Prompt for Personal Essay: Maximum of 1,500 words.

• Explain your interest in nursing practice, using the American Nurses Association’s definition of nursing below. Describe an example of how you observed this role applied and how you might demonstrate this role in your future nursing practice. How did you gain an understanding of the nursing role? Describe your experience. Nursing is the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, facilitation of healing, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human response, and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, groups, communities, and populations (ANA).
• Reflect upon and describe a strength and a weakness you have identified about yourself in the context of your work or volunteer experience. Self-reflection about weaknesses and opportunities for improvement is as important as the identification of a strength. Provide at least one specific example and describe the setting, duration of the experience, skills learned and applied, and how your interactions with others helped clarify your future aspirations as a nurse.
• Cultural humility is an essential aspect of healthcare and nursing. Cultural humility includes three principles: lifelong learning and critical self-reflection, recognize and mitigate power imbalances inherent in our healthcare system, and institutional accountability, where the institution must model and support these. Describe a healthcare experience when you worked with a patient, family, community, or population much different from yourself and where your beliefs and values differed in some way. Describe how you applied these three principles of cultural humility, or what, if anything, you would do differently if faced with a similar situation. If you have not had a personal health experience, you may write about one you know about or a non healthcare related event involving a person or group with different values and beliefs from yours and apply the three principles.

Optional statement: If you think your transcripts do not accurately reflect your abilities and readiness for study in the BSN program, you may explain in an optional statement. Your optional statement should be no more than 500 words.

Template for BSN Application Resume:

The resume familiarizes application reviewers with your experiences and training relevant to the nursing program. You should describe the specific activities and responsibilities of your experiences; do not just list them. You want to present yourself as a good candidate for the profession of nursing and the BSN.

Compose a resume of no more than 1,000 words that is organized according to the categories below. Set the resume up in in a professional manner, with your name and current address at the top.

Include the following information for each experience as relevant:

• Name of agency/hospital/clinic
• Location
• Dates
• Total hours
• Short, detailed description of your activities/responsibilities
• Contact names, phone numbers and/or email addresses when requested (see below)

Include only the following categories:

Healthcare Experience: Volunteer or paid work in a healthcare setting. Include your supervisor’s name, phone number and/or email address.

Community Involvement/Service: Active participation in a group/community, such as a student organization, neighborhood club, church, etc. Include any appropriate contact names, phone numbers, and/or email addresses.

Leadership/Teaching Experiences: Include situations where you have taken the lead, been in charge of a particular effort, an/or have trained individuals or groups. Include any appropriate contact names, phone numbers, and/or emails addresses.

Healthcare Training, Licenses, or Certificates (Include the training date(s), provider(s), and license/certification number(s) when applicable). Examples include:

• CPR training
• HIV/AIDS education
• Licenses/certificates for:
  • nursing assistant certified (CNA)
  • Licensed practical nurse (LPN)
  • Doula
  • Mental health counselor