For Pre-Nursing Students
[Hero image: an editorial-style data chart or infographic suggesting original research.]
Pre-Nursing Pulse.
A quarterly data publication on what pre-nursing students are actually thinking, asking, and choosing. Built on aggregated, anonymized responses from the RN Ascend Nursing Readiness Quiz, surfaced into editorial reports for educators, school partners, journalists, and curious students.
Why we publish it
The conversation around nursing recruitment, retention, and education leans heavily on industry surveys and hospital data. Almost none of it captures what pre-nursing students themselves are thinking before they enter a program. The Pulse fills that gap.
Each quarter, we look at trends in our quiz responses: what is driving people toward nursing, what is pushing them away, which specialties they are gravitating to, what they think they know about the path and what they get wrong, and how those signals shift over time.
The reports are useful for nursing programs trying to understand their applicant pools, for educators shaping curriculum, for journalists covering the nursing workforce story, and for any pre-nursing student trying to figure out how they compare to the cohort around them.
Latest editions
[Edition cards link to /blogs/pre-nursing-pulse/[edition]. First edition publishes after enough quiz responses are collected to support methodology-safe reporting.]
What you can expect
Original data. Every edition is anchored in aggregated quiz responses, not on third-party surveys.
Methodology you can audit. Sample size, response window, and reporting cutoffs disclosed for every chart. Trust requires the math.
Honest interpretation. What the data says, what it does not say, and what we are still figuring out.
Free to read, cite, and share. Pulse editions are public. Educators and journalists are welcome to cite findings with attribution to RN Ascend.
Methodology
Pulse reporting is based on aggregated responses from the RN Ascend Nursing Readiness Quiz, which prospective nursing students take voluntarily. Responses are de-identified before aggregation. No individual responses are reported, and no edition is published until the response pool is large enough to support meaningful trend reporting.
Each edition lists its specific response window, sample size, and any caveats. Methodology questions can be sent to hello@rnascend.com.
Get notified of new editions
New editions publish quarterly. To get notified when an edition drops, take the Nursing Readiness Quiz (you will be included in our publication mailing list) or email us to request Pulse updates directly.
For nursing programs
Nursing programs interested in Pulse data partnerships, custom slices of the applicant-pool data, or our broader lead-generation program can reach us through our contact page.