Admission essay help

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I am trying to apply to nursing school and one of the schools needs an essay. If someone could give me some constructive criticism I would truly appreciate that.

This is the prompt: What life experiences and personal qualities will make you an outstanding professional nurse?

My essay:

In your life you go through many life experience that shape and light the way to your purpose or calling. In my life many of my family members have gone to the hospital for many different things. I watched my mom discover she had a brain aneurysm and rushed into the hospital for surgery. I have seen both of my grandmas go into the hospital for amputations, seizures, heart attacks and falls and I felt hopeless to fix what they were going through. Seeing the people I loved the most put in these health situations made me want to learn more and do more. This gave me a drive and passion to want to be able to be someone that made a difference. I wanted to be accountable for someone other than myself.

When I saw all the hospital staff take care of my family, I was amazed at how well they accessed the problem and were there for them through it all. I was particularly fascinated by the nurses. They were ones that did the check-ins, asked questions and aided the progress of the patient. All the best nurses my grandparents and mom would rave about were the ones that took the time to truly ask about how they were and came in with a smile regardless of knowing the situation. Being compassionate and happily contagious made all the difference to my family. Being the most effective nurse means going that extra mile even in the small ways. I know those qualities in a person have to be genuine and I believe I have those. Giving back to my community has always been something that I partook in. It was truly rewarding to know that your small effort made someone some where's life a bit easier. That is a fulfilling feeling that I know nursing would give me the same and I could give back.

Nursing takes determination and strength. I have also seen the sadness of what the limitations of healthcare can do. My father was shot and killed during my sophomore year of college. I dropped everything and came home to be with my family. The loss and grieving that my family and I had to endure was horrific. The doctors and nurses did everything they could to stop the bleeding but there was only so much that they could do. This opened my eyes to the death that could occur in this career. This was my turning point. This time I knew exactly what career path felt right for me. I was determined from all my experiences that nursing would be my path. I was going to do whatever it took and stay focused in my classes to make this possible. I knew wanted to be right there in the hospital every step of the way with the patients. Nurses will see things that many people chose to not be a part of, but some people have to be strong enough to see the bigger picture. For every sad story there are 100 great ones where you have made a difference. I know I am strong enough to be able to get through the bad times and conduct myself professionally. With this experience I faced of my father, I will put my 100% in everyday and in every case; I will remind myself that the patient is someone's father, mother, brother, sister, grandma etc. Though I saw the bad with my father, I saw the miracles with my grandparents and mother.

I chose nursing because this allows me to be accountable for more than just myself and my family. This is a powerful job that enables you to have the ability to influence and change someone's life. A complete stranger walks in and I have to be ready with open arms to do whatever I can in my power and skill for them. I am ready for this challenge and I know that I have all the confidence in myself to reach my goal as a nurse no matter how long and difficult that road is. I am ready to be there for a patient through all steps of care such as illness, pain, growth, loss, grieving, birth, and much more. I can bring all my life experiences into every situation I encounter as a nurse to be exceptional.

THANK YOU!!

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You haven't provided any information. What is your education level? Program level? Prompt? Parameters? etc...

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I haven't provided it in the essay or in the description?

I placed the prompt for the essay.

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Sorry you are right you did. But still what are their expectations? How long? What level is this? BSN? MSN? AD? I think different levels will have different expectations. Any tips that you have recieved from the program about it?

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Of course, that makes sense to mention those. It is a bsn program that will take three years.

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Specializes in NICU, Trauma, Oncology.

For starters .... I would rework the first two sentences. You need something to make the reader want to keep reading and simply restating the prompt, twice, isn't the best way to accomplish that

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Do you have any skills? Pls don't use the words.. " no matter" or "whatever it takes".. sounds really desperate...

Life experience means what have you accomplish to get to this position.. not hospital experience...

Also... what qualities do you have to be a promising / future nurse... be specific and maybe include some examples..like volunteering or work experience...

Remember... be unique and promising candidate.. not desperate or overly dramatic..

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Why do you want to be accountable for someone else? Maybe it is a word choice but to me it seems strange and there are many ways to be accountable for someone else. You could baby sit.

I would definitely look at Grammer and syntax. Your diction in general also could use a second glance. Partook is technically a word but it sounds strange in my opinion. I would also just read through sentence by sentence and think how does this arrangement sound? You are a fluffy writer (wordy), I am to. Maybe try to be a little more succinct? That is one of the reasons I asked for length requirements. Do they want this to read sensationally? Or a little more...direct? You also bounce between tenses. First person and second person.

Do you know what kind of nurse you want to be? There is a difference between what an ER nurse would do and a nurse in a clinic or acute care would do. I am seeing all kinds of nursing in this? If you have an idea it would make it sound like you have done more homework and have a better understanding of what you want for your career. Does this program produce certain types of nurses? That would be something to consider.

I'll stop for now.

It's a start. You have something to talk about, that is good. Just have to refine it. Goodluck!

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