I was an LPN for 23 years, I graduated from Excelsior in Jan 2001. I feel I got an excellent education. While friends were persuing their degree in Brick and Morter Schools and memorizing facts just to pass a test, I was researching everything that I needed to know and to learn and that information stuck with me after the testing was over. I feel I got a better education and in order to graduate from Excelsior you have to be a very self-motivated person, the kind of person who has the qualities that nursing needs. The clinical proved that we as healthcare professionals knew how to preform as a newly graduated nurse. Having worked with many graduate nurses, as a preceptor, I prefer the Excelsior grads who have been LPN's and EMT's and already know the stresses of working in health care. We had to prove we could preform as a new graduate nurse but we are all already nurses and EMT's with experience in the field. The CPNE (clinical) is only a technicality. The excellent education is the strong point of Excelsior.