What Is a Good NCLEX Pass Rate for a Nursing School?

Reviewed June 1, 2026 by the ScrubScope editorial team.

A good NCLEX pass rate is one read against the national first-time average and the program's own cohort size, not a number judged in isolation. The metric that matters is the first-time pass rate, the share of a program's graduates who pass the NCLEX-RN on their first attempt, and it should be compared to the national first-time rate for the same year rather than to a fixed cutoff. A 90 percent rate at a program of forty graduates means something different from 90 percent at a program of four. Here is how to read the number, the context it needs, and why a single percentage on a marketing page is not the whole story.

The short answer

There is no universal "good" number; a pass rate is good relative to the national first-time average for that year and the size of the cohort behind it. The NCLEX-RN is the licensure exam every U.S. RN candidate must pass, administered to a single national passing standard set by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing^[1]. Read a school's first-time pass rate against that national first-time rate: at or above it is a reasonable signal, well below it is a question to ask. And weight the number by cohort size, because a high rate on a tiny cohort is statistically noisy. ScrubScope's own NCLEX Pass-Rate Index methodology explains how it normalizes the figure for exactly this reason.

Read the first-time rate, not the overall rate

The single most important distinction is first-time versus overall pass rate, and programs do not always make it clear which they are quoting.

The first-time pass rate is the share of graduates who pass on their first attempt. The overall or "ultimate" pass rate includes people who passed on a retake, which inflates the figure and tells you less about how well the program prepared its graduates the first time. NCSBN reports pass-rate statistics by candidate and attempt, and the first-time figure is the one that reflects program preparation most directly^[1]. When a program quotes a pass rate without saying "first-time," ask which it is. A program proud of its first-time rate will say so.

Compare to the national average for the same year

A pass rate only means something next to a benchmark, and the right benchmark is the national first-time rate for the same exam year.

NCSBN publishes national NCLEX-RN first-time pass rates annually, and that figure moves year to year, partly because the exam itself changes^[1]. A program at or above the national first-time average for its graduating year is performing in line with or better than the field. A program meaningfully below it, year after year, is worth a direct question to admissions about why and what changed.

State boards also watch this. Many boards set a minimum pass-rate threshold that approved programs must maintain, and a program that falls below it can be placed on a board action like provisional status^[2]. So a persistently low rate is not just a soft signal; it can trigger formal board scrutiny.

Weight the number by cohort size

A pass rate is a percentage, and percentages on small numbers are noisy. This is the context most marketing pages omit.

A 100 percent first-time pass rate sounds perfect, but on a cohort of six graduates it is one or two test-takers away from a very different number, and it tells you little about how the program performs at scale. A 92 percent rate on a cohort of two hundred is a far more stable signal. When you compare programs, look at the cohort size behind the rate, not just the rate. A reliable pass rate is one earned across enough graduates to be meaningful, which is why ScrubScope's Pass-Rate Index methodology accounts for cohort size rather than ranking on the raw percentage.

What a pass rate does not tell you

A pass rate is useful, but it is one administrative signal, not a verdict on a program.

It does not measure clinical-placement quality, faculty support, cost, or whether the program fits your schedule and goals. It also does not predict your individual result; it describes a cohort, not a person. And it can be shaped by admissions selectivity as much as by teaching, since a program that admits a stronger applicant pool may post a higher rate without necessarily teaching better. Treat the pass rate as one input you read in context, alongside accreditation, cost, and format, rather than the deciding number. The exam the rate measures is explained in the NCLEX explainer.

How to use the number when comparing programs

Put it together into a short routine when you compare schools.

First, confirm you are looking at first-time pass rates, not overall. Second, compare each program's first-time rate to the national first-time average for the same year, not to a fixed cutoff or to each other in a vacuum. Third, check the cohort size behind each rate and discount very small cohorts. Fourth, treat a persistently below-average rate as a question for admissions rather than an automatic disqualifier, since one weak year can have an explanation. Used this way, the pass rate sharpens a comparison instead of oversimplifying it.

Bottom line

A good NCLEX pass rate is a first-time rate at or above the national first-time average for that exam year, earned across a cohort large enough to be meaningful^[1]. There is no universal cutoff, so read the number against the national benchmark and the cohort size rather than in isolation, and confirm a quoted rate is first-time, not overall. The pass rate is one administrative signal among accreditation, cost, and format, not a full verdict on a program. For how ScrubScope normalizes the figure, see the NCLEX Pass-Rate Index methodology.

ScrubScope ranks programs by fit and never by which school pays more; schools, not us, make every admissions decision.

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