Warning do not go to Carrington College....

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Ok so this actually happened today. I went up to Carrington College b.c a night to 2 nights ago I saw on the NV BON that Carrington College (aka Apollo College)'s NCLEX scores from july 2008 to june 2009 were in the 50-55 percentile. When I asked an admissions rep about this she became very defensive said that wasn't the case for this yr's quarter they've been in the 80-90 % range. I asked where to find said info she said that it was on the website for the NV BON i told her that the only NCLEX reports on there were from 08-09. she said that if i look under education it should be there (guess what folks it wasn't-in fact nothing concerning quarterly reports is located on that site other than the boards meetings where they recently granted said college another provisional extension). when i asked as to when would they have NLN accreditation she attempted to down talk me by asking if i knew what it was. told her that CSN has it she refuted this. my journey then lead me to CSN where i spoke to the allied health admissions rep at CSN she was very forthcoming & when i asked her where i could find some of the info that i had asked an apollo rep for she looked bewildered and said that she had no clue, suggested that i stop by the BON & inquire. when i got to the BON the one in charge of education was not there but the receptionist said quite frankly that the schools NCLEX scores have never made it out of the high 50's she even was nice enough to pull out the accompanying paperwork to back this up . she gave me a card & i thanked her for her time.

CONCLUSION? i'm telling this school where they can stick it; they can keep the 48000+ tuition. i'm going to CSN instead, sure it'll take me longer (with icky icky pre-reqs) but whatevs at least i know that i can transfer to any school in this country as well as save myself the whopper of a repayment plan.

I MADE THIS MISTAKE! I attended their VN program from Oct 2009-February 2011 in Sacramento. I had good grades and GREAT evaluations all through my program. IT WAS A JOKE AND ANYONE CAN DO THIS PROGRAM! Our clinical teachers would let us leave early or not even show up at all. There were students who shouldn't be nurses because of a lot of reasons, but still made it through. People had been written up NUMEROUS times for things and still made it through. BUT as my class went through the program, we found out a lot of lies the admission's people told us:

1. "We will pay for your application fee and NCLEX exam"- LIE! They only pay for the application.

2. "You MUST be at least a Medical Assistant to be admitted to the program"-LIE! I had H.S. Grads in my class.

3. "As part of the $43,000, you will become IV certified" LIE! They "stopped" this the class before mine.

4. "You will do you clinical hours in hospitals" LIE! You are in Long-term care facilities, a low income OB-GYN clinic (1 day) a PRE-SCHOOL where we are just allowed to play with the children, no changing babies diapers, NO MEDICAL EXPERIENCE. You are there to rub their backs and be a babysitter. You do get to go to the V.A. hospital but you can ONLY observe, no touching any patients.

I got along great with the teachers, made many friends, and was a stand-out student at clinicals. Out of NOWHERE I was written up (my one and only the entire program) because a former student who was our supervisor at a certain facility, told one of our teachers (who was a close friend) that I "looked like I didn't want to be there, and was asked by the NP to listen to heart sounds and I didn't know what I was doing and listened to lung sounds instead." As ANY current or former nursing student knows, listening to heart and lung sounds is VERY DIFFERENT! This particular incident, I would have had to take the baby out of the mothers arms and turn the baby around to listen to his lung sounds from his back or sat the baby differently in his mothers arms. I was told by my school instructor that I was not welcome at that facility any longer and if I didn't find a place ON MY OWN to finish my LAST 5 HOURS to graduate, I would have to repeat the entire 4th term. Oh, and I had to find a place in two days. Out of SHEER desperation, I went to the clinical site to speak with my supervisor to sort out this OBVIOUS misunderstanding. I approached her calmly and asked permission to speak with her regarding this matter. She obliged and I asked her to clarify what her complaint was about me. She stated that I "just had this look on my face that I wasn't enjoying myself and didn't want to be there." I told her that this site was one of my favorites experiences because it has been the most hands on. Long story short, she said she respected me for coming to speak with her directly, hugged me and LET ME STAY to complete my five hours. That was on a Friday, and come Monday morning, my LAST WEEK of the program, I was dismissed for defying the school and going to clinical. I have a lawyer who says this is a simple case but I'm wondering if anyone else out there has had similar experiences with this school? I paid a TON of money to complete this program and didn't deserve this treatment.

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KrytinaA,

I am very sorry to hear what happened to you . I only thought this was happening at the Las Vegas. Everything you mention sounds very similar to the stories from students that have went to Carrington in Las Vegas. I have already left the school when all the instructors were leaving that was already a sign. You should try an contact the state board and see what they can do for you. You do have student rights. Good luck to you!

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Thank you, 703annC! I have a lawyer working on it right now and I was going to go to the Board but I wanted to see if it was just me that this is happening to or if other people have had similar experiences. The hardest part for me is that they had me questioning whether or not I should be a nurse. These nurses, who aren't even teachers put these doubts into students' minds all the time and its horrible. I could see if I wasn't getting good grades, or my skills were lacking but none of that was true. I didn't get good grades and excel in school to be told that maybe this wasn't for me! I LOVED my patients and they loved me too. I went above and beyond for them. My parents didn't raise me to be disrespectful and I would never wear my emotions on my sleeve even if I was having a bad day. Everything is so subjective in my case its just disheartening. If the Board only KNEW what was going on at that school, they would no longer be accredited...

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I'm gonna tell you what the real problem here is. Though I don't know the particular colllege in question here, I do know that even the best nursing programs suffer under the endless complaints of students when the nursing program tries to impose proper nursing education standards upon the students. Unfortunately, some schools fall to the pressure and lower their standards to make the complaining students happy. Because the standards are lowered, the preparation of the students is substandard and one of the places this will be revealed is in NCLEX results. What serious nursing students should expect is high standards and a challenging curriculum. If they get that, and it will not be easy, they will both succeed on the NCLEX and in practice as well.

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I currently go to Carrington, I am finishing up the RN program. I became an LVN through this school too. It's not the greatest school however there's no wait list and you know you're getting into the classes you need. The admission reps are like used cars salesmen....they will lie to you. They change their processes on a regular basis.

I'd say for the most part....most of your teachers are pretty good. They are the exception...every once in awhile you have an idiot/jerk for a teacher.

My advice for going to this school is to take control/responsibility of your education. This school is super frustrating, expensive rude but they get you in and out faster than other schools with lotteries and wait lists.

While this school overall sucks....the education material is still there. I was top of my LVN class, got a 4.0 in the pre-req portion.

As for job placement....don't count on them. Again....take control of your life. I applied throughout the entire LVN program to hospitals...not SNF's...and now I work as an LVN at Sutter Medical Group.

And as for the pass rates....just study for NCLEX...do the online courses, buy the books and you're fine. The LVN NCLEX was a breeze

It's all what you make of it :)

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Hi Whitneythenurse! I am interested in Carrington's lvn-RN program. Do you know where Carrington does clinicals at? I am in California, and although it is an expensive program, they are WASC accredited. I heard that the local Sutter hospitals only recruit nurses from WASC accredited schools. Carrington has my attention! :)

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Hey Tarenk,

For the LVN program, I went to some local Skilled Nursing Facilities (Roseville/Sacramento area). For a couple weeks we got to go to the Mather Field VA hospital, which was awesome.

As for the RN program, I know they are contracted with Sutter for clinicals. I currently work for Sutter right now, it's a pretty awesome place to work.

As for the WASC accred. it's good because most of the pre-req classes transfer to other schools.

I decided not to go to Carrington for the RN portion, it was too expensive for me. But I don't regret getting my LVN from there, it got me a great job.

If you have anymore questions email me, I don't go on here very often

[email protected]

-Whitney

Hi Whitneythenurse! I am interested in Carrington's lvn-RN program. Do you know where Carrington does clinicals at? I am in California, and although it is an expensive program, they are WASC accredited. I heard that the local Sutter hospitals only recruit nurses from WASC accredited schools. Carrington has my attention! :)
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Thank you so much Whitney, that was very helpful!

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