At Chemeketa CC in Salem, OR, potential nursing students would be better off transferring to a BSN program rather than waiting to be accepted into the ADN program because of the enormous amount of pre-reqs required by Chemeketa for their “2-year” program. I know a CNA that completed all of his pre-req’s at Chememketa Community College, which turned out to be over and above what he needed at two other local community colleges. He could not get into the Chemeketa program after waiting for 3 years and so applied at Linn-Benton CC and Clackamas CC. He was accepted into Linn-Benton the same year he applied. A CMA that I worked with also tried for 3 years to get into the Chemeketa program. She even repeated 2 science classes in order to obtain A’s in both classes (she had B’s in both originally). She did this on the advice of her academic advisor and had to pay out of pocket because F.A. would not cover repeats for better grades. She still did not get into the program and so went through a CMA program instead. She is making a third of what she could make as an RN. She didn’t know that other CC’s in the area have less stringent requirements than Chemeketa and assumed they were all the same like anyone would.

These types of scenarios are probably happening every where across the country.