Sorry to hear that you have extra expense to the program with TCN. Hope that you are succesful. The Excelsior College Clinical Performance in Nursing Examination is discussed at length in several resources, including the EC website, www.excelsior.edu as well as the various nursing websites and in the various EC groups on yahoo. It is an intense two and one half day testing situation done at the end of your EC nursing program at one of several hospital sites, where you demonstrate your clinical competence in four simulated labs and three patient care scenarios while being evaluated by an EC staff clinical evaluator. The majority of the problem that people have with the exam is their nerves getting the best of them. Even so, many people are able to pass. You have three chances to pass the exam before you are dismissed from the EC program. If dismissed, you can not reenter for a period of five years. Good luck with your program.