Warning potential nursing students

Jessicias85 · May 26, 2011

Sorry to say, but some of this sounds pretty average. Parking is not the responsibility of the school. We are required to buy a $60 parking permit. if you do not, you cannot park on campus. The hours sound normal as well.

caliotter3 · May 26, 2011

I also thought a lot of this post sounds par for the course at many schools. You can't fault the school for requiring students be present for enough "desk" time so that the school does not lose its federal or state sponsorship.

moma8gma1 · May 26, 2011

I'm sorry you've had such a negative experience thus far, superduperawesome. It is good we have this forum to vent and to get encouragement and helpful advice from those who have "been there." I have not, but I hope you don't lose your passion for nursing over one bad experience. (Maybe this program and you were not a good match?)

Anyway, I hope things look up for you soon. Hang in there!

mariposabella · May 26, 2011

Well they are a for profit school and they arent even accredited by the CCNE or the NLNAC nursing organizations. Sorry you had to go through that, but next time make sure you throughly research the school you are going to.

Streamline2010 · May 28, 2011

allied health and nursing education in nj. it is the most unorganized, unstructured school on the planet. they lie about tuition the clinical sites and expenses. could be true. but, if they are on your state's wia or tra training provider list available from your state's one stop / unemployment government entity, you can check that total and the rough breakdown, because they have to provide that accurate cost to get their program approved to be on the training provider lists.
the teachers only read from power point and are clueless about anything that's not on it, google is a prime resource. if they are qualified instructors, they are probably not clueless. just not going to do any extra. nursing schools are not a friendly and nurturing place. i don't care which one you are at. it's a women's profession, and the women teaching and working it tend to be moms who hold their family time sacred and place it higher on their priority list. so, they are not interested in making working or teaching and career their whole life, as non-family workaholics like me are, lol. (i'd rather do anything than go home to housework and child-rearing, hehe.) nurses leave skid marks getting out of there at the end of class / day / shift. so don't ever expect any extra. then if you do get any, you'll be pleasantly surprised.
also, you can teach yourself this stuff just from studying your books. if you are a good self-teacher, i think you could actually do all of the book-learning yourself and never even attend a class. but most or all state boards require that you have a certain minimum hours of classroom and clinical instruction to be able to sit for the nclex-rn.
their financial aid advisors are unqualified and unprofessional, the head of that "department" is rude and his sub isn't bright at all, your balance will change weekly, they will tell you to turn over your tax refund ver to them, or ask why did you chose the school if you knew you couldn't pay( one of the requirements for admission is to be fully financially packaged, you're okay at first, the real bill comes 2 weeks later). how can they do that? are you perhaps not understanding the financial aid package and the total cost and your expected contribution?
the facility is pitiful looking. the clinical sites are no where near they lie and say its walking distance. lies! its a 30 minute walk....its a ny based school in nj and they have no consideration for their commuters, the buses trains and ferry issues are no excuse if you have car trouble oh well. they have no parking lot and instruct us to park on the street or at the meter, and whatever happens is at your expense this girl's car got hit and they didnt care, they have a parking lot though. re. cars, transportation, personal problems of any kind: nursing schools are not at all interested in any personal impediments that you may have. they want and demand that your personal life be placed secondary to your success in nursing school. cars parked anyplace are parked at owner's risk. and damages and losses and whatever are the owner's problem. that is true at any school or place of employment or shopping center. you insure your car, and you decide where is a good safe place to park it.
they give you two uniforms for "free" and you have to purchase other sets for 35 dollars. they have old and out dated equipment. the bathroom has no hand towels your uniform is fine. they tell you upon admission not to work, they discourage any type of distraction such as kids, boyfriends, jobs, family whatever would take time and money away from them, (yes, of course. this is the standard rule that nursing school takes over your whole life while you are in it. every school wishes they could get away with making that policy ,lol. yours just happened to be the one that told it like it is. be thankful that they communicated clearly. ) the exit exam isnt free. this program will stress you out and destroy everything in it's path. also it isn't 11 months it's 15 you have school 5 days a week, 7:30-4 with 10 min breaks after every 50 mins all this in order to keep you there all day, clock hour school for profit. this sounds like you didn't do your research? how can there be any confusion about when a program starts and ends? most of them publish a curriculum outline on their web sites. if you live in ny and you don't have a trust fund, forget it. the tuition is 22,000 (50 students per trimester, 4 new sessions a year) dollars finn aid loans cash and all...the school is allowed to expel you if they want, whenever you choose to leave or are let go that bill is still yours to pay. regardless of what school you attend, you still have to pay the bill even if you drop out or fail out, or if you finish and can't find a job. it's that way at all schools in the usa. yep, all nursing schools have incredibly strict and invasive morals clauses, and namby-pamby good-little-girly-girl rules you have to follow, and it's all "my way or the highway" at any nursing school, much more so than at non-nursing college degrees. all nursing schools, everywhere. did they also ask to inspect your tattoos, too, regardless of where they are on your bod?? they do that here. the department of education should shut it down, then again, who cares about the struggling middle class? step on us the ceo deserves a new bmw, screw us slaving,starving and dying to pay for it.

aside from not being accredited and possibly not having competent instructors, i don't see where you got anything much different from the typical nursing school experience everywhere. nursing is more of a time-hog than the typical associate degree or 2-3 year technical training program, by far.

2012hopeful · Jun 1, 2011

not being accredited would have done it for me...

layleebug · Jul 7, 2011

This video scared me out of for-profit schools: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/

Denisse3, ADN, RN · Jul 8, 2011

Honestly it doesn't sound that bad compared to the nursing school I went to in CT. Tuition is $32,000 it includes books, uniforms ($235 for 3 uniforms), and clinical is anywhere in a 45 mile radius from the school which is like 1 hr away. Class days were 8am to 2:20pm 10 of break q 50 mins. and 40 min of lunch break 2 days a week and clinical 6:45am to 1:45pm 3 days q week. Nursing school is not easy! There are sacrifices that have to be made. The school I went to discouraged working as well, and they have to right to dismiss you if they find out you are working the overnight shift on clinical days because you are considered not fit for duty. I'm sorry you had a bad experience but that doesn't mean other people will have a bad experience too. I hope you can find a school that fits your needs. Good luck!! :)

mommywithplenty · Jul 9, 2011

My course is 2 years, @ $4000 tuition a year+ the cost of books. I have no idea how you could do it in just 1 year. We have to buy our own uniforms but they have to be white IDK, I would have tried a normal college before a for profit trades school.

Savvy20RN, BSN, RN · Jul 9, 2011

This does sound typical. I had classes from 8 until 4 or 5 five times a week until clinical started. Then it dropped to 8-4:30ish twice a week with 6-8 hour clinical days on Tuesday and Wednesday. Fridays were free days. We were given 10 minute breaks every 50 minutes as well. As for uniforms we didn't get any free uniforms. I had to pay $80 for two pair of scrubs (that were thread bare before I finished, haha.) Parking was great because it just was. haha. I live in the country so I had to drive 20 minutes to school every day. I had a clinical at an army base hospital which took at least 45 minutes to get to from my home. A girl in my class got kicked out because she was late to clinical too often because of car problems. The attendance policy applies to everyone. Nursing students shouldn't 'beware' at all. They should know what they are signing up for before they start.

ParkerBC,MSN,RN, PhD, RN · Jul 10, 2011

I paid around 33K for my BSN. I chose to attend a private university though. When you say the bills are higher than what was quoted, where were the differences? Generally, the tuition is disclosed upfront, so there shouldn’t be a surprise there. Generally every school has some set of “fees.” Did they add the costs of your books into your bill? As far as clinical sites being close, the shortest distance I drove to one of my clinical was about an hour and fifteen minutes. This will become worse in the future for students because schools are finding it increasingly difficult to find clinical placements. C

As far as instructors go, they are not there to spoon feed you. I had many instructors who read off of the PowerPoint and occasionally added personal stories to help ties things together, but we were still required to read and understand the content. It sounds to me as though the school is preparing the students for the “real world.” The truth is…I don’t care why you are late for work, you caused me to stay over. Sure things come up and the occasional tardiness is okay, but when the person is habitually late, I have a problem with it.

I recently took an adjunct position for a profit school. I like the school. During my orientation, student service was the focus. During the first night of class, I made it abundantly clear that I do not accept late work. The following week, wouldn’t you know that I had a student who tested me on that policy. She became irritate because I wouldn’t accept her work. If I have a patient who has 8AM meds, I have between 7:30 and 8:30 to administer the medications. If not, I passed meds late. No one cares why…I am still dinged for it.

Not trying to be harsh, just realistic. Keep your eye on the prize. Don’t worry about the politics of the school. You will be spinning you wheels for nothing.