Galen College of Nursing Reviews

  • 40 Reviews
  • Multiple Locations
  • Annual Tuition: $24,500 - $34,660
20% of 40 students said this degree improved their career prospects
20% of 40 students said they would recommend this school to others
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Student & Graduate Reviews

Tresa Randall
  • Reviewed: 8/30/2022
  • Degree: Nursing
"This school is a joke. They try to encourage you by saying you can work full time while doing their class work because they have a "flexible" program. Nothing could be further from the truth. They assign you what they want to and you had better make your schedule work around it or you will be dismissed. You basically teach yourself through their "modules" on a computer. You will be lucky if you have a clinical assignment in the SAME STATE you are attending."
Kj
  • Reviewed: 8/26/2022
  • Degree: Accelerated BSN
"I still attend here and I am HIGHLY disappointed. I feel like the teachers do not even feel confident in what they’re teaching. Every exam for every Galen campus are the same, you don’t get your test back afterwards to “prevent cheating” and we can not review it afterwards. This is frustrating because we can’t see what questions were thrown out and for what reason. Honestly, this school cares mostly about making money and little on your education. There’s 600 pages to read for a test and we can’t get any sort of study guide other than the professor telling us to read the book. It’s also frustrating that your professor doesn’t write the exams, they have exam writers. I would never recommend this school."
Brooke
  • Reviewed: 8/19/2022
  • Degree: RN to BSN Campus
"I am highly satisfied with the RN to BSN online program at Galen College. My company paid for my entire degree minus book rentals, so I can not comment on the financial aspect. That being said, I would pay out-of-pocket for this degree at this college. I feel the instructors are very engaged in the online courses. They give constant and constructive feedback. My student support liaison has been very helpful and responsive as well. I like that the courses are 8 weeks. I do stay pretty busy but I like that I can take more classes in a year to finish my degree faster. The content in the courses are relevent to my job and what I want to do in the furture. I find the lectures and interactive presentations engaging. It's very easy to succed in these courses if you put in the effort. I started in May 2021 and graduate in October 2022 and have no complaints thus far. After a baby break I plan on completing my MSN here."
Allyson
  • Reviewed: 6/24/2022
  • Degree: Nursing
"This school is insanely unorganized and unprofessional. God forbid you ever have an administration issue, it’s like they haven’t worked a day in their lives. You call the school, either no one answers or they send you to 10 different people. Ridiculous."
Carline Almonor
  • Reviewed: 2/1/2022
  • Degree: Nursing
"Some of The staff at Galen college in Pembroke Pines branches is very rude. They don’t have no customer service skills when you email them you have to begging to get an answer back.they pretend like they going to help you when they are not.the way they respond to you give you a sense how much they hate their job.this is very sad to deal with people like that."
Disapointed
  • Reviewed: 1/25/2022
  • Degree: RN to BSN Campus
"I came to the school with 7 years of nursing under my belt. I scored a 140% on the inertance test which they told me was the highest they had seen. In the recruitment process I was told that they had an excellent financial aid department. That was there first lie! Their financial aid consisted of one person who did many other jobs, their idea of financial aid was food stamps, welfare, and Pell grants witch you can automatically get at any school. 2nd lie is that they do everything they can to ensure your sucess! It is quite the opposite they have jeopardy test every semester that have a semblance of nursing but has absolutely no practical application in real life modern nursing. So! you can have an A in the class but if you do not pass their jeopardy test, they do not let you take your finals and kick you out. Oh... but you can pay a fee to reapply and retake the class you already had an A in.! For your clinicals you supposedly have three tries to get it right. No! you are stopped and failed " for a plethora of stupid reasons that have nothing to do with the clinical, without an honest try two of the times and if you're lucky you get one honest try. Just try to drop a class within the first 3 days for a full refund. you have no control over registration, you take the classes that they sign you up for and if you try to drop, they delay and tell you that you are past the drop date, so you don't get any refund. they also charge you 4 times the state colleges rates making you borrow extra private loans to continue even if you have the GI bill it does not cover it all. Galen college is about pumping the student for every cent they can squeeze out of you and then kicking you to the curb. They lie in recruitment telling you 95% pass the state boards, The truth is 99% of students do not even get to the state boards, so their actual graduation rate it extremely low, maybe 1% and those who graduate have to reapply many times and end up with 100k to 150k in private student loans to finish up their degree. Being in nursing for over a decade I have met thousands who have started going to Galen with hope in their eye and only 1% or less graduate from this college. So if you really want to go to Galen College of nursing just remember the failure rate is higher than Navy Seals Training! I literally know more successful Navy Seals graduates, than Galen College of nursing graduates! Good Luck!"
Nurse12
  • Reviewed: 1/13/2022
  • Degree: Nursing
"I honestly would not recommend Galen to anyone. The program itself was extremely unorganized, the instructors consisted mainly of a lot of nurses who could not get jobs anywhere else and the entire experience was frustrating from the quality of learning to the financial aid department. I basically taught myself the entire way and never formed one meaningful relationship with any of the instructors no matter how hard I tried. All of the exams are the same for every single campus, meaning the Louisville campus takes the same exams that the Tampa and San Antonio location takes and so on. For this reason, they do not go over exams with you, and teachers literally teach to pass the exams; which they usually don't know any of the rationales for the information on there themselves. They absolutely do not value students' opinions on ANYTHING, and will claim they care but never do anything to change. My entire time at this school we mentioned how we did not learn anything in the pharmacology course and were always told "it's okay, you'll get more of that in your later nursing courses."..... so what was the point in taking the course in the first place if that was the case? Nothing this school did made any sense, it was so clearly for profit, and nobody cared about anything. It's a joke of a school and there's no wonder they have a reputation of being a joke. Spend your money anywhere else for school. I don't think I've ever written a review for anything in my life before but this school....deserves this 100%."
Honest Review
  • Reviewed: 9/14/2021
  • Degree: Nursing
"Completed the bachelor's degree (BSN) 06/2021 in St. Pete, FL. I do not know how the other campuses are run. I had 2 job interviews before graduating and both wanted to hire me. I currently work for BayCare and will be starting ICU training in 8 months. PROs: Good education Tough Fast paced I got right in the program Regional Accredidation CONs: Expensive Disorganized at times Money driven Tough This will be long but may help to explain some things: Galen is overall a good school. A lot of people become jaded because it's hard, you need a 74 to pass, and Galen does not cut much slack for those who fall behind. This weeds out the people who would fail the NCLEX. However, I know many a person who went through tough times during school and the school worked with them to pass. You get 2 failures throughout your program, after the second one you may petition to the board on why you should be able to continue. Galen is expensive; between $35,000 - $63,000 depending on transfer credits from another college. If money is an issue (like you can't acquire loans or grants) I suggest going to a community college to get your ADN/ BSN. Galen quarters are 3 months instead of 5 and there are no breaks longer than 2 weeks (I liked this because being in school longer sucks). There will be new teachers and experienced teachers, but that's many places. I have talked to people at other nursing schools so here's the deal - NURSING SCHOOL IS HARD. NURSING SCHOOL IS A MESS. NO SCHOOL HAS THEIR S**T TOGETHER. Thems the facts. Every medical program has its messes, but students graduate from the program regardless. Education - what you learn in class will be on the test (for most classes) and if you apply yourself then you will most likely pass. Know all your test/ due dates and make study friends. Friends are what get you through school. For BSN students, there will be papers and projects, follow the rubric to the letter and you'll get As for days; Labs - can be a disorganized mess, but always get done and I never had any real issue completing my CPEs whether online or in the class. Med math is easy. Galen did a good job at preparing me for CPEs and I carried those skills to the real world. I recommend going to open labs to get skills ingrained in your brain because you will use everything you learn in lab. Clinicals - unless your school is well established with a hospital system, trying to set up clinicals will always be a mess. Some classes will be screwed over while other classes will reap benefits. There will always be students who get f***ed over by clinicals no matter the program or school. Be prepared to drive up to 2 hours from your home to make clinicals and always make it there on time. You get one missed clinical day and that's it. FL nursing school policy is to have X amount of hours in clinical for each student. Galen does not set up extra clinical days, therefore you can only miss one clinical day a quarter. I had a mixed bag for clinical instructors but if you put forth effort they will make your clinical as enjoyable as possible. Generally clinicals suck because no one wants to be there and they last for what seems forever. My 2 cents is to ask lots of questions, get your head to toe assessments down pat, learn your drugs, and go to as many codes/ rapids as possible. You'll learn a lot that way and will be far better prepared for real nursing. NCLEX PREP Galen tests are hard. There are 3 types of test takers. Those who just get nursing questions, those who read every line of every page, and those who read half then chant "Cs get degrees." Galen is harder than the NCLEX and prepared me well for it. All of my Galen friends passed first try and I've yet to talk to any one from Galen who has failed the NCLEX. If you are a B student or above at Galen then you are likely to pass the NCLEX. Galen also does ATI which is a curveball when you first take it. You get 2 tries each quarter to pass, otherwise you rollback. JOBS Galen is HCA owned, hence the drive for money. Galen drives people to work for HCA. All clinicals are at HCA facilities, job fairs are mostly HCA, and I still get emails about HCA hiring events. Typically, if you ask a nurse who works at an HCA hospital about what it's like they shake their head and tell you to work somewhere else. Not all HCAs are like this but it's a risk one takes when applying. That being said, a jobs a job and Galen will help you get a job quickly around graduation time, granted it will be HCA. TEACHERS This is for shout outs - Professors Morgan, Horn, Riviera, Land, and Coughlin for all your help. TL:DR Galen provides good education but is expensive. If you're not strapped for time go to a community college program to save money. If you want a faster paced program and can handle the heat/ afford the price then Galen is fine to go to. Just be prepared to work. "During nursing school if you're married you'll get divorced, if you're single you'll find love, and if you don't believe in JC you will by the end of this." - Professor Riviera, 1st day of lab"
ANA
  • Reviewed: 4/27/2021
  • Degree: Nursing
"This school for the most part does not care about the student. The last year during the pandemic, we had to self teach ourselves. Missed out on Galen's million dollar lab and did not get any reduction in money for having to teach ourselves and use youtube to learn content. This program is very disorganized and people fail right and left. Things change and are not told to students. The "flexible" schedule is a joke. They do not work with your schedule. They make a schedule and you work around it. If I could go back. I would have gone to a community college. Gotten credits that actually transfer to other school and paid less than half of what I paid for my tuition. I am thankful I am an RN, but Galen is NOT A good school, is not organized and benefits so much from failing students. Please look elsewhere."
Sad
  • Reviewed: 11/19/2020
  • Degree: Nursing
"I attended Galen from 2018 and was supposed to graduate in 15 months ...repeated 2 classes. During my final two quarters I failed advanced med surg by 1 point. I was in class via zoom. During this entire time I have had several serious personal issues occur and I was dismissed. During the first outbreak of covid I was working in a long term care facility with no RN in the building and of course no DON we were under severe distress. When I didn't make it this last time my administrator contacted the program director explaining what we had experienced and to allow me to return. We all are under so much distress. They told me to reapply. I did but they still denied me readmission. More now than ever they should be more flexible. They did not take anything into consideration. The first time that I had to repeat med surg 80% of that class failed. That should send out a red flag that possibly there is something wrong with the instruction. I'm very dissatisfied they will not allow me to go back and get my degree I have been an LVN for 29 years and now in debt due to GAlen over 27,000.00 and no degree. I agree they do make it hard to pass. I told several people since I started that this is not a good school to attend"
Anonymous
  • Reviewed: 10/25/2020
  • Degree: Nursing
"Expensive, difficult and worthwhile. Many of the students that started with me did not graduate with me. Not perfect but nothing is. I'm happy I chose Galen for LPN to RN. Wish they would have offered LPN to BSN at the time of my attendance. I am currently considering returning to obtain my BSN and would use Galen again without hesitation."
Anonymous
  • Reviewed: 10/17/2020
  • Degree: Nursing
"This school personally sucks. Instructors suck for the most part, especially once you get into the nursing classes. The way they have accommodated things for Covid is absolutely terrible and of course they have not offset any cost knowing that the education we are receiving isn't the same versus being in class nor was it the same of what most instructors or faculty received. The graduation and retention rate is what it is for a reason! You pay so much money for bs they pull off sites like Pinterest. You pretty much teach yourself throughout the course. If that's the case, we may as well be able to just teach ourselves the material and be able to sign up for the NCLEX exam on our own. This program is designed to fail, not uplift students. Our tests are all online which we have to take via Zoom and they supposedly are doing away with paper tests all together. I personally don't like this because the purpose is to get through nursing school and prepare us to take the NCLEX. I know for a fact it was not like that when any of these instructors were in school, so I'm not sure why they want to make this already difficult time even more difficult? Makes no sense. Since our grades are only based on 4 exams, you would think they would do more test prep. I noticed they have a little, but probably because all the poor evaluations and reviews. You can't poorly prep us for something then expect us to perform well or NCLEX type tests since you refuse to allow us on campus to take tests how you all took and how we were allowed prior. I can see if this type testing is done further down the line, but doing this during the first nursing course you take is not ideal in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, it'll be beneficial once you actually get to take the NCLEX, but we have to actually get through school first and need the proper tools and support to do so. I can see if we took those type of test towards the end when we take ATI's to predictor to see how we would do on the NCLEX, but solely basing our grades off just test, I feel things need to be a little more lenient and we need to be better prepared versus, just thinking we can go and sit down and take the NCLEX today. Some of us have been out of nursing schools for a while. You can't expect us to just come out and perform well on those test off the back. The rationale for this in the first place was thinking people were cheating on exams at home. We are healthcare workers and nursing is hands on. If you genuinely cared about the education of others and students you would've done something to help or at east stop being money hungry. The first time I tried to come back literally everything was online: Lab, theory and clinical. How can you do a clinical on zoom and why would you still expect people to pay for practically nothing? Some programs have done well with accommodating students, this is not one of them. This is one of those programs who's clearly strictly for the money. Continue accepting students, taking our money but are not properly educating them. I was readmitted to the school thinking it would be a great experience this time but this is awful and I should've stayed at C State. At this point I am contemplating dropping my current course and seeking another cost effective, more efficient program because they are terrible and if nursing is your passion, you should do yourself a favor and stay away from this school unless you just have money to waste!"
notrealname
  • Reviewed: 7/15/2020
  • Degree: Nursing
"I am very disappointed in the lack of communication between the staff (not necessarily the instructors, I have no bad experience with the instructors at this point) and the students. I have found that no one wants to assist you if you have questions, emails will go unanswered, you ask questions of one person you are told to contact another and that person never responds. I would recommend seeking out other programs if they are available to you and meet your needs. The 2 programs that I decided against have contacted me multiple times and only stopped when I told them I have decided on Galen. I knew much more about their programs then I still do about Galen and I have been attending Galen for 2 weeks now. I plan on discussing further with loan servicers and grant programs as I would expect if they are accepting government money they have some sort of responsibility to the students they are receiving those funds from. This program may be a good program for a person that is familiar with college and online courses however if you are not I recommend you stay far away."
Nursing Grad
  • Reviewed: 2/24/2020
  • Degree: Nursing
"The staff provide students with answers to tests. I have personally witnessed these acts. They also punish other students for the same. Beware! Sure, you can get the degree, I did...but even though accredited, there are state colleges that do not accept the units. When you complete the ADN, you will need more general education requirements that werent included in the ADN program. Instructors helping some students cheat is the most disturbing, how they treat you is another."
SadStudent
  • Reviewed: 12/1/2018
  • Degree: Nursing
"Very expensive and some teachers lack experience, but you will learn, some instructors are excellent. Staff is always saying how they care about you, but no one helps except for a 5-minute meeting with your academic counselor. The Cincinnati campus is overcrowding with students, but they're not expanding. They have converted dry labs to classrooms due to the fact they just keep letting students in; now there's nowhere to practice CPEs. It obvious they are more interested in the money now. I would give it three stars if it weren't for their terrible choices of clinical sites, some are being shut down or unsafe."
NewGrad
  • Reviewed: 7/6/2017
  • Degree: Nursing
"Loved to be Galen student. Yes, it was challenging, any nursing school is not easy, and the only way to succeed is to study daily. Faculties are awesome, always ready to help. Clinicals and Lab gave me a lot of hands on experience. Tuition is high, however, the knowledge and skills I gained worth every penny."
Sad Sally
  • Reviewed: 6/8/2017
  • Degree: Nursing
"Do not go to this school! They care nothing about their students. Most of the clinical sites are horrible and unsafe. They will take your money and not allow you to come back to finish your degree. I have never met so many childish instructors in my life. Worse school i have ever been to. Also, the classroom instruction is inconsistent. Run while you still can!"
Jennifer
  • Reviewed: 7/25/2016
  • Degree: Nursing
"Stay away from this school. They only care about money. They have unsafe clinical sites that are actively being shut down by the state. They do not care about their students. They make it sound great when you sign up but they change after you get through the first couple quarters. They throw people out on a whim, they discriminate against those with health considerations, and they do not treat people with respect. I witnessed the "tech support" man yell at the young cleaning man who has Down syndrome for singing while he cleaned. He said he sounded like a dying cow. This behavior from a school where they claim to teach compassion."
Felicia T.
  • Reviewed: 9/25/2014
  • Degree: Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA)
"Galen college of Nursing. is a very demanding school and very expensive. You really have to study like you would in any other nursing school to pass your. I choose this school because I am a single parent of 3 children and I did the hybrid classes where most of my work was done online and some was done at the school. I would recommend this school to any single mother who wants to further their career but still has to work full-time to make ends meet."
Darlena Villa
  • Reviewed: 8/12/2014
  • Degree: Nursing
"I had recommended this school to several other nurses that I work with, all of which are not attending Galen College of Nursing - San Antonio. I would no longer recommend this school to anyone. The hybrid/online courses do not get the same education and grading advantages that the on ground students receive. I have been in several classes where 50% or greater of the students did not pass the course, which tells me that teaching is flawed. However, students are removed from the program with the risk of not getting readmitted. This is a waste of time and money on the part of the student. I believe if more than half of a class is not passing, the instruction should be fixed and the students should be given the opportunity to retake the class without paying for it again and getting removed from the program. The administration at this school is not up to par."