Questions To Ask Before Applying To A Nursing Program

Hey guys, in this little presentation we’re going to talk about what kind of questions to ask a prospective nursing school. So the infamous question, why ask why? Well, because you know what, you can and knowing what to ask can make you feel more empowered and make you feel like you’ve made the right choice to attend that particular nursing school. Knowing specific details about what to ask will also help you make the right decision. Remember you are investing your money, your time into that school. Well, that school has to invest their time in you as well. So it is okay to ask what you want to know to make sure that you are going to get a good quality education. So here are some of the questions that you should ask the school. Are they accredited? Finding out if they are accredited is very important because it means that they follow the board of nursing guidelines.

You will get a quality education there because they follow the rules and they do what the board of nursing wants them to do versus teaching whatever they want. So being accredited is very important. Finding out their pass rate, their NCLEX pass rate. You don’t want to go to a school that has a pass rate of 60% more than likely you’re not going to pass boards either. You’re looking for anything greater than 90 now 85 is good. So anything higher than 85 to 90 95 is even better. I used to teach at a nursing school and for six years in a row we had 100% pass rate. We were recognized by the board of nursing. We were accredited. So again, you are looking for a school that has a very high pass rates. Pre-requisites- You want to know what kind of prerequisites are required.

Again, if you’re going into an ADN program, their prerequisites are usually about five to seven. If you’re going to a BSN program, they have a lot more maybe I think 18 to 20 maybe. So you want to know what’s required so that you know what courses to take in case you choose to take those at another school. The cost of the program, how much is it going to cost you? You don’t want to get yourself into a school and find out that you had to pay about $50,000 for an associate’s degree. No, it should not cost you that much. So look into it, look to see the cost of the program. Then you want to know the length of the program. How long is it gonna take you to complete it? Is it going to take you two years? Is it going to take you three years?

Here’s a good example of this. One of the universities in Texas has a BSN program that is a four-year university, but the nursing program is two years, four semesters. Well, what they are doing now is you start school in the summer and then you go in the fall and then you go in the spring and then you go in the summer again. So what takes four semesters of traditional school? You actually get it done in a little over a year and you can graduate with a BSN degree. This is good. For some people this is not good for others because if you start in summer of 2021 or summer 2020 you can graduate in summer 2021 a lot of people can’t do this because it’s too much too quickly for other people this is perfect because you can get your BSN degree of the nursing part in less than a year or well a little over a year, a year and a half, so find out the length. How long is it going to take you to graduate?

Okay. Other questions to ask? Is there a mandatory attendance? Some nursing schools because they are accredited by the board of nursing and they follow the board of nursing guidelines have mandatory attendance. Again, one of the schools I used to teach at our students could only miss 86 hours a year. That is not very much when you add it up, so you need to know if there’s mandatory attendance, especially if you have kids. Make sure you know how many hours you can miss, you don’t accidentally get kicked out of nursing school if you miss too many hours. Now, are there classes online or is it brick and mortar or is it hybrid? How many of their courses do they teach online? Where you sit at home and listen to lectures? How many of those courses do you have to go to school and physically sit there or are they hybrid.

Hybrid is just half and half, half online and half at school, usually you would do lecture online and come to school for a quiz or some type of group activity, clinical rotation. This is also important to find out where are the clinical locations or are they local? Are they your local hospitals are they going to send you across the state to do clinicals? What are the hours. Are they eight hours? Are they 12 hours? Because a lot of nursing programs do 12 hour clinicals. So you want to make sure that you know what you’re getting into, you want to ask a question like what’s a typical week like do you have clinicals two days a week and then the other two to three days a week you’re in class and then that day you’re in clinical. So find out what a typical week is like and how many hours per semester will you be taking?

Remember full time is about 12 credit hours. So some schools, depending on their load, you may have about eight hours one semester or up to 15 to 16 hours a semester. So if that’s important to you, find out how many hours per semester that you would be taking. And then a few more questions. Are there units specific exams in each course or one comprehensive final? The reason why I’m saying that is because there are some schools who are online nursing programs that at the very end they just give a comprehensive final and it’s basically like you’re clepping out of the course. You either pass or fail. Most traditional schools have unit-specific exams where they go along the way and you test for a particular subject. And then is there a minimum grade to pass the course? A lot of schools have a minimum pass rate of about 78 to 80%.

So when you’ve finished your class, if you’ve made a 77%, guess what that means? You have failed. They, they do this because they have higher standards because the higher their grades to pass the courses, the higher their chances of passing boards. So you got to know what is their minimum requirement. A lot of schools are now going to 80% if you don’t make anything higher than an 80% you fail the course. And then lastly, will exams be released immediately or after the instructor reviews it? This question comes up often because a lot of students get very upset. They want to take their test and they want to get their grade right away. I know that this is important because this is why you studied all night long for, but it just doesn’t happen that way. For example, I’m in a master’s program. I take a test, I submit it. I have to wait usually about three days and then that’s when I find out my grade. It’s okay. It’s part of it. It happens. A lot of instructors do that, a lot of programs do that cause they want to look at the test. They want to see what the most missed questions. And keep this in mind. When you take your NCLEX, you’re not going to find out right away if you pass or failed. I know a lot of y’all are saying, Oh, I know there’s ways to cheat and find out if you passed or failed. Yes. But that’s not certain, it’s not certain until you know for sure. So even boards, you gotta wait two to three days. So be patient. It’s okay. This shouldn’t be a deal breaker.

So again, to recap, it is okay to ask questions. And the reason why you’re asking these questions to these perspective nursing schools is because you want to know what to expect. You want to know what you’re getting yourself into. It’s your money, so make it worthwhile for you. By knowing what to expect by knowing what the school is made up, their pass rate, are they accredited? What are clinicals like? You are more prepared and because you will feel more prepared to apply to that particular school, you’ll know you made the right decision. And you know, again, most importantly, what you’re getting yourself into. So I hope that this little lesson has helped you regarding questions to ask a prospective school so you know that you can make the right decision as to what school you want to go to and make sure that you guys go out and be your best self today. And as always, happy nursing.