Optimize Your Studying Routine
When you are studying, you need to make sure that you are able to be 100% focused even for just an hour.
You see, its not really how much time you spend on studying but how focused you are when youre in front of your study materials. Even if you spend 3 to 4 hours studying, you wont be able to retain that much information if you have your phone with you or you are watching TV.
Poor quality studying wont help you achieve your goals.
In addition to focus, you also have to find the right environment to study. If you are really bad at focusing, you need to find an environment with minimal distraction.
Before You Quit Nursing School Do These Things
Listen . . . we need more nurses.
Let me rephrase that.
We need more nurses who give a damn!
If you want to quit nursing school, if you hate nursing school , if you are thinking about dropping out . . . do me a favor:
Start with those 7 things listed above. How many of those are you doing daily? Can you do a better job at some of them?
If you feel that you are in a mentally healthy place and have implemented those 7 tips and you still feel that you need to leave your nursing program please work with your school to withdraw in good standing. This just means that in the crazy chance that you decide to return to school, the door is still open.
Make sure you sit down with your adviser, dean, and whom ever else and clearly understand any stipulations.
For some the only answer may be to distance themselves for a time. This is a good thing. Its okay. It doesnt mean you will be a terrible nurse. Nursing school is NOT real life nursing.
Just keep that door open. I was inches away from not becoming a nurse myself.
Final Thoughts On Failing Out Of Nursing School
Reading this article means that you care. And the world needs more nurses like you. Do not allow this setback to define your life. Pick one of the choices above and keep moving. Ill leave you with a quote from Florence Nightingale.
I have had a larger responsibility of human lives than ever man or woman had before. And I attribute my success to this:I never gave or took an excuse. Yes, I do see the difference now between me and other men. When a disaster happens, I act and they make excuses.
I wish you luck!
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Can You Get Back Into Nursing School After Failing
Whether you flunk out of one nursing school, you can return to your studies by enrolling to another nursing school and checking if the credits you have already earned will transfer to the new institution. A new school requires you to finish the application procedure and wait for a new semester to begin before you may enroll.
S To Take After Failing The Nclex

For you to become a registered nurse, you need to take and pass the NCLEX. The National Council Licensure Examination is what will help the state boards of nursing to determine whether or not you are ready to work as a nurse. But what if you failed the NCLEX?
Well, failing the NCLEX doesnt mean that your career is over or theres nothing you can do to be a nurse. Failing doesnt mean you have to put your career on hold, too.
Here are the things you can do to get back on track:
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Learn To Prioritize And Practice Time Management
After graduating from nursing school. I realized that I was able to handle the workload of my classes by practicing extremely good time management. Time management according to Wikipedia is the process of planning and exercising conscious control of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity.
Looking back, there was so much information to read, comprehend, and retain in the nursing classes that I sometimes wondered if my educators realized there were only 24 hours in a day.
Some tips for managing your time are as follows:
- Keeping a schedule of all your deadlines, assignment due dates, and testing days.
- Staying Organized with planning software like Evernote etc.
- Being flexible in your personal life to accommodate clinical assignments and schoolwork that takes longer than usual.
- Effectively balancing your family life, work, and study schedules.
- Planning your meals on the weekends for your classes and clinical training.
Other discoveries from your introspection could be the following:
- Good study partners will take detailed notes and have them readily available for comparison.
- Good study partners will push you to get better.
- Good study partners will take the time to break complex topics down for you to understand.
You may also discover that you do better studying by yourself. If this is the case, you should still try to budget time for discussions with your classmates so you are never out of the loop.
Dont: Hope Youll Do Better Next Time
Hope is supposed to be a good thingand it is. But hope without a plan is more likely to leave you with the same disappointing failure next semester.
If all you do is hope youll do better next time, then youre going to have exponentially higher general anxiety levels, higher test anxiety, more stress, and less self-care. Thats a recipe for disaster.
If you want to get different results next time, you need to do something differently. Hope, by itself, is not a plan. But here is how you can combine hope with a plan that will actually work.
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Putting In Job Applications
You wouldnt want to waste any time after you graduate. That is why as soon as your final semester of nursing school begins, you should create or update your resume
If you are lucky, you might get hired before you graduate. Although you cannot start practicing until you have passed your professional licensure exam, you can be hired on the condition that you complete all the necessary steps before you start working.
Talk To Your Professor
Talking to the professor of the class you failed can make a huge difference. You can ask for extra credit opportunities, advice on how to study for his class/exam. They can also provide you with a list of good resources to enhance your knowledge and skills for his class if you end up taking it again.
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Do: Consider Spending A Little Money Now To Save Money Later
I occasionally hear from students who think that tutoring costs too much, or they dont want to spend money on the PASS Program, or they dont want to purchase a review book or class.
But if the information and guidance gained from these resources will help you pass your nursing class next time around, wouldnt it be worth the money?
Many nursing schools have a policy of letting you fail one nursing class. But if you fail a second time? Youre generally asked to leave the nursing program. And it can be really tough to get accepted into another nursing school after that.
Its also going to be a LOT more expensive to start over.
The Six Steps To Get In
Now, if you want to avoid getting denied nursing school, then keep the following six steps in mind. They will make sure you are on the right track:
- Make sure you have your high school diploma.
- Do your research on different programs and apply to the ones that make sense for you.
- Be careful filling out applications. Mistakes on them look bad.
- Attend nursing information sessions at the schools you want to apply to.
- Improve your potential by taking the TEAS test. It is a standardized test to assess your basic skills.
- Take the time to prepare for your entrance interview. Dont walk in unprepared or you will look unprofessional.
If you dont get into nursing school, dont panic and dont assume all of your dreams are over. Instead, follow through with this information and you will eventually get into a program.
What tips can you share about getting into nursing school? Share below in the comments!
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Find Out What Is The Cause Of Your Failure
There are a lot of things that may precipitate your failure in nursing school. This is to help you know the area you have failed in. Nursing is involves learning a lot of subject within a short period of time. So you have to put in much effort and also seek for help. Failing to seek for help may lead to struggling in nursing school and resultant failure.
So your first line of action after you flunked out of school is to find out what is the cause. Maybe is one or two of the subjects that you have not invest much time in. When you succeeded in finding out which area you have not done well, you can then develop a learning curve like hiring the services of a tutor in your college.
Apply For More Programs

Keep in mind that just because you didnt get into one nursing program doesnt mean you would be rejected for another. In fact, it is a very good idea to go ahead and apply to more than one school right away. If you have access to the programs, apply for four or five. This way, one rejection will not be that detrimental since you will have other options as well.
BestNursingDegree.com
This is exactly what I ended up doing. I used a site called BestNursingDegree.com when I was searching for a school.
Our situation was unique . . . we were about to have our first child, I was looking for a Second Degree program, and I needed out of my job immediately. With BestNursingDegree.com I was able to find a program that fit all of my specifications . . . and the best part is that its free.
If you apply to several different nursing schools, then this gives you more chances to get accepted to one of them. If you dont, not to worry. You have other actions you can take too.
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Find Out If There Is Option For Resitting
You are not the first person to encounter failure in nursing school. I was a victim too. In my first semester, I failed in Anatomy And Physiology because I have spent almost half of the semester the on sick bed and I also dont have access to the best anatomy and physiology textbooks by then. After discharge, I have less time but a whole lot to learn. So, I ended up failing anatomy and physiology that semester.
But because my college has options for resitting, I have put myself together, get some of the best Anatomy And Physiology Textbooks from my colleagues, study them and retake the exam and pass successfully.
So, you see, its not over. Your college might have a resit option for students who have failed a subject or two. So find out if there is anything like a resit option for in your college, then, go ahead to seek help from your friends who are smart and intelligent in the subject you have failed in. If you have money, you can also hire the service of the course tutor to help you sail through. Trust me, passing is not beyond possible. You can do it because I was able to do it. But keep it in mind that the hardest part of nursing school or the hardest semester of nursing is the first and last semester so you have to put in much effort in these semesters.
My Story When I Quit Nursing School Plus 7 Tips To Stay Mentally Sane During Nursing School
I started nursing school with high hopes, but after my fourth semester, I dropped out. I quit nursing school.
I knew nursing school was going to be hard . . . I mean the whole point is to learn how to competently take care of a human being suffering from complex heath issues.
I expected school to be hard.
In fact, I had a meeting with the administration of my program at one point and suggested to them that they had made our program too easy and that we were not learning what we needed to know to be competent nurses on the floor.
I attended an Accelerated BSN program of ABSN designed for working professionals interested in a career change.
Basically, the 4 years of nursing school were condensed into 18 months given that we already had a previous degree .
Prior to even starting nursing school I made a promise to myself.
I was going to give 110% and learn everything I could to be the best nurse possible. From day 1 I was spending time in the library every day diving deep into the lecture material. . . .
The result . . .
- 1st Semester: 4.0 GPA
- 2nd Semester: 4.0 GPA
I had one thing on my mind . . . NURSING SCHOOL
At the time my wife had just had our first child . . . Taz.
He was born with a congenital condition that required a two week stay in the NICU and 3 surgeries with subsequent week long hospital stays during the first year of his life.
Life wasnt easy, but we were happy.
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Remember To Save Money
Nursing school is not cheap. And your last semester will cost you a bit more than the others, so you should have at least $1000 saved up to proceed through without any hiccups.
If your school uses the HESI as the exit exam, it will cost you anywhere between $35 and $70. If it uses the ATI as the exit exam, it will cost you about $95. Some schools even have a practice exit exam followed by the main one, and you have to pay for both.
You also have to pay:
- Between $30 to $500 for your nursing school pin
- $100 to the board of nursing to apply for your license
- About $40 $60 for stuff for your pinning ceremony
- $200 to register with Pearson VUE
- For supplies such as textbooks, cord fees, NCLEX review material and graduation fees among others.
Some of the costs and fees you will be required to pay are not included here because they are unique to each nursing school.
How To Gain Admission To Nursing School
Students fail out of nursing school for a variety of reasons. Nursing programs, which range in difficulty based on the type of nursing specialties being studied and the actual program itself, are often challenging. Therefore, if you fail a program the first time around, you often have opportunities to get back into the school and continue the training or start completely over.
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Dont Just Rely On Your School Notes
Everything your nursing school and instructors taught you before you graduated is important for your career. They can help you work safely and efficiently.
However, studying all of the things they taught you in school can feel like too much.
Remember, the NCLEX isnt random. It just wants to know if you can be sent out to work in your hospital without harming anyone.
Think of it like a driving test.
When youre being tested for your driving skills, your instructors dont really care about how the engine in the car works. They are just there to assess your driving skills and your capability to drive a car without killing anyone on the road.
With that, dont just rely on your nursing school materials. Look for reviewers that are specific to NCLEX so you can have a better idea of what concepts and topics to study.
Help I Didnt Get Accepted Into Nursing School This Year
- Jon Haws, BS, BSN, RN, Alumnus CCRN
You have finished the prerequisites. You are all prepared to start nursing school. It is so exciting! Then, you get the letter. You open it with anticipation and then you read the words, We regret to inform you that Those few words are enough to ruin your day or week or month. You didnt get it. It sucks! But, it isnt the end of the world. It may be somewhat of a delay, but dont worry. You can get back on track. So, what should you do?
- Step One: Breathe.
Thats a simplified version, but it gets the point across. If you had been setting all of your hopes and dreams on getting into nursing school and then you didnt, it can feel awful. But, keep this in mind: you can reapply. Just because you didnt get in right now doesnt mean you wont later.
In the meantime, there are quite a few things you can do so that you can make sure you do get into nursing school the next time around.
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Life After Failing Nursing School: The Next Steps
This article is all about life after failing nursing school. This is a question Ive heard and have seen many nursing students asking
Ive failed out of nursing school now what?
You see life after failing nursing school or failing a nursing school class does not have to define you. There are several steps you can take. For starters, figure out what went wrong. Check and see if theres a repeat option, make an appeal and so forth. What were going to do is look at those steps and others and help you figure out what youre next steps are.
*disclosure some of the links on this site are affiliate links.
Students may fail nursing school for a variety of reasons. Sometimes its a personal reason, and other times, the individual is going through some kind of health issue.
They could be in the middle of a life-changing event that affects their grades.
Sometimes its just not the right time for them to pass.
Whatever the reason, if nursing school is still something you want to pursue, then failing out doesnt mean your dreams are dashed.
Below, well go over your options so you can make the best choice based on your personal preferences and situation.