RN Students at BTC get in-depth prep class for NCLEX

     At BTC, the faculty take their students’ success personally. RN Program Coordinator, Bailee Bailey, has worked with her peers to develop a prep class for RN students to pass the National Licensure Exam (NCLEX). We talked with Mrs. Bailey, MSN, RN to learn more about the NCLEX prep class offered to RN students at BTC.  

    “My philosophy is: the more they are exposed to NCLEX style questions, the better they become and the more at ease they become with the question style,” Mrs. Bailey said.  We have seen a huge improvement in our RN students’ overall testing because of this exposure and positive feedback from students and alumni, so faculty are confident this course is paying off.   

     Mrs. Bailey takes it a step further with helping her students, “Once the students graduate, I still follow up with them weekly on their [NCLEX] studying and give them a plan for studying. This is something I was not offered in nursing school, but I wish that I was.” Mrs. Bailey also helps RN students complete the NCLEX application, which isn’t something most schools take the time to do with their students. This step helps students lower their level of stress and unknown for the test and allows them to focus on the material in the prep class.  

     Each RN class gets a personalized plan for the prep class. The RN 2023 prep class will be utilizing our Assessment Technology Institute (ATI) partnership as well as our faculty’s own experiences. Students will be reviewing content all the way back from their Fundamentals of Nursing class in their first semester nearly two years ago. Students will do a content review, then come into class and take a proctored test to simulate taking the NCLEX on test day. Students will then receive individualized remediation following the test to learn about their strengths and weaknesses from the test.  

     Each week, Mrs. Bailey will also present tips and tricks for NCLEX test-taking, facts and myths about the NCLEX, and the new style questioning in the “Next Generation NCLEX.” BTC Alumni are also scheduled to be guest speakers in this class and explain their outlook on the NCLEX as a BTC student. Giving students personal stories about how to overcome fear, challenges, stress, anxiety, etc surrounding the NCLEX will help build confidence and strategies to succeed and PASS the NCLEX.