“Nurses are under-staffed… “ “We need Nurses…” 

The Nursing Program, here at Community College of Rhode Island is a privilege to be apart of;  but the downfall of the program is the HESI A2 Exams in which you are required to get a certain benchmark grade and it defines you, as a student. What do I mean by that? Well.. You can have perfect grades in each course… perfect A’s but then you take the evolve/Elsvier HESI A2 exam and it automatically fails you if you have not reached that benchmark. The benchmark for first semester is 700.. if you get a 699 for example, They do not round it. You are to repeat the semester over, as well as all the work you’ve done.

But what is the HESI exam actually? The way some describe it.. It is the SATs version of the Nursing exam.. but the questions are randomized… You are not prepared for what will be on it.. the questions could be ranged from 1st-4th semester. You are blindsided.  The professors do not have any idea what is on it, nor do they teach us how to study for it… except at first attempt which if you do not pass it, you are required to do remediation that is very rigorous and can take hours to do. Ontop of that, You have final exams to study for, group projects and other assignments to do.

The pressure of trying to pass the HESI exam is too much. The Final attempt at HESI is 30% of your grade and determines whether you move on to next semester or not. 

the HESI also has been known to ruin mental health and due to their high demands, students have attempted suicide over it. Other colleges have lowered their testing averages to 5%. The time to change is now, This test should not determine who you are as a student and how you will be as a nurse. They do not look at grades when working in the medical field. This needs to change. Please, sign if you agree.