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The Nursing School Scholarship Guide

By Doug Schmitt, NursingSchools.com Staff Writer

Winning a nursing scholarship isn't as hard as it might sound. The key, however, is being able to find one. Despite their abundance, scholarships for funding your nursing education aren't always advertised. It's up to you to find them!

Who Offers Nursing Scholarships?

Nursing scholarships are available from a number of organizations including:

• Educational Institutions
• Community Groups
• Professional Organizations
• Businesses and Corporations
• Charitable Foundations

To find local scholarship opportunities, a good place to start looking may be your local public library. Aditionally, the world wide web is a prime resource to utilize in your search. Several websites are dedicated to searching for scholarships and it is often well worth your time to utilize these resources.

A growing number websites offer scholarship search assistance to students pursuing an education in nursing. Some of the forms that you must fill out are lengthy, but may be well worth the effort in the end. Many of these websites offer other financial aid information about student loans as well as grants available on the federal, state, and local levels. Some popular nursing scholarship websites include:

• CampusRN.com
• DiscoverNursing.com
• FastWeb.com
• FinAid.org
• MinorityNurse.com

Winning Nursing Scholarships

Sometimes finding nursing scholarships is the easy part. Once you've located some sources, it's time to put in the leg-work and try to win the scholarships. This can be a time-consuming process, so it's usually a good decision to try and narrow your pursuits down to those which best suit your nursing education. This is usually easy to decide once you have several sources at your fingertips, based upon the criteria and requirements that need to be met for different nursing scholarships.

Two significant parts of winning nursing scholarships are being applying early and being organized, which go hand-in-hand. When you have determined which scholarships are attainable, apply as soon as possible. You've heard the expression "it's the early bird that gets the worm," and it applies to nursing scholarships too. Many organizations offering nursing scholarships won't even consider late applicants.

The best way to make sure that your application isn't late is by staying organized! Prioritize your nursing scholarship applications by their deadline dates and always make a photocopy before you send it. Additionally, it's a good practice to make a follow up phone call and make sure your application has been received; if it has not, that photocopy you made will come in handy!

Beware of Scholarship Scams!

Unfortunately, there are some unscrupulous individuals that offer dazzling scholarship opportunities for a small fee. We've all heard the term "if it sounds too good to be true it usually is," and in this case, that saying holds true. While offers like these are very enticing, they are almost always some type of marketing hoax.

Students in search of scholarships are warned the Federal Trade Commission about Scholarship Scams and nearly all scholarship search websites do the same. It is advised that those seeking scholarships heed the warnings they are given to avoid pitfalls.

Conclusion

Many nursing scholarships exist for students to take advantage of. Finding and applying for scholarships does not guarantee that you'll win them, but you can't expect to receive financial aid for your nursing education if you don't first try to obtain it. Whether you receive $250 or $25,000, any amount of financial aid is better than no financial aid at all. Scholarships are an excellent way to help pay for your nursing education as you embark on a career in nursing.