We Must Demolish NP Diploma Mills

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What is AANP doing with those programs??? I think we should unite to take an action on such diploma mills.

MentalKlarity said:

You're embarrassing yourself and this profession. Schools that accept 100% of applicants are a joke, end of story. The reality is that there are Many people who are too dumb to be medical providers and admissions should wean them out. At reputable schools they do, because they CARE about their reputation. At diploma mills the goal is money so they accept everyone who applies - they can't lose a single dollar of that sweet sweet tuition money. And why do for profit schools thrive in the nursing industry? Because read this forum, a whole army of people who don't have enough basic intelligence to see a scam and actually have the audacity to defend these joke programs as reputable, with arguments such as "we don't need to be as good as medical school anyway!” 

To be fair, these schools often weed them out through either scholastic attrition, financial attrition, or simple inability to pass boards after the fact.  This is how their for profit model is sustainable. You can take and retake a class ad nauseam until you pass out give up and they still get that money.  The problem is they are preying on people with grandiose promises of a sub par education and a low likelihood of success. That's the problem with these schools. They feed on underserved or desperate populations. 

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Specializes in Psychiatry.
djmatte said:

To be fair, these schools often weed them out through either scholastic attrition, financial attrition, or simple inability to pass boards after the fact.  This is how their for profit model is sustainable. You can take and retake a class ad nauseam until you pass out give up and they still get that money.  The problem is they are preying on people with grandiose promises of a sub par education and a low likelihood of success. That's the problem with these schools. They feed on underserved or desperate populations. 

But in every other profession there is a general "educated" and intelligent group of leaders who rightfully ridicule and insult this stuff so people are too ashamed to even go to these schools. Look how physicians and med students talk about "Caribbean medical schools.” Meanwhile here our main forum has literal ads for these programs and over half the people posting here not only defend them but believe they are equal to legitimate schools. Is it just a lack of intelligence? Is nursing just incapable of policing itself to remove bad actors? Are nurses just this gullible compared to every other profession? It's so, so sad. 

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Specializes in Psychiatry, Community, Nurse Manager, hospice.
MentalKlarity said:

You're embarrassing yourself and this profession. Schools that accept 100% of applicants are a joke, end of story. The reality is that there are Many people who are too dumb to be medical providers and admissions should wean them out. At reputable schools they do, because they CARE about their reputation. At diploma mills the goal is money so they accept everyone who applies - they can't lose a single dollar of that sweet sweet tuition money. And why do for profit schools thrive in the nursing industry? Because read this forum, a whole army of people who don't have enough basic intelligence to see a scam and actually have the audacity to defend these joke programs as reputable, with arguments such as "we don't need to be as good as medical school anyway!” 

I am not embarrassed. Not embarrassed of my position on this matter, not embarrassed to be an NP student and not embarrassed to be a working nurse. If that's your argument, that I should be embarrassed, that's pretty weak. Especially for someone who is making claims about the intelligence of others.

Medical school is not the same thing as nurse practitioner school. Medical students take time away from their studies by working, whereas NP students are all nurses, and benefit from working in nursing while they study advanced practice. I did not say that we don't need to be as good as medical school, I said it's not the same thing. 

Working during nurse practitioner school should be expected, and active recruitment of students is necessary and desirable. Neither of these characteristics makes a school a diploma mill. 

Can you come up with something other than "You're embarrassing yourself" to back up your claims? 

 

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Specializes in oncology.
FolksBtrippin said:

 whereas NP students are all nurses, and benefit from working in nursing while they study advanced practice.

There many here who state you do not need to practice as an RN before starting NP school. How many schools actually require a stated amount of time from RN BSN to NP school?

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Specializes in Psychiatry, Community, Nurse Manager, hospice.
londonflo said:

There many here who state you do not need to practice as an RN before starting NP school. How many schools actually require a stated amount of time from RN BSN to NP school?

You probably don't need to practice as an RN before starting NP school. If NP school takes 3 years, then you have 3 years of RN experience before you become an NP. If you just came from a university BSN program that's probably about what you need. The idea is that programs that expect the student to work as an RN while they attend are not dumbing down the education, they are using work experience as part of the education. This increases access to NP education, which is necessary to address the provider shortage in the US. I'm not saying that diploma mills definitely don't exist (I'm not sure that they do exist either) but the proposed formula for determining whether a school is a diploma mill is nonsense, and I have explained why. Working through NP school is part of the education, not a way to water down the education, and recruitment and advertising should be expected in a free market education system and in a nation where there is a dire shortage of providers that is only projected to get worse. 

 

 

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Specializes in Psychiatry, Community, Nurse Manager, hospice.
MentalKlarity said:

But in every other profession there is a general "educated" and intelligent group of leaders who rightfully ridicule and insult this stuff so people are too ashamed to even go to these schools. Look how physicians and med students talk about "Caribbean medical schools.” Meanwhile here our main forum has literal ads for these programs and over half the people posting here not only defend them but believe they are equal to legitimate schools. Is it just a lack of intelligence? Is nursing just incapable of policing itself to remove bad actors? Are nurses just this gullible compared to every other profession? It's so, so sad. 

Educated and intelligent people do not use ridicule and insults to guide the novice members of their profession. Nor do they deride them, question their intelligence without basis, call them gullible and express pity and sorrow for them. Such a person is unworthy of nursing leadership. 

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Specializes in Psychiatry.

Nothing I say is going to change your mind because you have chosen to believe that somehow, a school that is publicly traded on the stock market and accepts 100% of people who apply even if they are literally ignorant is somehow equal to places like Vanderbilt, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Emory, etc. There is nothing that can be said to change the mind of someone who has dug their heels in and believes such obviously ridiculous things. Just go out into the world and cover your resume in Walden and Phoenix and understand that when there is competition for a job and someone who went to a real school applies, your resume goes right into the garbage. I have seen it myself, those schools are the laughingstock of the medical world. Believe what you want, but those schools are designed for the people who can't do any better and cannot get into real schools so they chose the "easy" way and went to the school with no admission standards, monthly start dates, and where you can get your degree by posting in discussion forums part-time for 2 years, arranging your own clinical, and then calling yourself an NP. 

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Specializes in Psychiatry, Community, Nurse Manager, hospice.
MentalKlarity said:

Nothing I say is going to change your mind because you have chosen to believe that somehow, a school that is publicly traded on the stock market and accepts 100% of people who apply even if they are literally ignorant is somehow equal to places like Vanderbilt, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Emory, etc. There is nothing that can be said to change the mind of someone who has dug their heels in and believes such obviously ridiculous things. Just go out into the world and cover your resume in Walden and Phoenix and understand that when there is competition for a job and someone who went to a real school applies, your resume goes right into the garbage. I have seen it myself, those schools are the laughingstock of the medical world. Believe what you want, but those schools are designed for the people who can't do any better and cannot get into real schools so they chose the "easy" way and went to the school with no admission standards, monthly start dates, and where you can get your degree by posting in discussion forums part-time for 2 years, arranging your own clinical, and then calling yourself an NP. 

Change my mind about what? You stated that a school that allows students to work through the program and a school that has active recruitment is a diploma mill. And I did not agree with that. And I gave you reasons why. Then you said that I'm embarrassing myself and the profession. 

Now you are saying that your criteria for determining which schools are diploma mills are whether the school is publicly traded on the stock market and whether it accepts 100% of applicants. 

How can I dig my heels in when you have been unable to make a cohesive argument? 

You haven't expressed an opinion about what makes a diploma mill; or advice for people on how to avoid that, you have only expressed hatred for people who you believe aren't smart enough to be NPs. 

Get your argument together. Get your facts straight. Do some research and find out if your emotional beliefs have any grounding in reality. If they do, present the facts in a way that proves your point. 

Then I would be able to hear you out and counter or concede. Maybe I would even dig my heels in. Right now you're not even making sense. And it's ironic. 

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Specializes in Psychiatry.
FolksBtrippin said:

Change my mind about what? You stated that a school that allows students to work through the program and a school that has active recruitment is a diploma mill. And I did not agree with that. And I gave you reasons why. Then you said that I'm embarrassing myself and the profession. 

Now you are saying that your criteria for determining which schools are diploma mills are whether the school is publicly traded on the stock market and whether it accepts 100% of applicants. 

How can I dig my heels in when you have been unable to make a cohesive argument? 

You haven't expressed an opinion about what makes a diploma mill; or advice for people on how to avoid that, you have only expressed hatred for people who you believe aren't smart enough to be NPs. 

Get your argument together. Get your facts straight. Do some research and find out if your emotional beliefs have any grounding in reality. If they do, present the facts in a way that proves your point. 

Then I would be able to hear you out and counter or concede. Maybe I would even dig my heels in. Right now you're not even making sense. And it's ironic. 

It's fairly obvious to most people what a joke it is for a school to accept 100% of all applicants. Do you think 100% of people are smart enough to be medical providers? Do you want NO rigor applied to the acceptance process? Literally the act of applying to top schools, getting pre-reqs together, passing standard tests, writing essays - those are the activities that "weed out" those not smart enough to be medical providers. Walden and other for-profits skipped that step because the goal is not to weed ANYONE out because all they want is money.

 

Let's look at some numbers:

2022 Walden NP graduates: 4,248

2022 Vanderbilt NP Graduates: 433

 

Almost 10x as many graduates. Do you truly think a school with 233 full-time faculty members is providing a "good" education and overseeing clinicals, etc for 4,248 students annually!? This is not a school, it's a money making scheme. It's a joke. They want as many students as possible and offer them pre-packaged "modules" and discussion board posts run by a bunch of adjunct "facilitators" of course instruction. There is no learning, there is no oversight, there is no hands-on care or investments from faculty. 

Walden takes everyone with a pulse and a check, sticks them into the next monthly start date, gives them some pre-packaged courses run by a facilitator who just monitors discussion board posts and open-book tests, has the students set up their own clinicals with 0 oversight (have a friend sign off on the hours? no problem!!) and then they pass our woefully easy, pathetically watered down "board exams" and call themselves an NP. It's borderline terrifying and the worst thing is that people like you don't want our profession to do any better. You actually advocate for these programs...why? Why do you not want to see rigorous standards so that when people see an NP they think "that person knows what they're doing" instead of "oh gosh hope she didn't get a joke online degree and become an NP overnight, can I please see a physician instead?"

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MentalKlarity said:

It's fairly obvious to most people what a joke it is for a school to accept 100% of all applicants. Do you think 100% of people are smart enough to be medical providers? Do you want NO rigor applied to the acceptance process? Literally the act of applying to top schools, getting pre-reqs together, passing standard tests, writing essays - those are the activities that "weed out" those not smart enough to be medical providers. Walden and other for-profits skipped that step because the goal is not to weed ANYONE out because all they want is money.

 

Let's look at some numbers:

2022 Walden NP graduates: 4,248

2022 Vanderbilt NP Graduates: 433

 

Almost 10x as many graduates. Do you truly think a school with 233 full-time faculty members is providing a "good" education and overseeing clinicals, etc for 4,248 students annually!? This is not a school, it's a money making scheme. It's a joke. They want as many students as possible and offer them pre-packaged "modules" and discussion board posts run by a bunch of adjunct "facilitators" of course instruction. There is no learning, there is no oversight, there is no hands-on care or investments from faculty. 

Walden takes everyone with a pulse and a check, sticks them into the next monthly start date, gives them some pre-packaged courses run by a facilitator who just monitors discussion board posts and open-book tests, has the students set up their own clinicals with 0 oversight (have a friend sign off on the hours? no problem!!) and then they pass our woefully easy, pathetically watered down "board exams" and call themselves an NP. It's borderline terrifying and the worst thing is that people like you don't want our profession to do any better. You actually advocate for these programs...why? Why do you not want to see rigorous standards so that when people see an NP they think "that person knows what they're doing" instead of "oh gosh hope she didn't get a joke online degree and become an NP overnight, can I please see a physician instead?"

What's more disgusting is the actual acceptance to graduation ratio.

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Specializes in Psychiatry.

Some educational reading for the pro-joke school crowd:

 

from a student:


from other NPs:

 

The physicians laughing at us:

 

 

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