Help with revising my admission essay

[vmartinez712]

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!!

[Anonymous865]

I don't know what content your school is looking for, but I can help with grammar and sentence structure.

First - Break this into paragraphs. (It looks like you might have had paragraphs, but the formatting got lost.)

Second - Remember that more words aren't necessarily better to convey your thoughts. Rigorous pruning can give your words greater impact.

Here are some suggestions to get you started on pruning. I've shown my suggestion underneath your sentence and within astericks.

Third - You have talked about the emotional traits you think are important in a nurse. You might want to consider what intellectual/academic traits are necessary to be a successful nurse.

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.

* Life experiences can guide you to your purpose. *

In my life many of my family members have gone to the hospital for many different things.

* Seeing many family members treated in the hospital guided me to my purpose.

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.

* they assessed the problem not accessed *

I was particularly fascinated by the nurses. They were ones that did the check-ins, asked questions and aided the progress of the patient.

*I was particularly fascinated by the nurses. They took the patient's health history, monitored the patient, alerted the physician to significant changes, provided patient education, and helped the patient return to independence. *

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.

* I think you mean contagiously happy. *

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.

* I have also experienced the limits of healthcare. *

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.

* "grief" not "grieving". Grief is a noun. Grieving is a verb. You need a noun as the subject of the sentence.

The loss and grief that my family and I endured was horrific.*

The doctors and nurses did everything they could to stop the bleeding but there was only so much that they could do.

* You need a comma between "bleeding" and "but" in the above sentence. Two independent clauses joined by a conjunction need a comma before the conjunction. The clauses above are independent clauses, because either part of the sentence could stand alone as a sentence. Example: "The doctors and nurses did everything they could to stop the bleeding. 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.

* I am strong enough to get through the bad times *

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!!

[vmartinez712]

Thank you so much for your suggestions! I am going to revise the essay right away.

Overall does it seem like a good admission essay that just needs to tweaking?

[Anonymous865]

Thank you so much for your suggestions! I am going to revise the essay right away.

Overall does it seem like a good admission essay that just needs to tweaking?

I really don't know what the school is looking for, so I can't answer that question. Maybe someone with experience on an admission committee will reply and provide guidance on content.

Good luck with your application.