On March 1, RegisteredNursing.org ‒ a nursing advocacy organization ‒ released its 2019 Best RN Programs list. Albany Technical College’s Associate of Science (ASN) in Nursing (RN) program was ranked number seven out of 53 schools in Georgia analyzed by the organization.

The ranking was based primarily on the student pass rates on the NCLEX-RN exam.

The NCLEX-RN exam is used by all state boards of nursing across the United States to help assess a student’s competency and is required for licensure. Also, many state boards of nursing use the total, overall NCLEX-RN pass rate for a school as one of the main ways to approve a school’s ability to provide a nursing education in the state. The pass rates are looked at as one of the best measures to determine a nursing program’s student preparedness.

Obtaining five years of information from 2014 to 2018, RegisteredNursing.org’s methodology began with collecting NCLEX-RN exam pass rates for all RN programs (ADN, BSN, Direct-Entry MSN) state by state through several methods, including making a number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Once the data was obtained, programs with the following characteristics were filtered out for ranking purposes:

• Programs that have closed or will be closing at the time of data collecting

• Programs with no pass rate data available for the previous one or two years, depending on the state and number of years of data available

• Programs with only one year of pass rates

Other colleges within the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG) ranked at the top of the 2019 list include: Wiregrass Georgia Technical College at number one; Chattahoochee Technical College at number three; Gwinnett Technical College at number eight; and Southeastern Technical College at number nine; and Augusta Technical College at number 18.

“To be voted as the top seven nursing program in the state of Georgia is truly an honor,” said Dr. Latrona Lanier, Chair of the ASN Program at Albany Tech. “We attribute this distinction to a devoted nursing faculty and staff, who are focused on ensuring student success. The credit also goes to our
dedicated and hard-working students.”

“We provide individualized student learning in our program and it is this attention to detail that
earned our nursing program this honor,” Dr. Lanier commented. “We are all thrilled to have this
designation.”

Along with Program Director Dr. Lanier, there are four other full-time faculty members – Annette Holloway, Melissa Williams, Mary Ford, and Antonio Miller; two part-time adjunct instructors –
Dr. Bianca Kierce and LaVicka Stewart; and ASN administrative assistant Beverly Grimsley.

Albany Tech started its RN program in 2013 with 24 students in the first cohort. In 2015, the first
class graduated with a NCLEX-RN pass rate of 100 percent. Matthew Dennis, Albany Tech’s Dean
of Healthcare Technology, commented, “Currently, there are 70 students in the college’s ASN
program. The program has experienced record growth and expansion since it started and with the
added faculty, the enrollment has almost tripled since 2013.”