Understanding who enters nursing schools and why they choose nursing is essential for the nursing profession to recruit and retain their successors. This study was conducted to examine the characteristics of nursing students and factors influencing their career decision, as compared with non-nursing students. We used public databases of the Korean Education & Employment Panel that followed 4000 high school students in their final year of school. Out of those students, 2456 students entered a college or university and 40 students (39 females and one male) entered a nursing school. Nursing students were compared with 1011 female non-nursing students. Nursing students had lower household income. Nursing students had better high school academic achievement overall and in science. A more studious attitude and lower absenteeism were found among nursing students. For nursing students, employability (55%) followed by aptitude (20%) were the most influential factors in choosing a nursing major, while conversely, aptitude (48%) followed by employability (23%) were most important to non-nursing students. About half of nursing students answered "herself/himself" as the most influential person in choosing nursing, whereas three quarters of non-nursing students did. Nursing students had a higher rate (75%) of satisfaction with their major than non-nursing students (60%).
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