Why are schools interested in recruiting minority students?
Nursing schools need students who will excel as leaders in their communities. Minorities tend to have less access to health care and disproportionate rates of illness when compared to traditionally white areas. Consequently, nursing schools want to recruit individuals who are sensitive to cultural differences and who desire to practice holistic medicine in underrepresented populations. In order to achieve these goals, however, nursing programs need higher numbers of minority applicants. There are over two million nurses in the United States; according to the National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses, 4.9 percent are African American, 3.7 percent are Asian/Pacific Islander, 2.0 percent are Hispanic and 0.5 percent are Native American/Alaskan Native. The statistics follow similar trends at all levels of nursing education: a study by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing found that minority nurses comprise less than 10 percent of the students enrolled in doctoral programs.
