Admission The Hechinger Report (2017) noted that most colleges enroll students who are not prepared for higher education. While most colleges and universities provide remediation courses to help students make up their deficits early in their college experience, some of these deficits may still be present as they apply to nursing programs. Spots in most nursing programs are at a premium and the nursing shortage is real, so we want to choose students who have the best chance of being successful in nursing school, on the NCLEX®, and certainly in practice. Choosing students who will do well in nursing school through careful, evidence-based admission procedures is critically important for the student and the school. Yet, how can we be sure who are the best candidates? Good grades may or may not give us a complete picture. Given the complex set of skills required to be a nurse, many nursing programs are broadening their admission process to consider qualitative data, too. Insights drawn from interviews, or letters of reference from those who can speak to the students’ abilities, can be extremely helpful in identifying students who don’t stand out based on test scores. This broader perspective can help programs select students with a more diverse set of talents. However, quantitative measures are also important to develop a complete picture. Admission tests designed specifically for nursing programs can give faculty information that can round out a student’s profile. Scores that illustrate the student’s knowledge or skill in science, math, and reading comprehension provide some understanding of the student’s readiness for nursing. Reading comprehension skills are particularly important, because of the breadth of information the student must read and comprehend to be successful. To address both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of a student’s skill set, many programs use a formula for admission, indicating points for each area they consider in the evaluation process, based upon the importance of the measure in describing the aptitudes of the student. Regardless of the criteria chosen, students who meet or exceed established criteria are more likely to be successful in the first year of nursing programs (Mee & Schreiner, 2016). Box A outlines the most common measures used as part of an admission process.
Box A: Criteria for Admission
College GPA
§ § §
High School GPA ACT or SAT Scores
§ GPA in selected courses taken in high school/college § Reference Letters § Interviews § Standardized entrance exam: • Math competency • Vocabulary • Reading competency • Science • Critical Thinking Assessment “No one size fits all nursing programs”
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