Nursing School Admission Interview: Issues surrounding starting or advancing your nursing career are the focus of this series of career advice posts. Once you are over the first major hurdle of starting or advancing your nursing career (the logistics of applying for nursing school) you’ll have to wait to see if you made the first cut.
Not Every School Interviews
Whether or not you get asked to interview at the school of your choice is dependent on whether the school uses a personal interview as a data point for admission. Many nursing schools do admission interviews and others do not. There are a lot of reasons why schools may not interview potential students. Nursing School Admission Interview
The decision to do admission interviews is usually up to the faculty. In a perfect world, we would always say “Yes!” to interviewing potential students because you can get a better feel about someone when you are sitting face-to-face with them. So ideally, every nursing school would interview their candidates for admission. However, interviewing takes a lot of time and faculty don’t always have room in their schedules to volunteer to participate in admission interviews. Depending on the number of applicants — interviews could last all week!
Associate degree and baccalaureate in nursing programs can have hundreds of applicants for each admission cycle. If you are asked to interview with the admissions team – that’s a good sign! Here are some tips to get you through the process.Nursing School Admission Interview
Outline of the Seven Tips to Prepare for and Be Successful at Your Admission Interview
- Tip #1 The logistics of preparing for the admission interview, as well as smart tips to help you stand out to the interviewer.
- Tip #2 Practical and evidence-based strategies to decrease nervousness and increase self-confidence.
- Tip #3 What to wear to your interview.
- Tip #4 Multiple tips about timing!
- Tip #5 Tips on the types of questions to expect from faculty interviewers for baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral programs – and things to consider when answering them.
- Tip #6 “Kiss of Death” answers to interview questions that will sink your chances for admission!
- Tip #7 Advice on how to make a final good impression in the last minutes of your interview.