This review is long, but please if you are considering Rasmussen, read it. I wish I would have known their reputation before attending there. I attended Rasmussen for over a year with countless problems, but finally had to draw the line. I was in the ADN nursing program and had issue after issue. Here were some of the problems I ran into:
My first run in was in the Jan/Feb of 2020 when I signed up for the CNA course through Rasmussen. I am in the National Guard and took off drill for the month in order to complete the training. I also was working part-time while in school and took a month off of work to complete the 30-day course. About 5 days before the CNA class was supposed to begin, I got an email saying "sorry, but we couldn't get you enrolled" even though I had been emailing the faculty back and forth prior to this with confirmation that I would able to enroll in the course. Email after email, I was unable to speak to anyone on the phone because they were "busy" all weekend.
The next issue I had with Rasmussen was with scheduling my courses. I took Pathophysiology the spring term and ended up dropping the course due to the workload and I was called up with the National Guard for the George Floyd riots in Minneapolis. Because of this, I had to retake the course in the summer term. With patho being a pre-req for clinicals, I was limited to the amount of courses I could take before clinicals. Rasmussen would not allow me to be a full-time student and wouldn't let me add any additional courses or minor in anything. I am a veteran and was using the post 9-11 GI bill which allows a monthly housing allowance when being a FULL-TIME student. So because Rasmussen wouldn't allow me to take 12 credits, I let my GI bill go to waste, had to pay for my own rent out of pocket, and was pushed back another quarter. (I don't mind paying my own rent, but when budgeting before signing my lease, I depended on my GI bill. My rent was $1400 a month and the GI bill gave me $1100. That made my total out of pocket rent $300, but now I had to pay the full $1400 which I couldn't really afford.)
My final straw with Rasmussen was the following issue. I started my clinicals fall term 2020. I took MDC1 and Older Adult clinicals. They were both online due to COVID. For my MDC1 clinical I started with one instructor and she ended up quitting one week into the term. After that I had 2 instructors - one graded our assignments and there other one "taught". By "taught" I don't know what that entails. We had ZERO lectures from her. Our lectures were weekly, but were PRERECORDED from a DIFFERENT instructor from a DIFFERENT quarter. So my actual instructor for the course really didn't do anything. The clinical portion of the class is pass/fail and I passed. The lecture portion of the class I had an 86% before taking the ATI Fundamentals Proctored Exam. This exam was worth 300 points of our 1500 point class. Our instructor provided us with no outline or guidance of the exam, no review, and no live session about this exam. Because of this, I failed the exam and received a 45%, bringing my 86% in the course down to a final grade in the class of a 77.78888%. My final grade in the course was .002% away from a passing grade. Let me say that again - POINT ZERO ZERO TWO PERCENT AWAY FROM A PASSING GRADE. I knew this was going to be my final grade and reached out to my professors before final grades were due in hopes to see if I could get a few points back in order to pass the class. Phone call, after phone call, after email, after email. I called my main instructor, Tayler, she told me should would be available after 3:30 because she was in class all day (I assume this was a lie because it was finals week and we did not have classes). So, I called her at 3:30, 3:45, 4:00. No answer. I then received a very lengthy email from her telling me that she was busy with other things and to "respect her time". The email said she would not give me a few points back and per Rasmussen policy I was just going to fail the course. Long story short, I never did get a call back, but a few days later my advisor finally called me back and explained the appeal process to me. I appealed the course and explained all the reasons I should be able to get another chance at received a few points back or to retake the ATI exam that made me fail by .002%. Tayler denied right away with no explanation as to why. I then sent the appeal to the Dean and it was denied again, with no explanation. After about 2.5 hours of emailing, calling, driving myself to campus to find it empty, and leaving voicemails to about 20 different faculty, I finally got ahold of the associate dean of nursing. She was beyond rude to me and told me. I told her she did not sound compassionate given the circumstances I was literally teaching myself the course, COVID, riots, etc. She said "it's not about compassion, it's about compliance". And that is when I was done. read more