Excelsior students sue school for fees, lost time, and wages

Well, this isn't a good look....

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2017/11/01/excelsior-online-students-sue-over-fees-lost-time-and-wages?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=aca409df29-IDL20171101&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-aca409df29-200154725&mc_cid=aca409df29&mc_eid=bdc54ce1a0

 

"6,640 individuals took the exam and 62.2 percent passed as of June 30, 2017."

So, can someone shed insight on that pass rate? Is that considered too low? It doesn't seem unreasonable to me - but am I correct that this is an additional exam that you take FIRST and then you can graduate and take the NCLEX?

 

Everything I've found indicates that this is an exam specific to Excelsior. It seems to serve as an intensive for clinical practice. Given how Excelsior opens its RN program to individuals other than LPNs (such as military corpsmen and paramedics) it's probably necessary to have something objective that can attest to clinical skill.

It's an alternative delivery method and I haven't seen another school offering the same or similar. So if EC is your only path to becoming an RN then I imagine you'd want to put your nose to the grindstone to get it done. If the test is too hard then, well, maybe a traditional B&M program, or another career path, should be considered?

 

That pass rate doesn't seem outrageous, especially considering that it's not a test for bartending or home appliance repair. It SHOULD be hard, we're talking about people's health and lives!

 

The Clinical Performance in Nursing Exam (CPNE): what the heck is this madness?! | allnurses

 

My (layman's) impression is that Excelsior's CPNE is exactly what the name implies, a Clinical Performance in Nursing Exam. It confronts students with a variety of 'patients' who complain of various maladies and present students with situations to address. I'm guessing that nursing students in more conventional nursing programs are graded on those same kinds of things during their hands-on clinical classes. In fact, I would speculate that the NY State nursing licensing people may have required Excelsior to put in this exam so that their nursing degrees would qualify graduates for licenses.

The NCLEX (which all states seem to require) appears to be an entirely written exam administered by Pearson. I'm not aware that it has a hands-on component at all.

So it looks to me like the two exams are testing students on different aspects of nursing, seem to be complementary and both are probably important.

In the same vein, I was a volunteer patient in the Western Regional Examining Board (WREB) dental licensing exams at University of the Pacific Dental School in San Francisco in 2016. At the UoP, successfully passing this exam is a requirement for receiving the DDS degree (it serves as kind of a comprehensive exam), as well as for California state licensing as a dentist.

https://www.wreb.org/Candidates/Dental/dentalexamprocedures.aspx

This is a grueling three day process. It includes a written examination (analogous to the NCLEX I guess) that among other things presents a number of scenarios and requires the candidates to devise treatment plans. And part of both days is hands on, doing real procedures on real living patients (including me!). We had to be screened first, to ensure that we had the desired tooth and gum pathologies that weren't too hard.

It was a large room full of hundreds of dental chairs in Dilbert like cubicles, each with a student laboring over their patient. It was sink-or-swim and the anxiety was as thick as fog. My student dentist worked on me until she'd done everything she could, then wrote up a report, slapped a number on me and sent me to another room full of dental chairs where a group of professors and state licensing big-shots peered inside my mouth and scowled.

I think that my student impressed them by noting that a crown in my mouth was starting to go bad and needed replacing. That little item had nothing to do with the work she had done but her noting it in her report drew most of their interest when they were grading her. They poked it and she passed.

 

WOW! An excellent review- anyone considering the program should read it.

 

It's always good to know something about the madness you're entering.

 

Failing is a part of life. The University of Oregon professors brag about failing 50% of Sophomore Chemistry students (400 of 800). Its called being weeded out not a trophy for every child!

 

Then people wonder why more students don't enroll in STEM subjects.

 

This is a great article! Excelsior College's nursing program is no joke, this article puts some facts together proving this point. The article also reinforces the level of transparency EC provides by setting expectations of the program on their own website.

The only criticism I can see is that EC has some logistical challenges with administering this exam. Sounds like they can improve in this category.

I love that only 60% ish pass the exam, keep raising the bar for healthcare professionals!

Perspective:

The 2017 pass rate for the CPA exam is under 50%

National average pass rate for the BAR exam is in the low 60% range

New York City Taxi License Exam pass rate 53%

2014 Texas Master Electrician pass rate 21%, Journeyman was also 21%


The last thing we want EC to become is a low end nurse factory.