Volunteer Work / Extracurriculars

frnzy · Dec 28, 2009

Working full-time, taking prereqs and volunteering all at the same time is hard. But you *can* do it. Even if it's just 10 hours/month driving blood across town for the red cross.

Wanna know what my first volunteer gig was? While I work full time, I drive the free "Meals-on-Wheels" to elderly shut ins over one lunch per week. I give up my lunch hour, but 50% of the time I get a free lunch!

jennylouwho · Dec 28, 2009

My school doesn't really take it into account. That said, I do volunteer at a local hospital about 8 or so hours per week. While my school doesn't give anything extra for it, I think it will make a big difference after I graduate to say that I've been volunteering for X amount of years with breastfeeding moms (I volunteer with our hospital lactation consultants and love it!).

NursingStudent2012 · Dec 29, 2009

The first time I applied to a BSN program, I had a 3.7 GPA with no volunteer or health care experience. Along with these listed on the application, the school also looked at your results on a HESI exam. My school only accepts 20 students and because of no health care experience, I didn't get excepted. Afterwards, I took a CNA class and started volunteering in Hospice. I made it in my second try even though my GPA had dropped to 3.6. So yes, health care experience was crucial for my application. Ideally if you were to volunteer, you should do something involving healthcare. My school asked specifically for volunteer experience in health care and nothing else. Even though I volunteer in Hospice, it only takes an hour a week of my time.

Rednights · Dec 29, 2009

If you're coming out of highschool and applying for a 4 year BSN program and you don't have extracurricular (DEDICATED to sports, music or whatever with some way of showing you were besides ... "I attended") or volunteer work then you have a problem. If you held a low level job and kept it then that's better than nothing. Don't forget stellar grades and good references from your teachers are always the base standard you need to have, but so many students have these, you need to "spice" up your application.

SerenePeach · Dec 29, 2009

Thanks for the replies. I'm actually a second degree student trying to become a nurse. I'll see if I can pick up a volunteer opportunity in healthcare - anything to add to my application. I really, really want to get into nursing school.