How To Win A Nursing Scholarship

Did you ever hear the joke about the man who prayed to God asking that the Almighty let him win the lottery

? After the man prays and prays and gets no results, finally God says to him, "Please, you have to buy a ticket first!"

Well, the same advice applies when it comes to earning scholarships for nursing school: You need to apply to them.

Yes, you'll spend plenty of time researching and filling out scholarship applications with no guarantee that you'll even win one, but the payoff can be well worth the effort. And, again, you can't earn a scholarship without putting in an application.

There are many scholarships available to students wishing to earn a masters degree nursing. A great place to look is at the website of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing; it has a long list of scholarships. Check with your Los Angeles graduate nursing school's financial aid office; they'll surely prove to be a wealth of information for you regarding scholarships.

As you prepare to fill out the application, you should be aware that most scholarships will want you to write an essay about why you've decided to pursue a nursing career, so you should have this well thought out. They'll also want to know details about your work history, as well as examples of volunteer work, any personal challenges you've overcome (and how you did so), instances where you showed leadership and initiative, etc.

They'll also want a copy of your resume/CV and recommendations.

People who have gone through the scholarship application process before recommend you put together a scholarship "packet" that has several copies of above items organized and handy to you. You should never submit the same essay to different scholarships (each will probably have a slightly different topic anyway), so you'll need to rewrite each one a bit before submission.

You also should know that while scholarships are awarded based on the thoroughness of your application, your essay and your commitment to a nursing career, the organization also may have criteria such as your grades, community service, financial need and, for niche scholarships, how well you fit the niche (scholarships for minorities over the age of 50, for example).

Even if "all" you win are scholarships of a few hundred or few thousand dollars, the effort you've put in applying will have been well worth it. After all, the smaller the amount of any loans your may need to take out -- even if it's just a "few" hundred dollars -- is money (and interest) you don't have to pay back.

by: Jean Henshaw

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