Camosun’s nursing program will be even tougher to get into next year, when the popular and academically rigorous program switches to a new competitive entry process.
Final details need to be confirmed at the September 16 meeting of Camosun’s Education Council, and the college’s nursing program will begin assessing and interviewing new applicants at the end of the month.
Previously, the program used a first-qualified, first-waitlisted system that at times had applicants waiting more than three years for a spot.
Citing high dropout rates and academic weaknesses with under-qualified students entering the program, nursing chair Stephen Bishop says that the new competitive entry process is more in line with other Canadian postsecondary institutions and that it will be a fairer system for all prospective students.
“The purpose of bringing in competitive entry is to ensure that students who enter the program will be confident that they have the capacity to be successful in the program,” he says, adding that, currently, approximately one in four nursing students at Camosun drop out before they graduate.
“It’s unfair to let someone invest years of their time and thousands of their dollars in a program that they don’t have a reasonable chance of success at,” he says. “We think it’s a terrible thing for our students to have to work through years in a program and then be unsuccessful.”
But the Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) say they are worried that the competitive entry process might provide too many barriers for some students, including grade-point average qualifications and an intensive interview process. They are especially concerned about those students who are returning to school after a long absence and those who use English as a second language.
“Camosun still needs to be fair to all students and give them all equal opportunity, so if they do get through the process and nursing is what they want to do, I think that should be encouraged,” says Mindy Jiang, CCSS student Education Council representative for the Lansdowne campus, “even if English is not their first language, or they didn’t have the best marks or best experience in high school. It will provide barriers for students because not every student is given the same kind of opportunity.”
Currently, the goal is to get 160 of the program’s 192 students into the University of Victoria for their last year and a half of the degree program, but this has proven to be quite challenging without competitive entry, says Bishop.
Meanwhile, the chair of Camosun’s Education Council, Carly Hall, stresses that the college has developed an “educational standard around competitive entry” in order to make decisions on what programs the process is appropriate for.
“We just want to be really clear that there’s not a change to the admissions process at Camosun, that the first-qualified, first-served philosophy still stands, but there have been some changes to how that is defined for certain programs,” says Hall.
Jiang says the CCSS is worried that once nursing moves to competitive entry, other programs may follow suit, but Hall doesn’t think it will become common practice in admissions at the college.
“I certainly wouldn’t expect it to become the standard. I think there may be programs where it’s appropriate, but there’s also a lot of programs where it’s maybe not appropriate,” says Hall.
Bishop says that qualifying students for the nursing program without an interview and consideration of their academic levels had put Camosun at a disadvantage because it was easier for applicants to get into the program, as long as they were willing to wait it out.
“So many well-qualified applicants who live in Victoria ended up going to schools in other parts of the province because they could get in more quickly,” says Bishop. “And, to be blunt, some of the weaker students in the province applied to Camosun because they knew if they sat on the waitlist long enough, they could get in here.”
Bishop says he’s feeling positive about switching his program to the new entry process and believes it will increase the overall quality of Camosun’s nursing program.
“What we’re trying to do is encourage applicants to the program to come better prepared, and to assess that ability so that the students who enter the program have a very reasonable expectation that they can be successful,” he says. “Ultimately, I think we’ll end up with a process that is both more straightforward and fairer to the applicants.”
Bishop says that the college’s next step, after a couple of years of using competitive entry, is to decrease the number of nursing students taken into the program each year. This will provide smaller class sizes and better opportunities for hospital and clinical placements, he says.
I would not recommend Camosun nursing school to my worst enemy. Many of the instructors are terribly unprofessional. They seem to thrive on using bullying tactics as a way to do what they think is “education”. Unfortunately, it’s an old boys club where many use teaching as a way to boost their low self esteem and lack of teaching ability.
I completely agree! I am a Practical Nurse (grad from camosun) I have been working on an acute med/surg floor for 3 and a half years. They either want me to start from scratch learning how to do bed baths and personal care again.(with students who are 18 years old) Or some schools have an access program which puts you in second year (the seats are only available bc one of those 18yr olds dropped out), but to make sure you are qualified you need to complete a 4 month “pre-access program” (4 months is one semester) so you only get one semester off, its basically like starting from scratch. On a regular basis my hospital gets nursing students (RN). The RN students work with me taking one or two pts for the shift. During this shift I am helping/teaching them basic skills (personal care,time management, priming IV tubing, dressing changes, foley insertions) These are just to name a few. I am qualified to take 5 acute pts be responsible for their assessments, personal care, medication administration, and help these 3rd year students but I’m not qualified to get into 1st year because the A&P class I took in nursing school doesn’t count…! I know I need to learn more in order to get my RN and I am excited and willing to do so. But the colleges need to start putting a program together that furthers our knowledge and skills in a proper manor. Example, they could have a PN-RN program that is two years, you need to be a PN with x amount of acute care hours, etc etc… the program would then train only PN’s with the goal of graduating as an RN.
I am frustrated at the lack of a grandfathering system for Camosun. I am a Practical Nurse and Camosun doesn’t even acknowledge my existing nursing education and are still going to look at my high-school grades, which I believe isn’t fair. It’s not fair that after doing 2 years of practical nursing, I still have to go through 4 years of the RN program. They should offer some sort of system that allows PN’s to advance their education and career without having to go through the competitive entry. We are already nurses and are strong candidates.
Camosun’s nursing program is the worst! Don’t waste your time or money. The teachers are not qualified to teach but intentionally try to weed students out by being unfair and injust. Horrible teachers that judge students and are not supportive. They do not explain assignments and some even yell at students. Most of the teachers don’t even have a masters, so what if they have years of experience it doesn’t mean that they are good teachers. Go apply elsewhere, where the teachers actually care.
It is unreasonable to consider students as “weak” & academic failures when you are doing 5-7 courses at one time with no time to study and the lack of support from teachers. Honestly, lets see the faculty go through today’s nursing program as a student with Camosun- they wouldn’t even survive.
I agree. The program is too community-based, fall short on offering technical skill training to students.
What will the interviews be using to lable a student as too weak to admit into the program? It should be made clear for a community college.
Some clairification should be made clear with the broad statements. Of the 1/4 students who drop out how many of them were “weak students” ? As a student of the program I can say that most of the students who decide to leave this program do so after being treated poorly by instructors, they are too students in their abilities and marks. Camosun shows no factual connection on how this will help the ‘drop out’ more like ‘push out’ rate. My guess is it will not change the amount of students who complete the program. Camosun should change major flaws in its system and include standard teaching protocols to avoid personal opionons from teachers a being the pass or fail, or bullying of students. As a community college everyone should be allowe to access the services not restricted in an interview. Watch out minorities and out spoken individuals! If the school wants to do an interview process they should be ashamed. Their number one priority should be reducing barriers and making their programs MORE accessible!! If people are dropping or failing, ask them WHY!!
the lack of some type of grandfathering is very disappointing. Our daughter made a choice to come from out of Province to attend Camosun to prepare and upgrade and the decision to attend Camosun was based on your guidance under the prior system. Now you change the rules midstream after we make the time and $$ commitment to come to Victoria to prepare.
Just a clarification about the timing of the new process. Applications will be accepted starting September 30, but the interviews won’t take place until sometime in the spring.