Beth Israel School of Nursing

Everything I have below is specifically from my experience as an evening student. I cannot say if the other tracks (daytime and accelerated) are better. It’s awesome that BI has an evening program, but be prepared to be treated as the red-​headed stepchild for two and a half miserable years.
Pros:
— Once you’re in, you’re in. No competing for classes or fighting to stay in the program. Unless you fail, there’s no chance of getting kicked out. I didn’t even have to register for classes. The entire program is set up and you just move through it
— Good faculty. As always some teachers are better than others. But overall, good.
— Good NCLEX prep. I will say that I passed at 75 questions. They have a really good track record.
— Maria Gallo (who runs basically the entire administration office) is so overworked, but still the sweetest woman you’ll ever meet. She tries so hard to personally see to everyone’s questions, even though it’s just her and maybe a couple student interns helping. Be nice to her.
Cons:
— Most disorganized financial office on the planet. They LOST my check multiple times. My bill would appear in my mailbox the day before it was due. They didn’t cash my check for almost two months! Do you know what it’s like to be waiting to be 4k broker over two months??? It was a joke. The only way I even knew I got a scholarship was when I got invited to the scholarship luncheon.
— They constantly have «mandatory» things during the day. I’m an evening student for a reason. And mandatory is in quotes up there because they included such events as an awards ceremony and picture day. I didn’t show up to any of these. Because I have bills to pay.
— DON’T give your personal email to them, bcs you will be inundated with emails to both your personal account and your school account. I got an email that was sent to every single student’s personal email address, and NOT as a BCC! So now a bunch of strangers have my personal email address. Also, I constantly get emails about courses that I’m not enrolled in.
— Their online learning management system is sloppy, poorly managed, and confusing.
— There is no consistent communication. There have been courses that I wanted to take, events that I’ve wanted to volunteer at, etc, that I’ve just MISSED because no one tells anyone anything. There was a Spanish class being offered in the evenings during summer and I specifically asked for someone to tell me if the class was actually happening (they were polling students) bcs I wanted to enroll. No word. One evening I stopped by the school for something, and bam. Spanish class going on. Additionally a post-​mortem lab was offered to all students during the exact time that my class would be having its final exam. Worst of all, Beth Israel hospital offered a CME ostomy care course at an immensely discounted price. I tried to register, but the school emailed me and was like, «Gasp! Don’t register! We just found out the course conflicts with one of our bazillion ‘mandatory’ graduation events. We’re going to see if the hospital will reschedule!» Needless to say, I never heard anything back and therefore missed an amazing opportunity. Just terrible terrible planning.
— Very little prep for what to do after you graduate. We had a resume writing course that was pretty bland, but nothing about maintaining CME credits or anything like that. Hell, even the NCLEX test information wasn’t really given to us until the last minute. Stuff about license reciprocity, etc, I found out in bits and bobs from various professors (during random conversations initiated by students)
— While I was studying for NCLEX, I had to take about 20 practice exams. The school would get an alert if I got below a 65 on any of these. I got below a 65 on ONE. So suddenly I’m getting an email from some random professor being like, «I am your NCLEX guidance counselor and I see you are struggling. Please remember to follow the course material blah blah blah…» I was already so stressed and this email just stressed me out more. I was NOT struggling. If she had looked at my grades she would have seen that one grade was a clear outlier. But obviously she just responded to her little alert without doing an iota of extra work. It was super hysterical when she emailed me AGAIN to see how I was doing… almost 2 weeks after I had already taken the fcking test.
— Biggest con: this is for an Associates Degree. Did you know that basically no hospital is hiring ADNs right now? Definitely not in the city. So enjoy working at a LTC facility while you pay MORE to get a BSN from another schools.
Overall, despite some conveniences, I can’t recommend PBISN.

I went here and I reccomend it. Like any school, it was aggrivating at times, but overall it ended up being a great program. Once you’re in, you’re in and you don’t have to wait for classes or worry about them filling up like a lot of the CUNY schools. If you want to be done in two years, you’ll be done in two years. It’s an intense program but I felt prepared to take my NCLEX and start working as a nurse.