<p>The college my daughter is most interested in for nursing school had their nclex score drop from the high 90's to only 80 percent passing rate for 2013. The reason we were given by the college for this huge drop was that the nclex was changed that year and a lot of schools' scores dropped. I checked. Most other nursing schools in our state showed very little change, one way or the other. </p>
<p>The college got a new president about 5 years ago, and there has been a lot of turnover of faculty in the nursing school, including the two top administrators. They have also been known for years as a school that forces a lot of dropouts in the nursing school but the ones that stay and graduate give the school an excellent reputation. My daughter is a top student and I would expect her to do well, but the stress of that situation concerns me. She does handle stress fairly well. She is not easy going but is not prone to more anxiety than a situation calls for and just hunkers down and studies harder. If anyone has insight into attending nursing school in that type of school please comment. </p>
<p>How many times and when each year is the nclex given? How can I find a breakdown of the scores by exam dates?</p>
<p>Also, in the report on the last 5 years of the nclex of all nursing schools in our state, the listing for this school for 2012
Nclex says "closed", with the scores of all the schools for all other years posted. What's up with that? </p>
<pre><code>When will the scores from 2013 be posted? My daughter thought she heard them say at the info session we attended this summer that they were 100 percent passing. I didn't hear that and would like to see them in writing.
</code></pre>
<p>If the school had a one year rough patch and is back to normal, maybe it's worth overlooking. This is by far my daughter's a first choice nursing school and she will probably get some great scholarships there. </p>
<p>Hi, my D is a 1st year ( freshmen) Nursing student, she started school aprx 2weeks ago so I am very new to this too. Her college reported aprx 90% + pass rate last year but one of the previous years ( I don’t remember exactly which year was something like 88% ). </p>
<p>That’s one of the questions parents have asked about during their info session. And they said their pass rate last year was “above 90%” because students took them at different times, May, June, August …and that a few students have not taken it yet due to personal reasons such as moving, getting married, travel etc but expected those students to pass. They said their students are well prepared. </p>
<p>I remembered reading in this forum that some programs ( I don’t know which schools ) make the students take a pre-test & if the students did poorly in the pre-test, then she/he cannot take the real NCLEX exam. They do this to ensure those who take the exam will most likely pass it on the 1st try. </p>
<p>Lots of parents are very knowledgable about the NCLEX pass rate, I bet some of them will chime in later .</p>
<p>Some states regularly post their NCLEX results online for each institution each year, a few months after the test is taken. They will typically show up with a google search, such as NCLEX pass rates and the name of the state. My state publishes 3 years of results by school. For some other states, the information can be very hard to find.</p>
<p>I saw a number of colleges that had a fall in pass rates over a recent year, and heard it was blamed on changes in the test. My daughter’s school used to require taking a Kaplan prep class if you did not do well on the pre-test. Now, they are requiring every student to do testing every semester to show any weaknesses, after you complete a set of classes. I’m glad they are staying on top of the issue, but all students had to pay a few hundred dollars more in fees.</p>
<p>It would be valuable to know how many grads of a program passed the test on the second try. I believe the test is given about 3 times a year.</p>
<p>If a program has a low pass rate for a few years,they can go on probation. All incoming students then have to be warned of the probation. If their rate still doesn’t rise, they can lose accreditation. In PA, one university recently lost its nursing accreditation, and the students had to transfer. Another PA. university recovered and is doing fine after probation. </p>
<p>I would hate to be in a situation where I spent 4 years in a BSN program, met the minimum GPA in all of my classes, met all of the requirements, and then the college refused to give me the BSN degree because they were afraid I wouldn’t pass the test on the first try. That has reportedly happened in a few colleges.</p>
<p>When looking at pass rates, you also have to consider the competitiveness of admissions for the program. You would expect that a university that is extremely difficult for admission would have a much higher pass rate than a non-selective college, simply because of the academic aptitudes of the students… However, some of the more competitive universities don’t have great pass rates. I’m guessing some of the students may be over-confident before they take the test the first time, and don’t adequately prepare. Meanwhile, some community colleges have high pass rates because they include many students who have already worked for many years in health care, as opposed to just having worked one summer in a hospital. </p>
<p>My state publishes nclex first time pass results by institution every quarter. There was a drop pretty much across the board the year the test changed. I honestly wouldn’t trust any school’s self reporting of pass rates. Numbers are just too easy to massage. But from the BON site, everybody is on equal footing. </p>
<p>My d’s school has gone to an exit exam as well. I also think it’s reprehensible to take money from a student for 4 years and then not allow them to graduate because the program is nervous they won,t pass the nclex on the first try. Since students are allowed to take the nclex more than once, I’d be more interested in a stat that showed how many passed in a certain time period as opposed to first try. Fwiw, the consistently highest pass rate in the state goes to a 2 yr hospital based program and not the nationally ranked nursing program at the flagship. Just saying. Can get into that 2 yr program with a lot lower stats, too. </p>
<p>I took the NCLEX many,many years ago and know that it has changed a lot. I have one d who is presently in a BSN program and another hs senior d who is presently applying to quite a few schools. We visited many schools this summer and almost every school mentioned the recent “change” to the test format last year and emphasized that excellent test taking skills are now imperative in addition to the clinical knowledge needed in order to pass. I think most, if not all of the schools, mentioned that they either recommended or required that the students take a review course at the end.Most schools stated that they were updating their curriculum to address the changes.</p>
<p>The exam most commonly administered to nursing students pre-graduation is called the HESI exam. It gives the “Odds” that a student is likely to pass the NCLEX exam and also identifies areas a student is weak in. Due to its increasing utilization by Nursing Programs, as noted previously on this thread, there are now HESI exam prep courses available (just google it). Obviously these courses would also serve the dual purpose of helping students also prepare for the NCLEX Exam itself. Our D did take the Kaplan NCLEX Review course and felt it was helpful primarily in the area of developing test taking skills and stratagies to approach the exam. She did pass the exam on the first try with the minimum questions required (75) and spoke with some students from other schools who did not pass on the first try (some of these students were among the top students in their respective Nursing classes). It was her perception, and this is just her perception, was that these students may have had difficulties because they had a tendency to over analyze the questions, thinking that the question was not as straight forward as it seemed. Again this was just her perception. Good luck to all taking the exam, the format is different from any other exam a student is likely to take while in college, and this can be stressful in itself. </p>
<p>^^ agreed
besides the nlcex pass rate, I also looked at the curriculum. The school that my D is in has changed their curriculum last year. They put all the science classes up front & taken out/ or changed a couple of the courses. I have another D who is applying to nursing program right now as we speak so I have looked at several other programs & noticed some difference in course work.</p>
<p>For undergrad nursing, nlcex pass rate is not the major / or most critical factor to consider for us, unless the school is on probation or have some major issues, the school has to be a right fit for your kid since he/she will be spending 4yrs there. </p>
<p>^^ also agreed
that some students over analyze, over think test questions. They tend to spend too much time ‘decode’ something when a straight forward approach works. When the right answer is " A “, they will over-think " no, that can’t be so simple, it has got to be a trick question”.
I am all for test prep course & I think that will really help them prepare for this kind of major exam.</p>
<p>^ That exam is really easy to overthink and then add some anxiety to it and it’s easy to make a mistake.I know when I took it (way back when) there was usually more than one right answer. You could normally eliminate two, but then were left with two answers that seemed equally good, but you had to decide which one was the" better" choice. Very tricky…Kaplan was the course that was mentioned on several of our visits. I know I used a prep course as well, and highly recommend it…can’t imagine not using one! </p>
<p>^^ I meant to also say…I totally agree with FlowerMom above in that one of the most important things is that the school is the right fit. Nursing is such a difficult and stressful major and it is set up differently from every other undergraduate major. Most kids are not getting up at 5:30 am to go to clinical, etc like many nursing students are during their last two years or so…so it is very important that they go to a school that they will be happy at and one where they can become involved in some things besides nursing. They will most likely perform much better academically if they enjoy the campus environment they are in. </p>
<p>Thank you to everyone who posted. I’m not worried about my daughter passing the nclex. I’m concerned about whether the college is as good as it used to be, whether the atmosphere in the nursing college is supportive of the students, and what seemed to be a deceptive answer about their nclex passing rate dropping over 15 percent in a single year. I’d like insight into how to feret out the answers to these concerns. </p>