How to Write a Powerful Nursing Admission Essay

Have you decided to register in nursing school, or advance your nursing career by furthering your nursing education? If yes, then it is time to familiarize yourself with the nursing school application process, get your transcripts and possibly a letter of recommendation in order and compose a powerful nursing personal statement that will deliver you a spot in your dream nursing school.

The nursing personal statement is also referred to as a statement of purpose or application essay and is a common part of the nursing application process, especially when looking to advance your nursing education. However, the term “personal statement,” doesn’t mean that the nursing university or college is looking for your life story. Instead, they want you to demonstrate what makes you uniquely qualified as a candidate for their nursing program.

Here we will help you find the right information necessary to make your personal statement stand out among the hundreds of other applicants thereby earning you a spot in the prestigious nursing school. Moreover, with our personal statement writing service, we can help you craft a powerful personal statement that is tailored to your personal goals and your possible nursing schools.

Writing the Statement of Purpose? How to Do it Right

The statement of purpose should be aimed at convincing the nursing school admissions committee that you have tangible achievements behind you that show promise for your success in undergraduate or graduate nursing course. You can think of your personal statement as a composition with four different parts.

Part 1: Introduction

In this part, introduce yourself, your interest in nursing and the motivation behind it. Tell the admissions committee what interests you in nursing and perhaps, what sparked your desire for undergraduate or graduate nursing study. Make this short and straight to the point. You don’t have to spend a great deal of time making it sound like an autobiography.

Part 2: Summarize your previous studies

Summarize the research you conducted. You can do this by indicating the title of the project, with whom you conducted it, what your responsibilities were, and the outcome. Make sure to write in a nursing style and in a summarized way as possible.

You can also briefly write about the thesis or important paper you completed and anything scholarly beyond your nursing curricular requirements.

If you have work experience, be sure to summarize, especially if you had responsibility for testing, researching designing or interning in an area similar to what you intend to pursue in graduate nursing school.

Part 3: Discuss the Relevance of your Recent and current activities

If you graduated and worked before and now you are returning to graduate school, make sure to mention briefly what you have been doing, your work or design team, what company or non-profit organization, responsibilities you had and what you have learned. More importantly, demonstrate how this will help you focus on your graduate studies.

Part 4: Expound on your Academic Interests

In this section, you briefly indicate what you would like to pursue in your graduate school while giving enough details to convince the admissions committee that you understand the scope of the research and study in the nursing specialty and you are up to date with current research themes.

Clearly, indicate your area of interest if you are applying to join the nursing graduate school. You can do this by posing a question, defining a problem or demonstrating a theme that you would like to address as well as questions that arise from current research in that specialty.

Search for information about the specialty you are interested in including the professors and the research they have done over the years. Closely check the program and if required, you can name the professors with who you may work with.

Positively complete your statement while indicating your excitement and readiness for the challenges ahead in nursing school.

Topics and Approaches to Consider when Writing Personal Statement for Nursing

Selecting the most appropriate content is one of the best ways to get you to write a powerful personal statement. Always be sure to address the specific prompt from your target nursing program. To deliver a powerful applications essay that will help get you a spot in your dream nursing school, consider the following ingenious guidelines:

Begin with an Anecdote

Make sure to grab the attention of your admissions members right at the beginning of your nursing admissions essay. To effectively achieve this, start with an authentic anecdote. For instance, you can bring up a particular experience that motivated you to want to pursue the nursing course and become a nurse or a circumstance that had a deep inspiration on your life.

Keep in mind the significance of maintaining authenticity when using this approach. You might feel the pressure to feel like you want to manipulate your experience to make it come out more dramatic than it really is.

Keep in mind that a pledge to honesty is imperative to your nursing goals. More importantly, be cautious as the admission board members have read several nursing personal statements and might sniff out your inauthenticity from a mile away! You certainly don’t want that, do you?

Discuss Yourself

Most students writing personal statements for nursing fail into the trap of discussing other people other than talking more about themselves. You could have an inspiring story about how a medical situation with one of your family members motivates you to become a nurse or might be persuaded to share details about an internship that you had with a certain health care provider. However, don’t end up writing more about your family member or the health care provider with who you worked than you do about yourself.

Although these individuals may have played a key role in your decision to study nursing, they are not the ones applying to join a nursing school. What you are doing is selling yourself to the admission board as the best candidate to join their nursing school. So, talk about how their experiences shaped you and what you learned from the situation. Always keep the focus on yourself!

Talk about the Target School

Most likely you are applying to multiple nursing programs. If you are intending to apply to only one program, casting your net a bit wider is certainly wiser. After all, you are not sure if you could for sure get admitted to your nursing program of choice. However, when applying for many different schools, make sure to tailor your admission essays to each school.

Chances are that each school will ask you a similar question or prompts that are similar to each other. Although you might be compelled to write a one-size-fits-all personal statement for each of the nursing schools, that could be a sure bet to get a rejection letter. Your statement of purpose will sound as if it has been repurposed.

What the admission committee wants to see the reason why you are the right fit for their specific nursing school and not just nursing schools in general. Certainly, you can use the same foundation. For instance, share the same volunteer experiences or internship experiences with each nursing school. But make sure to have a part that is thoughtfully customized to the specific nursing school.

Combine specific details about the school that demonstrate why you want to join that school. For example, you could highlight specific classes that interest you or even discuss a few of your role models who are that nursing school’s alumni, or anything that demonstrates that your personal statement is meant for that specific school.

Know What to Avoid

Now you already know that you should avoid manipulating personal stories and writing generic personal statements. There are many other things to avoid when writing your nursing statement of purpose. We will tackle this in the following sections.

How can I Make My Nursing Personal Statement?

Stand Out?

A well-developed personal statement for nursing that is logical and polished reflects that have well-set out for the nursing profession. Following these tips will help you craft a passionate and persuasive nursing school personal statement that will convince the admission committee.

Formulate a basic timeline but keep in mind that it is not carved in stone

When crafting a general timeline for brainstorming ideas, writing, reviewing, and proofreading your personal statement for nursing school only takes minutes. However, most applicants often procrastinate on this significant step because they feel that adding another set of tasks to an already tight schedule.

For that reason, consider starting early and build some flexibility into your nursing school personal statement schedule you create. Strategize to have every step completed way in advance of your deadlines to eliminate last-minute stress and panic.

Re-purpose Open-ended Statements for Ones that are Specific

Most nursing schools often have an open-ended prompt for allowing the applicants greater freedom to craft their nursing personal statements. That way, you will not essentially have to start from scratch in crafting your personal statement for the schools that have specific prompts.

However, you can easily find a few aspects of the prompt that you can address by manipulating parts or even the entire paragraphs from your open-ended nursing school personal statement. So, by extensively reading the prompts and having a strategy can save you ample time and effort when crafting your personal statement

Space Fills up Faster than you Might Think

Once you have a blank document, it feels like you will never get to complete your personal statement to the required word count. Then when you start writing, you start to think about all the great ideas you should include in your statement. The next thing that startles is when you realize you are 30% over the word limit and you have no clue how and where to cut it. That is when you remember how everything is important in developing a nursing school personal statement.

Alternatively, you can write a rough outline so that you will have a topic for each section or paragraph as well as a general idea of the length of each paragraph. Besides, if a greater idea comes to your mind while writing, you can weigh it against the outline to see whether and where it might come out clearly.

If you take this route, you will save yourself from the double work of having to trim your nursing personal statement after you realize you have surpassed the required word count.

Be specific

Nurses are trained to get things done for patients. As such, do not expect the admission board members to be convinced by your general statements. You must demonstrate and not just tell. When bringing fort your personal qualities and skills, make sure to back them up with concrete facts and examples.

Your best facts or examples may not essentially come from any healthcare experiences you might have had. Be free to draw on any experience as long as it clearly links your experience and the qualities you require to be successful as a nurse.

Write about the Care

At its heart, nursing is about being dedicated to providing care to patients. Therefore, from the opening word of your nursing personal statement to the conclusion, let the admission board see that you understand what the nursing field is all about and why you are suitable to pursue a career in nursing.

Do your Homework

Doing a thorough background check and getting comprehensive details of all the university you intend to apply to is very important. When doing this, make sure to list down the important things you like about each university before you start writing the essays. Many students applying for nursing programs tend to write generic statements about how great the university is. However, this is not how to do it.

Certainly, the admissions board knows how great their university is and you do not have to remind them all over again. But you can let them know what specifically you like about them, and you so badly want to join them for a nursing program. Being specific is really necessary.

Use Formal Yet Conversational Tone

Almost all statements or essays are written under two categories; either super formal or super friendly. In the super formal, essays or statements of this purpose are extremely formal and depicts the style of writing to a lieutenant in the military. The super friendly takes the tone of a casual email to a friend. Most students prefer using super formal ways when writing their statements while discerning the super friendly.

On the other hand, a few students think that they can outsmart the admission board by sounding too friendly, welcoming and a little funny. However, on further reflection, you will understand that neither of the approaches is ideal. So, which one is right?

Your personal statement should read like a novel with slightly formal language, yet with a touch of fun and uniqueness. So, a conversational tone is the best and the safest way to go about when writing your nursing school personal statement. Write like you are conversing with someone, but avoid using casual language.

Proofread, Edit and Re-edit your Personal Statement

Most students make the mistake of not proofreading and editing their personal statements for nursing school. Keep in mind that your application essay is crucial in selling you to the admission board besides all your other academic credentials.

Therefore, it is important you make it a top priority to avoid common typos, spelling mistakes, misplaced punctuation marks, overused quotes, too many complex words and sentences, and being too wordy.

When it comes to writing an important document like a nursing personal statement, be a perfectionist. That way, you will portray yourself as being serious and committed to joining that particular nursing school.

Therefore, once you finish writing, take some time out before you embark on proofreading and editing your essay document. Besides, you can take up professional proofreading and editing services from expert nursing writers to review your essay. As such, you can avoid submitting an inferior quality application essay to your dream nursing school.

Take Advice from Tutors

If you know a tutor at your undergraduate college, do not shy from approaching him or her for advice regarding your nursing personal statement. Without a doubt, they are experienced in these aspects and they might have seen several application essays in their career. Besides, it won’t hurt to ask their view. Moreover, they are technically sound and can offer you valuable insights on how to project your ideas and skills in the statement.

After all, your tutors will know what the admission board members look for in a prospective nurse student. Therefore, it will be of great help if you approach your college tutors for advice. And, if possible, you can request them for a good letter of recommendation. Regardless of how you look at it, you will benefit in the long run.

What are the Common Mistakes to Avoid while Writing My Nursing School Personal Statement?

Now that we have established what a nursing personal statement is and how to write a powerful one, let’s look at the most common mistakes made by nurse students when crafting their application essays and how to avoid them.

Last-Minute Rush

Most nurse students tend to underestimate the time and effort required to write a good personal statement for nursing school. However, what they don’t know is that a last-minute rush often leads to writing low-quality nursing application essay as they won’t have enough time to write a comprehensive and well-thought-out personal statement that will convince the admission board as the right choice for their nursing program.

We recommend that you start brainstorming on your personal statement a month early before you submit your application essay. Besides, write several rough drafts so that you can improve on each to have a perfect one for submission.

Regardless of how you want to tackle it, keep in mind that the personal statement for nursing school is a product of much deliberation and planning and therefore cannot be left to be rushed in the eleventh hour.

Weak Introduction and Conclusion

Remember the first impression makes a lasting impression. And because the introduction is the first statement the admission board will read, make sure its impact is effective to impress them and hold their attention. Besides, to make sure that the admission board members read through your entire essay, introduce your essay with a powerful sentence with a quote that summarizes your academic experience or one that reflects your mindset, thinking or aspirations in a nurse career.

Equally, how you conclude your nursing personal statement matters since that is the very last thing the members of the committee will take away from your essay. As such, conclude by mentioning what your expectations from the university are and how you hope to contribute to the university as a student nurse. Moreover, your conclusion should demonstrate your knowledge of the university and the nursing program you are applying for.

Using Informal Language and Slangs

As we mentioned early, use a conversational tone that is polite, formal, and respectful. Ensure your grammar and vocabulary are good. Remember that your essay will be read by a panel of eminent academics. So, avoid the use of slang, informal vocabulary and abbreviations. Make your sentences clear and concise.

Exceeding the Word Limit

Often, the university will specify the word limit that applicants must follow. And if it is not mentioned on their website, it is always advisable to try and contact the admission office through official channels and ask them about it.

Otherwise, you can keep your nursing personal statement between 500 to 1000 words. A length essay will not hold the attention of the admission board members who are reviewing several other essays from applicants.

Excessive Flattery

The university and the professors who review application essays are aware that the quality of education and infrastructure they provide for the nursing program. Therefore, do not waste your words on flattering them. Your application essay is all about you and your aspirations and achievements in the nursing field and not a mouthpiece for advertising the college and its nursing program.

However, make sure to include your expectations as a student nurse from the university by mentioning specific current areas of research program or distinguished professors you would want to work under. This will demonstrate that you are logical, practical and have done thorough research before making this informed decision.

Being Dishonest

Honesty and authenticity are some of the ingredients of a good personal statement from a nurse student and will always be appreciated. So, avoid making up or exaggerating facts and mention it like it is. Keep in mind that the admissions board has a chance to contact your referee and ask for authentication. Being honest, genuine and straightforward are the qualities that will make you never go out of fashion.

Including Irrelevant Information

Your nursing personal statement is not your autography! The primary purpose of a personal statement is to explain enough about you and what you have done as a nurse or aspiring nurse so that you can secure admission to nursing school. Do not deviate from this purpose and divulge personal information about your life, family, financial among other persona details, unless it is absolutely necessary.

Not Proofreading and Editing

Once you have completed writing your personal statement, it is advisable to give it to a friend or a professional editor to review and proofread it. Proofreading will enable you to spot and edit mistakes and errors such as:

• Punctuation errors
• Repetition
• Spelling mistakes
• Improper grammar
• Incoherent sentence and paragraph flow

The final review and edit are crucial as the writing the essay itself. Therefore, don’t blunder and submit your application essay before thoroughly proofreading every sentence of it.

Wrap up

So, those are some of the tips and strategies for how to write a powerful personal statement for nursing school, convince the panel and get admitted to becoming a professional nurse. By doing all that we have mentioned, you won’t be far away from the university of your dream.

We give away personal statement examples so that you can get a concrete glimpse of how the above-mentioned tips have been incorporated into a real statement of purpose. Remember that the personal statement examples are to serve as an inspiration to your own personal statement and not a source to copy from.

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