They knew what they came for, and it wasn’t just the money.

Brittany Contrascere, 18, a senior at Shelby High School with a 3.5 grade average, was among 23 seniors competing for nearly $80,000 in MedCentral College of Nursing scholarships Saturday.

“I’ve been accepted for nursing at Kent State University, but I’m not going,” Contrascere said. “I want a smaller school with smaller classes and a closer relationship with teachers. Nursing is more than a career. It’s a lifestyle.”
Clayton Warrick, 18, a senior at Highland High School at Marengo, said he has been interested in nursing, especially in geriatrics, ever since he helped take care of his ailing grandmother.

“My Mom’s an R.N. and she’s pretty happy with it,” he said.

Saturday’s event at the college was called the Celebration of Academic Excellence and the college invited the top 10 percent of those who applied for fall admission.

President Walter Zielinski, Ph.D., said the offering of so much scholarship money and the idea of competition was part of the total identity makeover of the college.

“In the 1990s we went from a diploma school of nursing to a four-year college. In the last three years we have gone from 75 students to 400,” he said.

Christopher Harris, who handles the admissions process, said the college will soon expand from its old quarters next to MedCentral/Mansfield Hospital to a 20-acre campus at the intersection of Marion and Trimble Roads. He said the scholarships on the table Saturday were added value to interest top-level students.

“The best of the best,” he said.

Harris said the total financial aid package for the school’s nearly 400 students totals $3.7 million this year.

The high school seniors who came to the college Saturday wrote essays ahead of time and then took an analytical match test. They also interviewed with a college faculty member and a current student.

The final part of the competition was a group problem-solving exercise.

Jessica Gerger, 18, of Bucyrus, said the morning testing was nerve wracking. Her essay was about underage consumption of alcohol.

“(It’s) a real problem at my school,” she said.

Gerger said her aim is to become a surgical nurse until she can earn enough money to go back to school and train to be an anesthesiologist.

Kara McClain, 18, of Sycamore, wants to follow in her mother’s professional footsteps.

Registered nurse Barb McClain, works in intensive care at Marion General Hospital. Kara is not sure just what her specialization would be, but she would like to be a nurse practitioner.

That will require more than four years of school.

Scholarship winners will be announced March 1 and the money each earns will be applied toward tuition, which for the current academic year is $9,100.

This entry was posted by Taman Siswa on Monday, February 20, 2006 at 12:47 am and is filed under Education News, Scholarship. Tags: Barb McClain, Brittany Contrascere, Christopher Harris, Clayton Warrick, College, Financial Aid, geriatrics, Highland High School, Jessica Gerger, Kara McClain, Kent State University, Marion General Hospital, Marion Roads, MedCentral College, Scholarship, Shelby High School, Student, Trimble Roads, Walter Zielinski, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.