Well that explains it!

[peytonsmom]

I started taking pre-reqs at a local community college. I was told that if I wanted to finish my ADN there that I was looking at a long waiting list regardless of GPA. They advised that since I already had some pre-reqs finished via a previous AA degree, to just proceed w/ getting my BSN at a local college as I would (assuming I had a decent GPA) graduate from that university w/ my BSN before i'd get a spot in their ADN program.

I was looking up some pass rates for a few schools on the Ohio Board of Nursing site today and saw that my CC has the highest # of qualified applicants denied because of unavailable seats in all of Ohio. They denied 738 qualified students each year!!! I couldn't believe it!! I definetly wouldn't have the paitence to wait out that kind of wait list so i'm going to have to bust out some decent grades to ensure I make the cut at the 4 year university (last two years the cutoff was about 3.3 GPA).

[ParkerBC,MSN,RN, PhD, RN]

Wow! A 3.3 GPA would not have gotten you a second look at my school. Here is what I think about nursing school. First, I applied at a local community college with a 4.0 GPA and about a 93% on the TEAS exam. I didn’t get in. The counselor told me I should work on getting my TEAS score up a little more. What???!!!! First, no I am not going to take the exam again and pay the $30.00. If my qualifications aren’t good enough to get into your program, I will look elsewhere and that is what I did. I checked out several schools. First let me say that I already have a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management, so I was also looking into the “fast-track” second Bachelor degree options. Anyways, I looked on the BON’s website to obtain information about the schools I was interested in attending and found a couple of other schools who recently was accredited. So, I did my research. I was planning on going to a private university to get my ADN. I interviewed with the admissions person and felt confident about attending, but found out their accreditation was going to be placed on probation. Now this school used to have a good reputation, but evidently they have been slacking.

Anyways, I decided to attend a private trade school that offered the ADN. The school is 21K/yr, but…here is the kicker. As part of your degree requirement, you have to take an NCLEX review course. The course is not pass or fail. You receive a letter grade. You are assigned pages to complete and study AND you have an exam after reviewing the material. The instructor also may change some of the questions so that students cannot “memorize” the questions and answers for the test. I haven’t had the course yet, but students that are in it have said it has been their most difficult course. By the way, we have a 100% pass rate on the NCLEX-RN first sitting. Honestly, how many students who graduate from a nursing program intensely study for the NCLEX before going to take the test? I don’t mean study for one week before the test (or cramming). I mean really study and understand the questions and the answers to the questions. Anyways…that is what sold me on the program. They work on getting you to pass the NCLEX…it is their reputation and accreditation on the line.

[coolpeach]

Acutally I go to a CC in Texas and we work on passing the NCLEX. At the beginning of the semester we took an online course from the makers of the test which taught us how to read, answer and work with the NCLEX style questions. Then once we got into the semester all of our tests are set up NCLEX style so everytime we take a test its a practice NCLEX.