I can officially proceed.

When I first considered going back to school to get my RN license, I was told I needed to attend the Mandatory Nursing Information Meeting. There is one meeting per month and I can not get an advisor or take the TEAS test until I have attended. However, I was still nursing Willow at the time so I thought I would wait until I was done in August to sign up. When that time came, I went to sign up and found to my dismay that there was a 6 month waiting list. I couldn't get in until February. The February one was during the day and the March one was in the evening so I opted for the March one so I wouldn't need a babysitter. In the meantime, I explained my situation to the secretary and she arranged a meeting with Susan Dye, the chair of the nursing department. That meeting was very helpful and I believe I wrote about it on this blog here.

Moving on, seven months later, the week of my meeting, my mother past away. Her visitation was at the exact time of my meeting. I called to reschedule and plead for sympathy and found none. I signed up for the next available meeting 8 months away in November. So now you see that I have been waiting for this important meeting a long time and I finally attended it last night.

Here are a few things I learned:

Applications for the nursing program in the fall of 2010 are due between March 1 and April 1, 2010. I would like to have mine all ready by March 1st so I have just over 3 months to get it ready.

My application needs to have official transcripts from classes at USI. That means I get to call them and ask them to send it to me in a sealed envelope. Seems easy enough if they cooperate. I'll do that within the next week.

I have to take the TEAS test (Test of Essential Academic Skills). It tests reading, math, science and English. I think it costs about $35 and I can take it up to three times, but only every 30 days. So if I don't like my first score, I don't have a lot of time to retake it. I should probably get this done before the end of the year. It's a good thing I like taking standardized general education tests. Weirdo.

I also learned the point system for acceptance into the program. The process is completely objective and based on numbers. I get 30 points each for my A's in Anatomy 101 and 102. Great. But the bad news is that I only get 20 points each for psychology and English because I took them at USI and only got B's. I was just a stupid kid back then. What sucks is that English is by best subject. I wrote a paper about my faith in Christ and my teacher gave me a C and said, "Never write about that again." So my grade ended up as a B. I can't believe that is going to come back to bite me in the butt 15 years later. So I am starting out already down 20 huge points. Also, I get 3 points for living in the area. Whoopity-do! The only other points they consider is the TEAS score.

I was told that most of the people accepted have A's and B's and typically get between 85 and 90 on the TEAS. So the average person has probably around 195-200 points out of a perfect 223. Since I've already lost 20, the best I can do is 203. And I was told that no one has ever gotten 100 on their TEAS. Yeah, well, watch me. I now have a goal and one I'm crazy-mad about. I won't settle for anything less than a 95 on my TEAS and my goal is to be the first 100. That'll get their attention.

I guess I should explain, though, that there's no clear number for a cutoff. All the applicants are ranked by their scores and then they take the top handful depending on the student-teacher ratio (which needs to be 10:1) and depending on how many spots are available at the clinics. The last two semesters they accepted 30 students each out of maybe 80 to 100 applicants. So no matter how good I do, 30 people could do better than me and I'm out. Getting B's is haunting me 15 years later. Let that be a lesson to you kids.