Have heard many stories of nursing schools that over accept students the first year - knowing they are going to “weed out” a percentage as they move into the clinical phase of the program.
What is everyone’s take on this? Do direct entry programs really want to keep all of the students they have accepted and do they work to help student’s who may be on the borderline with grades?
Higher ranked schools are concerned about retention and graduation rates. They will only admit students they feel can succeed.
I asked the same question to the direct programs that my D is accepted and I was told they do not purposely weed out.
Probably varies by program. Look around the web sites or ask directly what the criteria are for remaining in the program. If you see required grades significantly higher than C or required GPA significantly higher than 2.0, that indicates significant weeding-out of some students despite them acceptably passing all of their courses.
In the old days, it was easier to be admitted to nursing programs, and many people dropped out. Today if you are accepted, you have the intellectual ability to do the work. However, some students lack the commitment, and get distracted by other things and do not work hard enough.
Instead, some programs have a weed out program of who is allowed to take the RN certification test based upon their practice test results.
A gpa requirement above 3.0 does not automatically mean they are weeding. UMass Amherst has that and when asked how many students they lose every year because of that requirement the answer was very few if any. The program only has about 60 students. I asked several students how hard is to get the gpa requirement and they all said that was not a problem. I asked the question to a variety of students trying to make sure it is true and every one told me the same, that there is no weeding. A lot of support among the students. The program only accepts as many students as they can support so there is not purpose in weeding unless of course some students decide not to do the work or are not committed to the rigor of a nursing major.
Of course one should research schools of interest independently. Not all school function the same.