Has anyone NOT passed their OW?

[pancakes74]

Has anyone not passed their OW? Just finished our confined water and classroom sessions, will be taking our final written within the next week or so and open water dives in Maui next month. Our instructor said we're doing well but that we're not quite ready for the final open water and need a couple more practice pool sessions. Getting nervous....

 

[boulderjohn]

Are you asking your question because you have concerns about failing the course?

In modern scuba instruction for almost all agencies, a standards-based approach is used. That means that they keep working with you until you are doing well enough to be certified. They don't just work with you for a specified time and then tell you whether you passed or failed, as in traditional education. Think of it like having a plumber in the house to fix some plumbing problems. They don't just work for a specified amount of time and then tell you whether the leaks passed or failed. They work until the job is done.

I have not had many students not complete the course successfully. A couple were 12-13 year olds who had not taken the course seriously and came into it without having done any of the reading, and after a discussion with the parents, they decided the kids needed a little more maturity. Another was a woman who discovered, much to her surprise, that she was just plain terrified as soon as she got in the water.

If you have a good attitude and are working intently toward your goal, you will be successful--don't worry!

 

[tbone1004]

I work with a university program and aside from the initial 30-40% attrition in the first two weeks or so of the course *mainly due to the swimming requirements*, there are usually 3-4 of the 25-30 students that are not invited to come out to open water. They receive certificates indicating that they have met NAUI standards but not ours and they can take that to a dive shop who will take them to do their open water. This is very rare in the industry, but it does happen. It is very rare for dive shops to fail students, but the instructor may just be trying to push you to work a bit harder before open water.

 

[RJP]

Has anyone not passed their OW? Just finished our confined water and classroom sessions, will be taking our final written within the next week or so and open water dives in Maui next month. Our instructor said we're doing well but that we're not quite ready for the final open water and need a couple more practice pool sessions. Getting nervous....

It should be almost impossible to "fail" open water... because no student who isn't ready should ever be allowed to go to open water dives.

The good news is, you've got an instructor who cares enough - and is diligent enough - to continue to work with you to help ensure you're ready. Did the instructor say what specifically you needed to work on? (He/she should have.) Were you surprised that the instructor felt you weren't ready? Did you feel you were ready? Much like a performance review at work... you shouldn't be surprised by any feedback.

As John mentions above, the role of the instructor is not to "fail" people who don't meet the performance requirements but rather to continue to work with them until they can. You should note, of course, that it would not be uncommon for an instructor/shop to expect to charge students who might need significant extra help additional for that time.

While a new instructor, I've been DM'ing and working with OW students for years now. The only student I've ever seen "fail" was the daughter of my CEO at the time. She simply did NOT want to get certified or ever go scuba diving, and was clever enough to realize that the only way she could ensure that would never happen was to purposely "fail" the class.

There are plenty of students who need to "get a little more practice in" before OW. I have worked with students who needed lots of extra time. I've even had students who had to step away and come back and try again later. But I've never seen anyone who wanted to dive and was willing to put in the time/effort not get certified.

Good luck... and let us know how it goes!

PS - where in Maui will you be doing your OW dives?

 

[Lorenzoid]

Has anyone not passed their OW? ....

Yes, but they are not the type of people who would be posting that question here on SB. The tiny minority who do not go on to pass OW would include, as boulderjohn said, people who quickly realized that they don't like it in the water or youngsters who just don't take it seriously. You obviously take it seriously enough to post here, and you didn't mention anything about freaking out in the water, so I have to believe if you work a little more with your instructor, you will soon reach your goal.

 

[3D diver]

Twice...but not my fault...

First time the instructor quit and the shop kept "losing" records & making (charging) us do lessons over and over until we all stopped going.

Second time, college class, I was given the option of doing the checkout dives on Catalina or down in Mexico. I chose Mexico and was told I'd be notified of the dives, which I was---the day of the dive!

I finally got certified by a tech at work who also ran certification classes at a local college---I knew he couldn't get away.

 

[TMHeimer]

Simple answer Yes. Those who have no "serious" water experience beforehand mostly. "Failed", don't know--Quit, yes. Maybe one out of every 10 that I've seen. And I wonder what caused them to consider scuba at that point anyway. If you're "normally" good being in water over your head don't worry, it's just learning new skills. Nothing to be nervous about. You said the instructor said "we're...not quite ready". Who is "we're"? You, wife, the whole class?

 

[Belzelbub]

No need to worry. Your instructor said you are doing well. No reason to infer from that that you won't be ready in a month.

There definitely should be more divers who do not get certified than is actually the case. Saw a few in my Nitrox class that were downright scary. The most basic OW concepts seemed to be completely foreign to them.

 

[boulderjohn]

Simple answer Yes. Those who have no "serious" water experience beforehand mostly. "Failed", don't know--Quit, yes. Maybe one out of every 10 that I've seen. And I wonder what caused them to consider scuba at that point anyway. If you're "normally" good being in water over your head don't worry, it's just learning new skills. Nothing to be nervous about. You said the instructor said "we're...not quite ready". Who is "we're"? You, wife, the whole class?

I am not sure about what you said. Are you saying you see 1 in 10 students not pass their scuba courses?

 

[Rich Keller]

Almost no one fails. Unless you can not swim or are claustrophobic they will pass you. If you do not pass then you will not be buying lots of equipment from them when you are done with the course. For you it is a multi hour course, for them it is a multi hour sales pitch. A few decades back about 25-30% failed but that is no longer the case today.