not accept EC no matter how many times you make that claim, as EC has told me themselves. I will combine this response to Spassy also as this will be my last post so you characters can have the last word and put out what ever suites your now questionable motives.

Spassy your name, logo, and place of employment well suites you.

tgs · Nov 17, 2003

Hello my name is Tamara and I am an employee of the Academy of Nursing (Excel Advantage), I work in the IT department and I am the CPNE Bootcamp Coordinator. There seems to be quite a bit of misunderstanding about our school - so I would like to clarify things. We are a Utah certified post-secondary school - we are NOT a degree issuing school. Students go through our program, and then take Excelsior's exams, so when they graduate they have a degree from Excelsior. We are in no way affiliated with Excelsior, nor do we use their material; however, we teach students to pass Excelsior's exams. We have approximately 45 employees, 15 of them are instructors, most of them have a master's degree in nursing or in the field they are teaching in. We also have a doctor and a PA that work for us and one of their jobs is to periodically evaluate the content of the online information. We hold in-house classes and right now have an enrollment of about 500 local students. We teach A and P, Microbiology, NC 1-7, English Comp, Lifespan, and hold 5 day CPNE preparation course called the CPNE Bootcamp. We train EMT's, CNA's, and we own a staffing company called EMS (emergency medical staffing) that provides nurses with jobs at about 25 different hospitals and nursing facilities in the Utah area. We are located in a large medical center that we have converted into a school, so we have actual patient rooms that we use for our labs, with beds, mannequins, IV's, etc... We also have a cadaver lab with a male and female cadaver. We have been in business for about 4 years, here in Salt Lake City, teaching local students. It was not until about 8 months ago that we decided to expand nationally, so we created an online tutorial program called Excel Advantage.

In the short time we have been operating Excel Advantage we have had over 700 enrollments nationally (not all these students are in the same class nor are they online at the same time), often purchasing more than one course. We have an online chat section that is fairly new, and students have just barely begun to utilize this feature. Excel Advantage is composed of the actual PowerPoints that our professors have created and use in class, handouts, quizzes, videos, student notes, learning resources, web links, and much more. We have links from our site to other sites for more information, or to the book manufactures site. So if someone were to click on a link to another site, they might still think they are on our site, so if it says go click here for a syllabus and it doesn't come up, it is because it is not our syllabus and not even our site! We don't even have a syllabus for our classes but we do have an exam content guide and recommended reading assignments. We have an extensive video library with about 100 videos. Some of these videos are quite large and depending on the type of computer you have and the type of modem you are using, they may take a long time to install or may not work at all. We recommend going to your local library or university to watch the videos especially if you have a dial up modem. We are continually expanding and upgrading our system and information to ensure that we are offering our students the most accurate and up to date information as possible.

Right now our price for an online course is $255 (we sometimes offer package discounts or promotions). Excelsior charges $155 for some of their exams and this is completely separate from our fees. Our introductory rate was $99-$199, but we raised it 3 months ago. Unfortunately, due to situations out of our control the old rate may still be posted on sites other than our own, but on our website it clearly states the price and when you go to pay through Paypal it will tell you exactly how much they are going to charge you before they do.

We have been doing a CPNE preparation course ever since we started 4 years ago but we did not call it the Bootcamp, nor was it offered to out of state students. It was not until about 6 months ago that we named it the CPNE Bootcamp and started advertising nationally. We offer this course once a month for 5 days and it has been tremendously successful.

Please be aware that we can only be responsible the information that is posted on our site. One of the limitations of the www is that not every site updates their information regularly and there is no way to monitor what other companies or individuals say about us and our product. I encourage anyone with questions to call me toll free at 877-595-7402 ext 343 or to visit our website and check out our trial area at http://www.future-nurse.com and decide for yourself. Thank you, Tamara

Spazzy Nurse, RN · Nov 25, 2003

originally posted by hawaiit
"you may have some new policy statment from ec to this 50% policy but new or old its not real as spassy has commented."

and where exactly was it that i made a comment about ec's 50% policy??? :confused:

"spassy your name, logo, and place of employment well suites you."

rather than coming back with a reply to this comment that sounds like it was made by a junior high girl who is "in a fight" with her friend, i will simply say thank you.....your comment actually made me kind of proud. :smokin:

chris_at_lucas_RN, RN · Nov 25, 2003

Anybody who spends a nickel on Academy of Nursing after reading my post about my experience deserves to be shorn.

Tamara, you write EXACTLY like Rob Butner, who led people here to believe that he is a nursing student, but he's not. In his own words, he's "only a programmer."

In fact, when I talked to several people at A of N, they admitted they had neither teachers nor nurses in their distance program. An NP had "reviewed" their stuff and thought it was "OK."

It's crap. I've been there, I've done it, and by God I got my money back.

I'm still debating whether to report them to the Utah Department of Ed and the BON, not to mention the NLN, by which they probably would want to be acredited.

And Rob, err I mean Tamara (yeah right!) why would anyone in their right mind want to do CPNE bootcamp with an organization that has an IT person as the coordinator? What do you think that we are all too stupid to know what seems like common sense to you?

What a rip off A of N is. And since you aren't a nurse or a nursing student, but admittedly work at the IT department, why don't you scoot your little self out of this group? It's not for you.

IT does not equal RN. Ever!

chris_at_lucas_RN, RN · Nov 25, 2003

Spazzy--it wouldn't be unusual for A of N to pepper this board with all kinds of advertising posts, now, would it? It does sound sooooo much like advertising, doesn't it?

I'm so glad someone got something out of A of N, but frankly, these are new members who seem to be posting suddenly, and doesn't it read like ad copy?

Hmmmmm.

Well, I've shared and will continue to share my experience with A of N, and I'm a real person with a real education and real intellect. (here's a clue--I can spell!)

And as for you Hawaiit, I doubt your credibilityi based on other posts I've read of yours--you are certainly entitled to your opinion, and put it on out here, but as for EC not being accepted in 49 states, it must not be accepted in NY, since it is accepted in TX.

You really ought not to post stuff you don't know to be fact from your personal experience or from citable sources.

Why don't you post your source for EC not being accepted in 49 states. That should keep you busy......

HA!

I'm outta here.

tgs · Nov 25, 2003

Chris at lucas,

My name is Tamara and I am an employee of the Academy of Nursing. I have worked here for almost a year and a half. Rob Butner is the head of the IT department, and I work with him on a daily basis. If you do not believe that I am an employee here (I work in the IT department and I am the CPNE Bootcamp Coordinator - as well as numerous other things I do around the office), or if you do not believe anything that I said in my prior letter please, please call me. My phone number is 877-595-7402 ext 343. http://www.future-nurse.com

tgs · Nov 25, 2003

By the way Chris I am a student of Excelsior (just like many of the employees here). I recently passed NC2 with an A, and NC1 with a B. I will be taking NC7 this Saturday. And I used Excel Advantage alone to pass both of those tests. Since you probably don't believe that either, I will be more than happy and willing to fax or email you the papers I received from Prometric after taking those two tests. I am sorry you had a bad experience with us and our system, I really am just trying to clear the air. Again I encourage you to call me I would like to talk to you. Thanks, Tamara