Who did you ask for recommendations when you applied to schools?

[Rosewater]

When you applied to nursing school, who did you ask for references, and how did you choose them? Was it a professor who taught a class you aced? A professor who taught a class where you struggled at first but ended up doing well? A professor who taught a prereq class, or one who taught a general requirement? A work supervisor? Someone from a health care setting, or a person you know personally who'd write a glowing letter?

I'm working on applications at the moment, and most schools require two or three recommendations. I've got two of them squared away, from my A&P and microbiology professors. For the third, though, I'm debating whom it'd make sense to ask. I volunteer at a hospital and work in a non-health care setting, so I could ask either my volunteer supervisor or my work boss. The idea is to give a sense of my character, maturity, and work ethic, right?

Another reason I'm asking is that last week I ran into someone I knew from an old job, and it turns out this person is friendly with the president of one of the colleges where I'm applying for nursing school. He offered to write a recommendation for me. I feel like I should take him up on it because that's a pretty great connection to have, but he's neither a "school" nor "hospital" person. What would you do in this situation?

[PacoUSA, BSN, RN]

I applied to the same school twice, the first time I was waitlisted without acceptance and the 2nd time a year later I got in (which is also the same school at which I earned my BSN). The first time I used references from my A&P prof, the service chair from my hospital volunteer job, and an area director from the non-nursing job I had at the time who knew my work. The 2nd time, I used the same A&P professor as before, my microbio professor (a class I had not taken yet the 1st time I applied), and the director of volunteer services at the same hospital (the service chair I had used prior left the position, but I ended up working more closely with the director the following year, so it seemed appropriate). I earned As in both the A&P and microbio courses.

Although I am sure I got in to the school not only on the weight of my recommendations (I feel I wrote a much better personal statement the 2nd time and emphasized that this is my 2nd application), I think my recommendations the 2nd time were better quality (I am sure the A&P prof cut and pasted his last one lol). I thought it was important to get recommendations from SCIENCE PREREQ professors since those are the courses I took most recently AND aced AND they would be in a better position to speak to my potential success in nursing school based on their backgrounds (as opposed to an English professor). As for the director of volunteer services, I was able to work more with her the 2nd year, much more than I worked with the service chair, so the letter was likely more substantive, she knew my character and work ethic more at the end (plus she saw me workith patients more, which I think was key). The area director I used the first time knew nothing about nursing and was overworked and in hindsight probably did not do as good a job as I had hoped. I never read any of my letters BTW.

In the end, you will do best with individuals that can speak to your academic and professional promise as a nursing student and as a nurse. So obviously, this will be best accomplished by your science prereq professors (preferably getting an A in those courses will boost the credibility factor) and people who are linked to health care somehow and can paint a better picture of how well you fit in to the health care world as a nurse. I dont think a letter that touts the persons virtue without applying it to health care in a strong way would be a good one.

As far as someone with a "connection" .... I dont know if that ONE factor will help you out much, and again, you have to look at the quality of the letter that will eventually submitted (at least the potential quality as you likely will not read the letter). I had no connections to get into my program, I even applied from out of state at the time so everything and everyone were initially disconnected.

This is based on my experience, hope this helps, and good luck to ya! :)

Sent from my iPad using allnurses

[Rosewater]

Thanks, Paco! Your approach makes tons of sense.