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• February 24, 2024

Elevating Your Medical School Application: The Ultimate Guide to Secondary Essays

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Introduction

Understanding the Purpose of Secondary Essays

– The Specific Role of Secondary Essays in Medical School Applications

-How Secondary Essays Differ From Primary Applications

– Frequently Asked Questions About Secondary Essays

Identifying Common Themes in Secondary Essay Prompts

-The “Why our school?” Question

-Cultural Competency and Its Relevance

-Addressing “Overcoming Challenges” 

-Discussing “Future Goals”

Navigating Academic Lapses or Breaks

-Addressing Gap Years in Your Secondary Essays

-Demonstrating Growth and Learning During Breaks

Strategies for Effective Secondary Essays

– Timeliness in Submitting Secondaries

– Understanding the Number and Scope of Secondaries Required by Each School

– Planning Your Secondaries Without Exact Prompts

Crafting a Standout Secondary Essay

-Building on Your Primary Application: Strengthening Your Narrative

-Showcasing Your Fit: Aligning with the School’s Mission

-Fine-tuning Your Essay: The Importance of Editing and Review

INTRODUCTION 

Navigating the labyrinth of medical school applications is no easy task. As you juggle GPAs, MCAT scores, and primary applications, you may find yourself confronting an often underestimated but crucial component of the process: the secondary essay. While the primary application showcases your academic prowess and general experience, the secondary essay delves deeper, offering medical schools a window into your unique journey, values, and compatibility with their program.

This important tool in your medical school application arsenal requires careful handling. Crafting a compelling secondary essay for some medical schools involves more than a demonstration of your academic accomplishments; it’s an artful balance of personal narrative, future aspirations, and a dash of persuasion. This is your opportunity to let admissions committees know why you are not just another aspiring medical professional, but a future physician with a distinct voice and a dream that aligns seamlessly with their mission.

Whether you’re discussing a personal challenge, portraying your cultural competency, or illustrating your fit with a particular school, each word you inscribe adds color to your application, transforming you from a list of grades and scores to a vibrant, three-dimensional candidate. With strategic planning, thoughtful reflection, and a little creativity, the secondary essay can become your secret weapon in getting the acceptance letter. 

In the demanding journey to medical school, the secondary essay often gets overshadowed by other application components. However, understanding its purpose and the pivotal role it plays in admissions is key to crafting an application that resonates with the admission committee.

The Specific Role of Secondary Essays in Medical School Applications

The primary function of secondary essays in medical school applications is to showcase your unique character and motivations that extend beyond academic achievements. While your GPA and MCAT score demonstrate your intellectual aptitude, the secondary essay allows the admissions team to connect with you on a personal level. These essays are an opportunity to spotlight your journey, your obstacles, and the lessons learned along the way. They also serve to highlight your understanding of the medical profession and your commitment to the school’s specific mission. 

Crafting a powerful secondary essay is more than just answering a question; it’s about constructing a narrative that underlines your dedication, resilience, and suitability for the medical profession. From discussing a significant challenge to showcasing your cultural competency, these essays offer a platform to prove your readiness for the rigors of medical school and your potential contribution to the field.

How Secondary Essays Differ From Primary Applications

The key difference between primary applications and secondary essays lies in their focus. While primary applications broadly outline your qualifications and experiences, secondary essays dive deeper into the particulars. They aim to unveil the person behind the test scores and grades, giving insight into your character, values, and aspirations. 

In contrast to the more general questions in primary applications, secondary essays tend to be school-specific, asking you to connect your goals and experiences with the mission and values of the institution. These prompts can range from exploring your understanding of a school’s specific approach to healthcare, such as community-focused care, to your plans of utilizing their unique resources or programs. 

Through your secondary essay, you have the chance to demonstrate why you are a fit for medical school in general and why you are a perfect match for their particular program. To do this effectively,you must have a well-researched understanding of the school’s ethos, curriculum, and community initiatives.

Frequently Asked Questions About Secondary Essays

There are a number of frequently asked questions about secondary essays. One of the most common is about timing. While there isn’t a hard and fast rule, it’s recommended to submit your secondary essays within two weeks of receiving them. This shows your keen interest and commitment to the school. 

Another common query relates to the number of essays required. The number can vary from one school to another, with some schools requiring just one or two essays while others might require up to ten. It’s advisable to check the specific requirements of your chosen schools well in advance. 

Another popular question is about what happens if you miss the deadline. This could significantly impact your application, as it may be interpreted as a lack of dedication. Most schools prefer to see a commitment to their institution, which is demonstrated by submitting your secondary essays promptly and of high quality. 

Understanding the purpose and significance of secondary essays in your medical school application is the first step towards crafting a narrative that paints a comprehensive picture of your candidacy, revealing not just a future doctor, but a future leader and innovator in the healthcare field.

In the intricate labyrinth of medical school applications, decoding secondary essay prompts may seem like a challenge. By identifying recurring themes in these prompts, you can strategically prepare your responses to effectively articulate your suitability for a medical career.

The “Why our school?” Question

The “Why our school?” query is one of the most common themes in secondary essay prompts. This question provides the admissions committee with insight into how you resonate with their school’s mission, values, and program specifics. It’s crucial that your response reflects a genuine understanding and alignment with their ethos.

Your answer should reveal a well-researched understanding of the school’s unique features, whether it be their cutting-edge research opportunities, community-focused healthcare programs, or distinctive curriculum. Your goal is to clearly express why you’re a perfect fit for their school and how their resources align with your career aspirations. A tailored response emphasizing your alignment with the institution’s mission is more likely to impress than a generic statement.

Cultural Competency and Its Relevance

Cultural competency is another common theme within secondary essay prompts. Given the global nature of healthcare and the increasing diversity of patient populations, demonstrating your ability to navigate different cultures, beliefs, and lifestyles is vital.

When addressing cultural competency in your secondary essay, consider examples from your personal or professional life where you’ve dealt with diverse groups or managed cultural barriers. Discuss your learnings from these experiences and how they have prepared you to be a more compassionate and effective healthcare provider.

Addressing “Overcoming Challenges”

The theme of “overcoming challenges” is frequently included in secondary essay prompts. Admissions committees are interested in understanding how you react in the face of adversity, as it’s a reflection of your resilience, a trait essential for a demanding career in medicine.

Addressing this theme, focus on a situation where you faced significant adversity, how you approached it, and most importantly, what you learned from it. The emphasis should be on growth and resilience rather than the hardship itself. This gives the admissions committee an insight into your problem-solving abilities and your potential to deal with the rigorous demands of medical school and beyond.

Discussing “Future Goals”

Another recurring theme in secondary essays is “future goals”. Here, you’re expected to  describe your career ambitions clearly and how the specific medical school can help you achieve them.

While discussing future goals, remember to strike a balance between being specific and being flexible. For instance, while you may have a strong interest in oncology now, it’s important to acknowledge the diverse range of experiences that medical school can offer, and that your interest could evolve. Always link your future goals to the specific opportunities the school offers, thereby demonstrating that your plans align with their academic mission.

In summary, a well-crafted secondary essay is an opportunity to express your fit for a specific medical school and the profession at large. By recognizing common themes and understanding how to address them, you’re able to stand out in the competitive medical school application process.

At first glance, academic lapses or breaks might seem like obstacles on your journey to medical school. However, with a strategic approach and well-crafted secondary essay, these seemingly negative points can be turned into areas of growth, learning, and resilience, painting a powerful picture of your medical school candidacy.

Addressing A Gap Year/Gap Years in Your Secondary Essays

The concept of taking a gap year is becoming increasingly common among prospective medical school students. Gap years can provide you with experiences and skills that can ultimately strengthen your application, provided they are communicated effectively in your secondary essay.

When addressing a gap year, honesty and clarity are crucial. Whether you spent your time traveling, volunteering, conducting research, or working, it’s important to articulate why you chose to take a gap year, what you did during this time, and how these experiences have contributed to your personal and professional development. Avoid negative language, focusing instead on the skills acquired, insights gained, and how these experiences have solidified your commitment to a career in medicine.

Remember, medical schools are not just looking for students who have excelled academically; they are looking for well-rounded individuals with diverse experiences and life skills. A gap year can demonstrate your initiative, maturity, and ability to step out of your comfort zone, all of which are valued in the medical profession.

Demonstrating Growth and Learning During Breaks

Apart from gap years, there might be other breaks or lapses in your academic career. Rather than shying away from discussing these periods, it’s crucial to address them head-on in your secondary essays. Whether it be a health issue, personal circumstances, or a decision to pursue other interests, every break has the potential to show your resilience, adaptability, and capacity for growth.

When discussing academic breaks, the focus should be on what you’ve learned from the experience and how you’ve grown during this period. Did you develop new skills? Did you gain a different perspective? Perhaps, you discovered a new area of interest or further cemented your commitment to medicine. Be candid about the circumstances, but place a greater emphasis on your learnings and how they’ve made you a stronger candidate for medical school.

In conclusion, academic lapses or breaks are not red flags in your application if they’re addressed effectively. By focusing on the skills and experiences you’ve gained, your secondary essay can transform these periods into compelling narratives of growth and perseverance, making you stand out in the competitive medical school application process.

Crafting a compelling secondary essay can feel like a daunting task, but it’s an essential component of your medical school application. By strategically approaching this process, you can increase your chances of leaving a lasting impression and making you stand out. 

Timeliness in Submitting Secondaries

In the fast-paced and competitive world of medical school applications, time is of the essence. It’s no different when it comes to secondary essays. Medical schools employ a rolling admissions process, meaning the sooner you submit your secondary essays, the sooner your application can be reviewed.

Being prompt can demonstrate your interest and commitment to the medical school, giving you an edge in the application process. To ensure timeliness, start working on your secondary essays as soon as you receive the prompts. Aim to submit them within two weeks of receipt while ensuring that the quality of your writing is not compromised. While speed is important, it should not overshadow the need for a thoughtful, well-written secondary essay.

Understanding the Number and Scope of Secondaries Required by Each School

Each medical school has its unique requirements for secondary essays, varying in the number and nature of prompts. Understanding these requirements is crucial to tailor your responses effectively. 

Invest time in researching each medical school’s specific needs for secondary essays but also do a lot of self-reflection about your values. Some schools might have a few straightforward questions, while others might present more complex prompts requiring deeper reflection. Some may even offer optional essays, providing an extra opportunity to showcase your qualities and commitment to medicine.

By understanding the scope of what each school expects, you can align your secondary essays with their particular values and expectations, thereby increasing your chances of a favorable outcome.

Planning Your Secondaries Without Exact Prompts

While it’s ideal to have the exact prompts in hand before you start writing, it’s not always possible due to the unpredictable nature of the application process. However, don’t let this uncertainty paralyze you. 

Drawing from past prompts and common themes can help you plan your secondary essays. Reflect on your experiences, lessons learned, and future aspirations in the context of these themes. This preparation will help you respond more quickly and effectively when you receive the actual prompts.

In conclusion, a successful secondary essay requires strategic planning, a clear understanding of each school’s requirements, and timeliness in submission. By focusing on these key areas, your secondary essay can truly enhance your medical school application, showcasing your unique experiences and dedication to the field of medicine.

Understanding how to create an impressive secondary essay is essential in the medical school application process. With the right approach, you can leverage this opportunity to further strengthen your application and leave a lasting impression.

Building on Your Primary Application: Strengthening Your Narrative

The secondary essay is not an isolated piece; it should weave seamlessly into your primary application’s narrative. This gives you the chance to elaborate on critical points in your primary application and bring attention to areas you may have glossed over initially. The secondary essay provides an additional platform to further outline your passion, commitment, and suitability for medical school. You can even discuss your motivations for medicine in a more profound and unique manner, strengthening your overall narrative.

Showcasing Your Fit: Aligning with the School’s Mission

One of the essential aspects of a secondary essay is demonstrating how you align with the medical school’s mission and values. Medical schools aim to admit students who will become excellent doctors, contributing positively to their community and profession. Thus, it is crucial to research the school’s values, culture, and academic offerings to understand what they seek in their students. Then, frame your experiences, interests, and future plans to match these elements, showcasing that you are an excellent fit.

Fine-tuning Your Essay: The Importance of Editing and Review

Finally, putting together a secondary essay is not just about writing; it’s equally about revising, refining, and making sure your narrative is clear, compelling, and error-free. Make use of available resources like essay editing tools, peer reviews, and mentor feedback to refine your essays. This can help you eliminate any grammatical errors, enhance the clarity of your argument, and ensure that your tone resonates with the target audience, in this case, the medical school admission committees.

Creating a well-rounded and engaging secondary essay is no small feat, but the investment of time and effort can significantly boost your chances of admission. By following these strategies, you can create an impressive and persuasive secondary essay that stands out in the competitive landscape of medical school admissions.

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Navigating the medical school application process can be a daunting task, especially when it comes to mastering the intricacies of the secondary essay. This essential piece of your application serves as a crucial platform for you to highlight your strengths, align yourself with the mission of the school, and present a compelling narrative about your journey and future aspirations in the field of medicine.

To create an exceptional secondary essay, it’s critical to understand its purpose, identify common themes in the prompts, and strategize effectively for timely submission. It’s also essential to tackle any challenges or gaps in your academic journey with honesty and maturity, showcasing your ability to learn and grow from experiences. 

Remember, the most standout secondary essays are not just well-written but also demonstrate a clear understanding of the school’s values, highlighting the applicant’s fit and potential contribution to the institution. Moreover, they reflect a cohesive narrative that builds on the primary application and enhances the candidate’s profile.

By applying the strategies discussed in this article, you can turn your secondary essay from a daunting hurdle into a powerful tool that elevates your medical school application. Remember, the journey to medical school is a marathon, not a sprint, and every part of your application, including the secondary essay, plays a pivotal role in crossing the finish line successfully. Good luck with your application journey!

1. What are secondary essays for medical school?

   Secondary essays for medical school serve a unique purpose. They offer applicants a chance to provide the admissions committee with more detailed insight into their character, experiences, and aspirations, thereby complementing the primary application.

2. How long should a medical school secondary essay be?

   The length of a medical school secondary essay can vary, but most schools prefer concise, focused essays. While there is no exact word limit provided in the inserted chunks, keeping the essay to about 500 words or less would be generally advisable.

3. Does everyone get secondaries?

   Not all applicants are sent secondary applications. Some medical schools screen applicants before sending secondaries. However, the specifics can vary between schools, and the inserted chunks do not provide further details.

4. How do you make a secondary essay stand out?

   To make a secondary essay stand out, ensure that it is tailored to each specific school’s mission and values. Show how you fit into their program by providing clear examples and narratives that build on your primary application. Also, make sure to edit and review your essay thoroughly.

5. How late is too late for secondaries?

   Timeliness is crucial when submitting secondary essays. While there is no concrete deadline mentioned in the inserted chunks, it’s generally recommended to submit secondaries as soon as possible after receiving them, while ensuring the quality of your responses.

6. Do secondaries have to be perfect?

   While perfection may not be possible, it’s crucial that secondary essays are of high quality. They need to be well-structured, free of errors, and provide compelling narratives that build upon the primary application.

7. Can you get secondaries without MCAT scores?

    While MCAT scores are a key component of the medical school application, the inserted chunks do not specify if schools send secondary applications without receiving these scores. The process may vary between schools.

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9 Steps to Writing Stellar Medical School Secondary Applications

• By Amit Pandey, M.D.
• June 30, 2022
• Accompanying Video , Pre-med
• Secondary Application

Much of a medical school applicant’s focus prior to submitting the primary application is on their personal statement. This is for good reason, as the personal statement is an important and difficult component of the initial application, which cannot be taken lightly. Equally important though is the secondary application. It is absolutely crucial not to overlook this part of the application process, no matter how drained you may feel.

Secondary essays must be handled with great attention and care. A systematic approach to secondary writing will facilitate this process. This post will outline 9 key strategies to use as well as pitfalls to avoid when crafting a secondary application.

How Secondaries Fit Within the Medical School Application Process

First of all, what is the secondary application? As its name suggests, it is the second component that is sent to an applicant after they submit the primary application. They are also referred to by some programs as the “supplemental application.” Each school has a unique secondary, which contrasts the common primary, which is sent to several schools through AMCAS, AACOMAS, or TMDSAS .

The secondary is a chance for each school to get more information from the applicant through a series of short essay questions. Questions will be unique to each program, though there is a fair amount of overlap among them. There is a spectrum of what secondaries actually look like. Some consist of several short answer questions while a few request a longer essay. The average secondary consists of 2-3 short essays about the applicant’s experiences and interest in that particular school.

For those who submit their primary in June, which is highly recommended, secondary invitations will arrive in late June and early July, continuing throughout the summer thereafter.

For more details on the background and approach, see our other content on secondary applications:

• Medical School Secondary Application Guide
• Secondary Applications – What to Expect and How to Approach Them
• How to Start Medical School Secondaries Early

Strategies for Crafting Outstanding Secondaries

1 | get organized.

Secondary applications can be overwhelming since they arrive in quick succession. Each school will send a different secondary with unique essay questions. This means you will be faced with several, possibly dozens, of applications within a 1-2 month period. This necessitates organization in your approach.

I recommend creating a spreadsheet listing each program with the following components: name of school, date of secondary receipt, submission deadline, number of essay questions, school ranking, and relative ranking of importance to you. See this example based on secondaries from a previous application cycle:

This system will allow you to keep track of each school and organize your approach based on the difficulty of the secondary and the school’s importance to you.

2 | Prioritize Certain Schools

You will have to decide which secondaries to do in which order, as you will likely get several at a time. Using the spreadsheet you created, you will have the information needed to make the decision.

• Top Choice: Consider applying to your top choice or best fit schools first. This will allow you to get ahead of the curve of rolling admissions , maximizing your position to get an interview.
• Most Competitive: Consider applying to the most competitive schools first for the same reason as above.
• Lower Rank: Consider submitting some secondaries for the lower ranked/lower preference schools prior to submitting higher ranked/higher preference ones. This will afford you some practice, possibly making your later secondary essays more effective. Once you have done this and honed your essay writing a bit, focus on the competitive or high-priority programs.
• Most/Difficult Questions: Consider tackling secondaries with a lot of questions first so that you have more content to work with for subsequent secondary applications.

3 | Tailor Your Response to Each Medical School

It is important to be specific in secondary applications. You have the opportunity to research the program and be informed about its strengths and weaknesses and how those pertain to your goals.

Background research and preparation is key for these essays. Take the time to look at the program website. See if you can identify a research, clinical, or community outreach aspect of the program that fits with your personal goals. It will be important in at least some essay responses to specifically answer the question: “Why is this program the right fit for me?” At the same time, be honest—it will show if you embellish or stretch the truth.

Learn more: How to Answer the Medical School Secondary “Why Us?” Question .

Along the lines of preparation and research, you can look up the previous essay prompts for schools you have applied to. This gives you more time to research, brainstorm, and prepare an essay response. This may be particularly useful for your high-priority programs. The Med School Insiders Secondary Database is up-to-date with secondary prompts from each school. It also contains previous high-yield writing tips on how to appropriately answer each prompt.

4 | Outline Prior to Writing

Create an outline prior to writing each essay. Secondaries contain multiple (sometimes several) essay questions each, so it’s important to plan and outline an answer to each question in an individual application before writing.

This will prevent you from repeating ideas or themes on questions that may overlap. You’ll also be better able to plan out a cohesive narrative across your secondary application—one that adds to and enhances your primary application.

Learn How to Develop a Cohesive Narrative for Medical School Applications .

5 | Focus on Quality Over Speed

Do not prioritize speed over quality of content. You must have well-written essays with well-crafted answers. Make sure you answer the specific question being asked, as the prompts will often be less open-ended than the personal statement.

Remember to answer the following overarching questions in your responses:

• What makes me unique?
• Why am I the right fit for this program?
• Why am I interested in this institution in particular?

Weaving these themes into your answers will strengthen your application for that institution specifically and ensure quality content. As much as you may want to send them off quickly and move on to your next set of questions, take time to edit and proofread thoroughly.

6 | DO NOT Repeat Your Primary Application

This is a crucial piece of advice and a common pitfall for applicants. The admissions committee already has all the information in your primary. This is your opportunity to show them something new.

Focus on different strengths and experiences that demonstrate why you are a great candidate. By repeating things, you will lose the chance to sell yourself further while actually hurting the strength of your application. If you do touch on an experience that has been described before, be sure to elaborate or shine a different light on the subject.

7 | Be Careful Copying and Pasting

With so many essay prompts coming in, some will invariably overlap between schools. It is acceptable to carry over common answers to multiple applications, but be very careful when doing so.

If copying and pasting a response, make sure you closely review it and ensure that it adequately answers the question. Furthermore, be sure there is no language or specific component referring to another school, as this is a clear red flag on your application. Tailor the response to the specific program, if possible.

8 | Take the Appropriate Amount of Time

One of my all-time favorite quotes is from legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden: “Be quick but don’t hurry.”

This could not be more applicable here. It is certainly important to be timely with your responses to prevent falling behind in the rolling admissions process, but you also do not want to compromise quality.

It is reasonable to take a few days to complete secondaries, particularly the more important ones. Try to respond within 7-14 days. You can work on multiple applications concurrently to stay fresh, coming back to essays in the next day or so to review.

The key is to ensure high quality. Don’t hurry. Timeliness is only helpful if the application is effective.

9 | Get Feedback

This last piece of advice connects closely with the prior point. Most applicants know that it is crucial to have their personal statement reviewed by others. It may be harder to do so for secondaries due to sheer volume, and therefore soliciting feedback may be overlooked.

While the time constraints and volume of essays is undeniable, I urge you to still seek feedback on secondary essays as often as you can. Particularly for your high-priority programs, your essays should certainly be reviewed by someone with experience in the medical school application process.

Med School Insiders offers Secondary Application Editing Services with rapid turnaround. Our team of doctors provide in-depth, professional, high-yield advice to help perfect your secondary applications. Our editors can assist with any part of the secondary process, from brainstorming ideas all the way to fine-tuning the details of the essay. We provide edits and feedback quickly to make sure you are on time and on target with all of your secondaries.

All of our advisors are real doctors who have served on medical school admissions committees, so they know what it takes to stand out.

Amit Pandey, M.D.

2024 TMDSAS Secondary Application Guide

Learn how to create a stand out TMDSAS secondary application, including secondary deadlines, costs, the types of questions asked, and critical strategies.

2024 AACOMAS Secondary Application Guide

Learn how to create a stand out AACOMAS secondary application, including secondary deadlines, costs, the types of questions asked, and critical strategies.

2024-2025 Medical School Application Timeline and Monthly Schedule

This is the medical school application timeline you should follow, including key dates and an ideal month-by-month preparation schedule.

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How to Answer Common Essay Prompts on Medical School Secondary Applications

Coherently emphasize your unique persona, life journey, motivations and alignment with the medical profession.

Writing Med School Secondary Essays

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Secondary applications offer a unique canvas to paint a more intricate portrait of your character, experiences and aspirations.

As you begin your medical school application journey, the secondary application phase emerges as a pivotal bridge connecting your premedical background with entrance into graduate medical training. These secondary applications, adorned with an often repetitive tapestry of essays, offer a unique canvas to paint a more intricate portrait of your character, experiences and aspirations.

Here's some advice on the art of answering common essay prompts on med school secondary applications, emphasizing the importance of compelling storytelling throughout your application. 

The Purpose of the Secondary Application  

The secondary application is more than a formality – it's an essential step that adds depth to the on-page persona that admissions committees will assess. It is the last chance you have to make a good impression before an interview is offered, so a subpar performance at this stage may be the last chance you have at admission during this cycle.

This phase allows admissions committees to perceive you in a richer light, beyond mere test scores and accolades. Secondary applications typically comprise a cluster of essays, each allowing you to showcase your unique persona. If written well, they can unveil your motivations, life journey and alignment with the medical profession. 

How to Craft a Compelling Secondary Essay Narrative  

Effective essay crafting relies on authentic storytelling. Your goal is not just to convey information, but to resonate emotionally with the reader.

Begin by dedicating some time to introspection. Reflect on your journey, including its highs, lows and turning points. Weave a narrative tapestry that threads together your experiences, values and aspirations. Focus on using vivid imagery and metaphors to engage the reader, making your essays stand out among the many they will read.

Don’t forget to ensure a coherent flow by structuring your essays logically. Again, introspection and planning – using an outline if helpful – are essential. 

How to Approach Common Secondary Essay Prompts  

The essay prompts you'll encounter may frequently be similar, and the temptation to copy and paste similar responses to many programs is extremely high, particularly when many secondary application requests come back at once.

However, be very wary of canned responses that work for many essay types and many different programs. This can sometimes work well, but can also result in essays that feel forced, with content that doesn’t quite answer the question. These types of essay flaws are remarkably easy to spot by experienced admissions committee reviewers. 

Below are three common secondary application essay prompts and advice on how to approach them.

Common Prompt 1: Why Our Medical School? 

It can be challenging to develop a response to this prompt that feels truly unique. In some way, your response will be similar to other applicants’, but how you weave your background, persona and experiences with the school’s mission and goals is how you can stand out.

To master this, delve into meticulous research about the institution. Go beyond the mission statement and goals. What sorts of programs do they offer? What do they choose to highlight multiple times, in prominent places on their website or on their campus? Understand why they are emphasizing various programs, classes, attributes or resources. 

A school is typically less proud of a simulation lab itself and prouder of what that simulation lab allows them to do. Perhaps they train a large number of procedural specialists or match many graduates into careers in trauma.

Work to comprehend a school’s values, unique offerings and cultural fabric . Then work to articulate how your background and experiences align with these facets, without sounding too repetitive of your primary application materials.

The key is to go beyond the surface – pinpoint specific programs, faculty members or initiatives that resonate with your aspirations and to which you are excited to contribute if accepted. 

Common Prompt 2: Diversity  

The "How will you contribute to diversity on campus?" question is a testament to the evolving medical landscape. Embrace your distinct background and be proud to describe how it will allow you to bring a fresh, unique perspective to the campus and the community.

Recognize also that you don’t have to limit yourself to a traditional definition of diversity . You can also share experiences or interests that make you a diverse applicant.

If you have played harp your entire life and feel it speaks to your personality, including attributes that will be beneficial in medicine, write about it with pride. You can be quite sure that your essay is one the reader has not already read 30 times, and that can at times be an advantage in and of itself.

Of course, no matter your topic, look to emphasize how your perspective enriches the educational mosaic, promoting cross-cultural understanding and empathy within the realm of health care. 

Common Prompt 3:  Overcoming Adversity and Demonstrating Resilience  

The "How have you overcome adversity or a challenge?" prompt invites you to display your mental strength and ability to persevere when things get difficult – a sure bet in the medical field. Again, introspection is crucial.

This is not likely to be the place to describe the one time in high school you got a B+, or an argument you’ve had with a roommate. Highlight a significant challenge, narrate its impact on you and expound on your growth journey. 

Do not be shy to include letdowns. A refreshingly honest essay describing rejection from medical school during your first application cycle, and your continued commitment to the long road ahead – including how you have worked to improve as a person and as an aspiring doctor – can be a phenomenal essay if done well.

Make sure to transition to a positive note; don’t seek pity from the reader.

Whatever adversity you choose, remember not to spend too much space describing the actual event. You want to focus most of your energy on discussing the strategies you employed to surmount the obstacle and how the experience honed your resolve and enhanced your ability to excel in the medical sphere. 

Emphasize Your Fit With the Medical School

With all of your secondary essays, be sure to weave a cohesive story together without directly repeating any content in your primary application materials.

Emphasize your fit with each school, and do significant research to discover what type of student they are genuinely interested in attracting to their unique program. Discuss experiences that have shaped you, highlight times when you have demonstrated resilience and remember to take each individual essay seriously.

With strategic introspection and eloquent articulation, these essays will pave the path toward achieving the goals and earning the experiences you have – to this point – only written about.

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Need a guide through the murky medical school admissions process? Medical School Admissions Doctor offers a roundup of expert and student voices in the field to guide prospective students in their pursuit of a medical education. The blog is currently authored by Dr. Ali Loftizadeh, Dr. Azadeh Salek and Zach Grimmett at Admissions Helpers , a provider of medical school application services; Dr. Renee Marinelli at MedSchoolCoach , a premed and med school admissions consultancy; Dr. Rachel Rizal, co-founder and CEO of the Cracking Med School Admissions consultancy; Dr. Cassie Kosarec at Varsity Tutors , an advertiser with U.S. News & World Report; Dr. Kathleen Franco, a med school emeritus professor and psychiatrist; and Liana Meffert, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Iowa's Carver College of Medicine and a writer for Admissions Helpers. Got a question? Email [email protected] .

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Medical School Secondary Essay Prompts: The Most Common Questions to Prepare For

Padya Paramita

June 12, 2019

You’ve uploaded your transcript, MCAT score, extracurricular information, personal statement, and finally clicked the submit button on the AMCAS . You might want to use the next couple of weeks to relax. I wouldn’t recommend it, considering your medical school secondary essays are right around the corner. Schools cut off a big portion of the application pool between the secondary and the interview stages, so don’t take the medical school secondary essay prompts lightly!

Although medical schools don’t typically begin sending out secondary applications until early July, you shouldn’t just sit around and start reading a 400-page novel for fun while you wait. Rather, prepare yourself to have common essay topics ready for the minute the prompts are sent out. Below, I’ve outlined the general timeline of secondaries, how to keep yourself organized in the process, the most common medical school secondary essay prompts and how to approach them, recent secondary questions at MD programs, and overall dos and don’ts when writing your medical school secondaries.

How to Prepare for Secondaries: The Basics

Secondary essay prompts are demanding and ask you questions that allow you to reflect on your experiences, career goals in medicine, and challenges that you have overcome. Medical schools want to know why you’re interested in their program and how they might be a good fit for you and vice versa. The number of applicants who receive secondaries varies from school to school. Most schools automatically send out secondaries upon submission of the primary to all applicants, while others ensure students have passed an initial screening and met the GPA and MCAT cutoffs (typically set at a 3.0 GPA and 500 MCAT score) before sending out secondary essays.

First and foremost, you should not put off submitting your secondaries, because your application is not considered complete without them. At most schools, your AMCAS will not even be read until you’ve submitted this portion as well, so don’t delay. Medical schools don’t usually state a deadline for the secondary essays but if they do, absolutely adhere to it, or all your hard work will go to waste.

Second, medical schools view the time you take to turn in your secondaries as a direct reflection of your interest in their program. If there’s no deadline, you should be looking to complete them and send them back within two weeks of receiving them. The two week turnaround time is long enough to be meticulous, but short enough to show eagerness. If you sit around and take over a month to send back your secondaries, don’t expect an interview. But if you take time to think about possible medical school secondary essay prompts and how you might prepare for them in advance, you won’t be scrambling at the last minute.

Secondaries Organization & Game Plan

In order to keep yourself organized and monitor the secondaries for each school, start a spreadsheet. It should detail whether you’ve received the prompt, whether you’ve paid the secondary application fee ($50 or $75, depending on the school), the method to submit, the essay topic(s), and whether you’ve submitted the essays or not. This way, you can keep track of your progress and what remains to be covered for each school, avoiding additional stress during this high pressure period.

The best way to prepare for your secondary essays is to simply start writing about yourself. While there’s no way to figure out the secondary essay prompts in advance for all your schools, you can generate tailored, well-written essays far more easily if you go ahead and tackle traditional essay topics. Medical school secondary essay prompts often follow a general pattern that you can readily get a sense of. The word or character limit for the secondary essays is set by each school, and could range anything from 2000 to 4000 characters.

The secondaries ask for essays about you , so keep in mind your most impressive qualifications, why you want to attend medical school, and how each school might be able to help you achieve your goals. You want to choose topics which bring out the best version of yourself. Remember, the people reading your applications are humans. You don’t want to bore them. You want to stand out as a unique individual in the process. It can come in handy to keep a separate document outlining your reasons for pursuing medicine and the unique opportunities at each medical school that resonate with your passions within the field. This can help you get the ball rolling so you’re ready to conquer medical school secondary essay prompts .

Examples of Common Medical School Secondary Essay Prompts

You should put approximately 25-30 medical schools on your list to stay on the safer side of the intensely competitive medical school admissions process. Schools often have a range of 2-9 secondary questions for you to answer. Take a moment to do the math. This means that you could end up answering over seventy medical school secondary essay prompts . You only had to write one personal statement in the primary, so the number of essays you have to write for the secondary stage can seem like a massive mountain to climb.

The good news is, there will be some overlap in the kinds of prompts among the schools. That said, you should expect each school’s essays to need quite a bit of tweaking to adjust to specific prompts. And don’t expect to be able to reuse every essay you write! But preparing for typical prompts is a strategic starting point. Listed below are a number of secondary essay prompts which are common among many medical schools:

• Explain why you wish to attend this particular medical school.
• What diverse or unique element will you bring to this medical school community?
• If you graduated before you applied, summarize your activities since you graduated.
• Describe a challenge you overcame or a time when you faced an ethical dilemma and how you learned and grew from that experience.
• Who is the most influential person in your life and why?
• Describe a meaningful leadership position.
• What are your goals as a physician?
• What research or independent academic work have you completed, and what did you accomplish or learn?
• What do you think is the role of a physician in a community?
• Describe a humbling experience and what you learned from it.
• Elaborate on an area of interest outside of medicine (e.g., hobbies).
• Describe the characteristics that make you who you are. How will they impact your success as a medical student and physician?
• From the list of activities and experiences listed in your AMCAS application, please select one that has most impacted your decision to enter medicine.
• Is there any other information you would like to share with the admissions committee?

Medical schools often send some combination of these prompts, or similar questions relating to your identity, meaningful experiences, or goals. So even if you don’t know exactly which medical school secondary essay prompts to expect, the list above should give you a clearer picture of what to prepare for.

How to Tackle the Most Common Prompts

Now that you’ve seen the classic questions medical schools ask for secondaries, it’s time to analyze how to answer them. Generally, if you look at the pattern of the prompts, admissions committees want to know who you are, why you’re motivated to pursue medicine, and how you would fit in at their school.

To further break down the ways schools specify what they’re looking for, let’s look at some questions based off of the common medical school secondary essay prompts :

“Why This School” Essays

Take a look at the following “why this school” prompts from three different medical schools in 2018, and the way they framed their questions:

• Georgetown University - Why have you chosen to apply to the Georgetown University School of Medicine and how do you think your education at Georgetown will prepare you to become a physician for the future? (1 page, formatted at your discretion)
• Mayo Clinic - Why are you specifically interested in pursuing your medical education at Mayo Clinic School of Medicine even if you gain acceptances to other highly ranked medical schools? (500 words or less)
• University of Toledo - Briefly describe why you wish to attend medical school at The University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences. As part of this essay, please discuss, if applicable, any personal connection you may have to The University of Toledo, the UT College of Medicine and Life Sciences/former Medical College of Ohio, the city of Toledo, or the region of Northwest Ohio. (300 words)

Success with these questions lies in actually taking the time to do research on your school list. Make sure you know exactly what the programs offer - you’ve applied to the school for a reason. What are the things you like the most about it and how will it help your goals? Emphasize your demonstrated interest in the school as specifically as possible - detail what about the program’s mission appeals to you the most and fits your personality and plans. Finally, make sure you carefully read the entire prompt and answer all parts. While the objective of the questions is the same (to find out why you have chosen the school), each school puts its own unique spin to the question.

In the past, Georgetown has wanted to know how your training as a physician would benefit from a Georgetown education. To tackle this prompt, jot down specialties only Georgetown offers - faculty, courses, research opportunities - which appeal to you. Don’t pick every single thing off the website. Select a special few details relevant to your interests within medicine and talk about how learning from a certain professor, for example, aligns with your goals.

Mayo’s prompt last year was similar, but asked why you would choose them despite acceptances to other top schools. You definitely need to be as specific as possible in your response. Admissions committee members obviously want accepted students to enroll. They want to know that you’re not applying just for the sake of trying to attend a highly ranked school. So this is the time to demonstrate your knowledge of the program and to feature the opportunities you can take advantage of only at Mayo

Toledo’s “why this school” prompt in 2018 wanted to know about personal connections to the school, the city of Toledo, or the entire region of northwestern Ohio. Public medical schools pay special attention to in-state applicants, and love to see candidates convey interest in the regional appeal of the school. Whether you’ve learned fun facts from a relative who’s an alum or you have a strong connection to the food in the area, expressing concrete details about what you love about the medical school’s environment can help admissions committee members gain an added perspective on you.

“How Will You Contribute to Our School” Essays

Check out a couple examples of medical school secondary essay prompts from last year which ask about how you will contribute to MD programs:

• New York University - The Admissions Committee uses a holistic approach to evaluate a wide range of student qualities and life experiences that are complementary to demonstrated academic excellence, strong interpersonal skills and leadership potential. What unique qualities or experiences do you possess that would contribute specifically to the NYU School of Medicine community (2500 characters max)?
• University of Nevada - Describe how your background and future goals will contribute to the mission of the University of Nevada School of Medicine.

To answer the “how will you contribute to our school prompts,” you need to think about the theme of your own application, and the theme of the institution itself.

Your essay could follow an application persona, or a recurrent theme throughout to help you stand out from other applicants. For example, your application persona could be that you are an aspiring surgeon who was motivated to be a doctor after helping victims of a natural disaster. Keeping your persona in mind can help you decide which of your qualifications and experiences to highlight in such an essay. What do you bring to the table that other applicants don’t? What are you passionate about? What parts of medicine excite you?

Admissions committees want to understand how they’ll specifically benefit from your unique contributions. Think about what each school is known for. How does its mission align with what you hope to achieve from an education in medicine? Don’t get carried away, just talk about your perspective.

“Describe a Challenge You’ve Faced” Essays

Often, medical schools want to know about how you respond to challenges, as shown in the prompts below:

• University of Chicago - Share with us a difficult or challenging situation you have encountered and how you dealt with it. In your response, identify both the coping skills you called upon to resolve the dilemma, and the support person(s) from whom you sought advice. We suggest that you limit your essay to about 550 words.
• Harvard University - If there is an important aspect of your personal background or identity, not addressed elsewhere in the application, that you would like to share with the Committee, we invite you to do so here. Many applicants will not need to answer this question. Examples might include significant challenges in access to education, unusual socioeconomic factors, identification with a minority culture, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity. Briefly explain how such factors have influenced your motivation for a career in medicine. (4000 characters maximum)
• University of Kansas - Beyond academics (grades and MCATs), describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to address this challenge.

When answering prompts that fall under the “challenge” umbrella, you should do a little bit of self-reflection. The applicants you’re going up against may have faced far greater adversity than you have - whether in the loss of their home or facing prejudice of some kind in society. This type of question may be optional, for example, in the case of Harvard’s 2018 secondaries. But, if the question is not optional, and you’re not sure that you’ve really faced many challenges, do not exaggerate your adversity . Grasping at straws for adversity will backfire and show that you lack perspective.

Medical schools want their classes to be comprised of exceptional individuals, each of whom should bring something different to the class. Instead of telling stories that aren’t yours, focus on challenges you might have faced in a unique passion or avocation. Try talking about an obstacle you faced in your clinical adventures or while leading a project for your work or internship.

Dos and Don’ts

Now that you’ve familiarized yourself with what you can expect out of your medical school secondary essay prompts , it’s time to go over some dos and don’ts to make sure you avoid common mistakes and stay on track to write standout secondaries.

Think About Your Primary Application

When answering medical school secondary essay prompts , it’s important that what you wrote in your primary application stays in the front of your mind. You definitely should not repeat experiences that you already outlined in your personal statement or activities list. But, if there’s something you didn’t get to talk about in depth - such as an important part of your cultural background or an impressive research internship, this is the place to write about it!

Ensure That You’ve Followed All Directions

A good place to start the secondary process is to read the prompts very carefully. Identify the task at hand and ask yourself: what is the question really asking? You can treat the task as a to-do list, and elaborate on each point on the list to form an outline of your essay. Look through the prompt guidelines - word limit, page limit, formatting requirements - and ensure you stick to them.

You might be reusing bits and pieces from one school’s essay for another. That’s okay. But make sure you’ve edited it to fully answer the latter school’s question and formatting requirements. If admissions committees see that you haven’t completed all parts of the prompt, or that you’ve crossed the limit or format guidelines, it’s an automatic red flag. You will not receive an interview if you fail to meet schools’ instructions. It might seem like a minor thing, but such mistakes definitely happen, especially when you’re writing so many applications.

Leave Yourself Plenty of Time to Edit

You must appear professional on your medical school application, and secondaries are an important part of that. Once you’ve finished writing your essays, edit them as much as possible. There will be a lot of essays to go through and you’ll be under a time crunch, but you need to read and reread them to ensure quality. Make sure you avoid run-on sentences and that you’ve made each word count. Careless errors such as grammatical or spelling mistakes will not reflect well on you.

Think Strategically

The medical school application process is notoriously cutthroat. You have to pick and choose your battles. When answering medical school secondary essay prompts , you should not answer all your reach schools first. You should focus on the schools you’re most likely to attend in order to demonstrate interest, but don’t be too ambitious. Check to see which of the schools on your list - especially schools you’re more likely to get into - have secondary prompts that can be easily answered with solid responses that you have already prepared. You definitely want to be smart in the balance of submitting secondaries both promptly and strategically.

Provide Mixed Messages

Remember, you need to keep your primary application in mind when filling out your secondaries. If some bit of information in your secondary application doesn’t match what you’ve already said in your primary application, admissions committees will notice. Don’t write something in your essays that contradicts what you’ve stated as a value or credential previously.

Writing about a topic you can’t speak in depth about might lead to trouble on multiple fronts. If you do so in your essay and you’re asked about it in an interview, you will be in trouble. In a similar vein, you shouldn’t highlight something that was a minimal experience. You will be competing against brilliant students who have versatile stories to tell. Talking about a minor burn you got three years ago might not be a great way to fill up the space allotted for your secondaries.

Write About a High School Experience  

You’re an adult now. You’ve gone through years of life experiences that have greatly impacted your motivation to become a doctor. Unless it was something extremely formative and absolutely integral for your medical school application, don’t waste your secondaries reliving your high school glory days.

Use Flowery Language

This is not a poetry competition and neither are you studying for the SAT. There’s no need to be pretentious and show off your vocabulary on your medical school secondaries. While it’s good to mix up your word usage and not repeat, don’t go all out with the metaphors or thesaurus.com. Admissions committees want to know more about you and what you’ll bring to their program. Don’t take the attention away from the story by adding too many long words that ultimately don’t make sense.

Medical school secondary essay prompts offer you the challenge of answering specific questions about yourself and your career interests within a short span of time. But, if you anticipate the kinds of questions headed your way and prepare in advance, with a stroke of luck, you might even have a few first drafts before the secondaries even come out. You’ve got a lot of writing coming up, so the sooner you start working on the common medical school secondary essay prompts , the better. And if you get an interview, and eventually accepted into medical school, the extra effort you put into working on your secondary essays will all be worth it.

General FAQ

Do all applicants get secondaries.

The number of applicants who receive secondaries varies from school to school. Most schools automatically send out secondaries upon submission of the primary to all applicants, while others ensure students have passed an initial screening and met the GPA and MCAT cutoffs.

When is the right time to turn in my secondary essays?

Medical schools view the time you take to turn in your secondaries as a direct reflection of your interest in their program. If there’s no deadline, you should be looking to complete them and send them back within two weeks of receiving them.

What are some common secondary essay prompts?

Some of the most common prompts include: “explain why you wish to attend this particular medical school,” “what diverse or unique element will you bring to this medical school community,” and “if you graduated before you applied, summarize your activities since you graduated.”

How many prompts do I have to answer per school?

Schools often have a range of 2-9 secondary questions for you to answer.

Tags : applying to medical school , medical school essays , medical school secondary essay prompts , medical school secondary essays , medical school secondarys

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Tips for Medical School Secondary Applications

Posted in: Applying to Medical School

The purpose of medical school secondary applications is to provide medical schools with additional information about applicants beyond what is included in the primary application. This can include personal statements, letters of recommendation, and transcripts.

A Guide to Approaching Medical School Secondary Applications

Medical schools use the additional information on secondary applications to further evaluate applicants and determine which candidates are the best fit for their program.

Completing secondary applications can be a challenging but important step in the medical school admissions process. By following these tips, you can effectively showcase your strengths and interests to medical schools and increase your chances of being accepted.

COMMON FRUSTRATIONS WITH SECONDARY APPLICATIONS

Here are the major problems people have:

•  Way too many of them! Medical schools all of a sudden inundate you with applications all at one time. You are now looking at a stack of 20 applications, each with 1-6 essays on them.
• Generic questions like “why do you want to come here?” You will feel like saying, cause it’s a medical school! Why else?! Then you will start writing the responses and inevitably copy information from the school’s website. At this point, you may feel as though everyone is doing the same thing.
• Repeat questions like “tell us about your most important activities.” You may think did I not just do that on my AMCAS? Why am I doing that again?!

TIPS TO MAKE SECONDARY APPLICATIONS EASIER

Now these are just some of the frustrations that will come with writing secondary applications. But take a deep breath and you will get through it. Here are some things to keep in mind:

Read the instructions carefully: It is important to pay attention to the specific requirements for each secondary application. Some schools may have specific prompts for essays, while others may ask for additional information about your experiences or goals. Make sure you understand what is expected of you before you begin.

Start early: Secondary applications can take a significant amount of time to complete, so it is important to start working on them as soon as possible. This will help ensure that you have enough time to thoughtfully complete each application and avoid feeling rushed or stressed.

Tailor your responses: While you may be tempted to copy and paste your responses from one application to the next, it is important to tailor your responses to each school. Show that you have done your research and are genuinely interested in attending that particular program.

Proofread: As with any written communication, it is important to proofread your secondary application for errors. A well-written application can make a strong impression, while a poorly written one can harm your chances of being accepted.

TURN AROUND TIME FOR SECONDARY APPLICATIONS

It is generally recommended to complete and submit your medical school secondary applications as soon as possible, as many schools have rolling admissions and may make decisions on a rolling basis. However, it is also important to make sure that you have enough time to carefully complete each application and tailor your responses to each school.

A good rule of thumb is to aim to complete and submit each secondary application within one to two weeks of receiving it. This will allow you enough time to thoroughly review the prompts and requirements, gather any necessary materials, and craft well-written responses.

However, it is important to keep in mind that some schools may have specific deadlines for secondary applications, so be sure to check the requirements for each school to which you have applied. If you need more time to complete a secondary application due to other commitments or unforeseen circumstances, it is generally acceptable to request an extension. However, you should do so as soon as possible and provide a reasonable explanation for your request.

Overall, it is important to prioritize the completion of your secondary applications and to be proactive in managing your time and meeting any deadlines. This will demonstrate your commitment to the medical school admissions process and increase your chances of being accepted.

HOW TO PRIORITIZE SECONDARY APPLICATIONS

Another question that comes up all the time is “which ones should I submit first?” It is a relevant question and the answer is really whichever one you can. 

I would tackle those that you think are really easy (i.e. have no essays or maybe just one really short one) and get them out of the way. Then, move onto schools you are targeting. If UCSD is your dream school, make sure you are submitting your application to them as soon as possible. If there is a particular school that has a really hard question, you can come back to it with a “fresher” mind at a later time.

tips for answering common medical school secondary questions 

• What is your most important relationship? Who is the most influential person in your life?

This question should be relatively easy. You can, of course, choose a parent or relative, but also think outside the box to perhaps a teacher or a professor. The most important part of this, and the key to answering all questions, is not the particular person you choose or even the relationship you have with them, but to keep the reader entertained through the paragraph. If you write “my dad is important to me because he was a doctor and he showed me how to take care of patients,” it will not get you anywhere.

• Most important activity

These questions are annoying. You just spent your AMCAS writing about your three most important activities and now they are asking you for more. There are a few approaches to take. If one activity really is most important and you wrote about it as one of your three most meaningful ones, you can write about it again. If there is something dominant in your life, write about that (i.e. you are a classical musician on the side). Things I would avoid are shadowing experiences. Really think about how important that shadowing experience was? Did following around a doctor really change your life?

A straightforward question that you can talk about your most significant research activities. Make sure to give the reader a framework in the first few sentences – show them what the big picture of your project or lab was. Here is a do and do not:

– DO NOT start a paragraph with: “I studied receptor RLAJKNCH – r897 which showed that there was no uptake in expression when compared to JLKASN – 8343 when exposed to methyl-alpha-dioxide.” – DO: “The purpose of our research was to understand how toxins affect cells, which in turn could be used to eventually try to come up with novel drugs. In particular, I studied…..”

• Why do you want to come to school X?

A very popular question and one students often have trouble answering. You should research a school’s website to see what they think they offer, but your SHOULD NOT directly copy from there and say I really love your research pathway and early clinical exposure. If you say just that, your essay will be exactly the same as everyone else’s’.

Instead, relate back to your experiences and how that fits in with a particular school. You could say something along the lines of “as an undergraduate, I was exposed to the world of clinical research through my project on depression. With Columbia’s required research pathway, I hope to continue this or similar projects. The Psychiatry Department at Columbia is known for its prowess in studying hospitalized patients and I know I could contribute to this.” (that is not a great sentence, but the idea is that you want to talk about how YOU fit into a school, not just what the school offers.

When answering the “why this school” question for medical school secondaries, it is important to show that you have done your research and have a genuine interest in the school. Here are a few tips for approaching this question:

• Highlight specific programs or opportunities at the school that appeal to you: This could be a particular research focus, clinical training opportunities, or student organizations that align with your interests.
• Explain how the school’s mission and values align with your own: This will show that you have a genuine connection to the school and are a good fit for their community.
• Mention any connections you have to the school: This could be personal connections, such as having family members who graduated from the school, or professional connections, such as having shadowed a physician affiliated with the school.
• Discuss any specific goals you have that can be achieved at this school: This could include your desire to work with specific faculty members or to participate in certain research or clinical training programs.
• Long term goals

You do not have to have chosen a specialty or fellowship and write about it here. Instead, you can say you are leaning towards x and y because you have been exposed to it in the past. Or you know you love working with children, and so you’d love to do pediatrics. Again, think about how your past experiences fit into your future goals. If you have done global health trips, perhaps you want to mention that and say you eventually would love to be doing international work.

• Diversity. What do you add to the class?

Remember, diversity comes in many flavors. Skin color is certainly one of them, but there is so much more. Let’s be honest, if you are an Asian, you are not diverse when it comes to applying to medical school. Same thing if you are Caucasian. But how about diversity in your field of study in college? In your interests? In your talents as a musician? Or a computer programmer? If you really cannot think of a single thing that distinguishes you, you may be in the wrong field. There is something interesting about you. Find it.

• Describe a challenge you have overcome

Lots of students say I’ve never had a challenge. While it may be true you have not grown up homeless, that does not mean there isn’t something out there that has been a hiccup in your life. That said, you should not overplay the time you broke your little toe and couldn’t get to class on time. Examples may include a death in the family, a time when you had to adjust to a new life outside of the home, a time when your brother was going through depression and you had to help him, etc.

The above are simply ideas! The real important points to remember again are:

• Keep it interesting. Boring writing gets looked over.
• Relate what you are saying back to things you have done or genuinely want to do.
• Follow instructions.

Medical School Secondary Essay Examples

Below, we provide 4 separate sample secondary essays for medical school!

Example 1: Experience Focused As a volunteer at the local hospital, I have had the opportunity to observe and assist healthcare professionals as they care for their patients. This experience has only further cemented my desire to become a physician. During my time volunteering, I was struck by the compassion and dedication of the doctors and nurses I worked with. Whether it was a small act of kindness, such as holding a patient’s hand while they received treatment, or a more involved task, such as coordinating care between different departments, the healthcare professionals I encountered consistently went above and beyond to ensure that their patients received the best possible care. In addition to witnessing the compassion of healthcare professionals, I also had the opportunity to see the tangible impact that their work has on the lives of their patients. Whether it was helping to manage a patient’s chronic condition or providing emergency care in a crisis situation, the doctors and nurses I worked with had the ability to make a real difference in the lives of their patients. This experience has further motivated me to pursue a career in medicine. I am confident that I have the compassion and dedication necessary to be an effective physician, and I am eager to have the opportunity to make a positive impact on the lives of others through my work. Overall, my service work experience has strengthened my desire to become a physician and has given me the motivation and inspiration to pursue this career path. I am confident that, with hard work and dedication, I can make a meaningful contribution to the field of medicine. Example 2: Diversity Focused (300 words) As a first-generation immigrant, I have always been aware of the cultural barriers that can prevent individuals from accessing quality healthcare. Growing up, I saw firsthand the difficulties that my parents and other members of my community faced when seeking medical care, and this experience has played a significant role in shaping my desire to become a physician. I am deeply committed to increasing access to healthcare for underserved communities and to providing culturally competent care to patients from diverse backgrounds. I believe that having a diverse physician workforce is essential to meeting the healthcare needs of our country’s increasingly diverse population. During my undergraduate studies, I had the opportunity to work with a local organization that provided free healthcare services to underserved communities. This experience further solidified my desire to pursue a career in medicine and inspired me to become an advocate for improving healthcare access for marginalized populations. I am confident that my cultural background and experiences have prepared me to be a compassionate and culturally sensitive physician. I am excited about the opportunity to attend [Medical School] and to contribute to the school’s efforts to increase diversity in the healthcare workforce. [Medical School] is known for its commitment to diversity and inclusivity, and I believe that this is the perfect place for me to continue my journey towards becoming a physician who is dedicated to improving healthcare access for all. Example 3: Research Focused (300 words) As an undergraduate, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct research in the field of [medical field]. This experience has not only taught me valuable scientific skills, but it has also strengthened my desire to pursue a career in medicine. During my research experience, I had the chance to work with a team of scientists who were dedicated to finding solutions to some of the most pressing health challenges of our time. I was inspired by their passion and dedication, and I came to see research as a powerful tool for improving the lives of patients. In addition to gaining scientific skills, my research experience also taught me the importance of collaboration and teamwork. I learned how to work effectively with others to achieve a common goal, and I developed strong communication skills that I believe will be essential as a physician. I am confident that my research experience has prepared me to be a strong and dedicated physician. I am excited about the opportunity to attend [Medical School] and to continue my journey towards a career in medicine. I believe that [Medical School] is the perfect place for me to continue my education and to develop my skills as a researcher and a physician. Example 4: Health Care Challenges (500 words) As a future physician, I believe it is important to be aware of the challenges that the healthcare system faces today. There are many complex issues that are facing the healthcare industry, and it will be up to my generation of physicians to help find solutions and improve the system for the benefit of our patients. One of the biggest challenges in healthcare today is access to care. Despite advances in medicine and technology, many individuals still struggle to access the healthcare they need, especially those in underserved or marginalized communities. This can be due to a variety of factors, including lack of insurance coverage, language barriers, and geographic isolation. Another major challenge in healthcare is the high cost of care. The United States has one of the most expensive healthcare systems in the world, and many individuals struggle to afford the cost of medical treatment. This can result in individuals delaying or avoiding seeking care, which can lead to more serious health problems down the line. A third challenge in healthcare is the shortage of healthcare providers, particularly in certain areas of the country. This can result in long wait times for appointments and difficulty accessing care when it is needed. Finally, healthcare disparities continue to be a significant challenge in the U.S. Many marginalized communities, including racial and ethnic minorities and LGBTQ+ individuals, continue to face barriers to care and often have poorer health outcomes as a result. As a future physician, I am committed to addressing these challenges and working to improve the healthcare system for the benefit of all patients. I believe that by increasing access to care, reducing the cost of care, addressing provider shortages, and addressing healthcare disparities, we can make meaningful progress in improving the health of our communities.

Reusing Secondary Essays from Prior Applications – Should I Do It?

It is generally not advisable to reuse secondary essays from a previous application for medical school. While some of the information in your previous essays may still be relevant, it is important to tailor your application to the specific school you are applying to. Each medical school has its own mission, values, programs, and opportunities, and it is important to highlight how you align with and will fit into their specific community.

Additionally, it is possible that the school you are applying to this time around may have different essay prompts or may be looking for different information in their secondary essays. It is important to carefully read and follow the prompts provided by each school and to tailor your responses to meet their specific needs and requirements.

Think of this from the perspective of an admissions committee member. If you were rejected a prior year, what have you done to improve your application? Are you a different person, a person who has grown? If so, you obviously want to highlight that! Remember, you weren’t accepted the first year for a reason. It is generally better to take the time to write fresh essays for each school rather than trying to reuse old ones. Sometimes, you may feel your answers are still very relevant, and in that case all good!

Frequently Asked Questions about Medical School Secondary Applications

Do all applicants get secondary applications from schools.

Not all applicants will receive secondary applications from medical schools. Medical schools generally have a limited number of spots available and receive a large number of applications, so they often use a selective process to choose which applicants to invite to complete secondary applications.

There are a number of factors that medical schools consider when deciding which applicants to invite to complete secondary applications, including grades, test scores, recommendations, and personal statements. Some schools may also consider additional factors, such as an applicant’s involvement in extracurricular activities, service work, or research experience.

If you are invited to complete a secondary application, it is generally a good sign that the school is interested in your application and is considering you for admission. However, it is important to note that receiving a secondary application does not guarantee admission, and you will still need to demonstrate your fit for the school and your potential as a future physician through your responses to the secondary prompts.

How many prompts does each school have?

The number of essay prompts that each medical school has for secondaries can vary. Some schools may have just one or two prompts, while others may have several. It is important to carefully read and follow the prompts provided by each school and to tailor your responses to meet their specific needs and requirements.

Final Thoughts on Secondaries

The medical school secondary essays are your chance to tell the admissions committee more about you as an individual. These questions vary from prompts that ask you to write about a significant experience, to those that inquire about your motivations for pursuing a career in medicine. No matter what the prompt asks, make sure to take the time to craft thoughtful and engaging responses that give reviewers a window into who you are beyond your test scores and GPA. And once you submit your applications, don’t forget to prepare for your interviews!

Get Secondary Editing Support from MedSchoolCoach

If you need help editing your secondary applications, the Physician Advisors at MedSchoolCoach will help you brainstorm content while our Writing Advisors will help you draft, revise, and edit your essays. They know how significant secondary applications are and as a result, work tirelessly to ensure you get the attention needed to create a masterpiece.

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How Medical Schools Review Applications

New section.

You know the time and effort you put into your medical school and secondary applications, but what happens after you click submit? Here is what the process looks like for medical school admissions officers and staff.

What are admissions officers looking for?

While expectations, missions, policies, and requirements are unique to each medical school, many schools look for students who demonstrate an ability to handle challenging coursework and have the personal attributes needed to work with people. It’s important for applicants to show that they’ve done well in upper-level science courses, and “doing well on the MCAT ® exam shows that you can handle medical school coursework,” says Irene Tise, admissions officer in the Office of Medical Student Admissions at Wake Forest School of Medicine.

Lori Nicolaysen, former assistant dean of admissions at Weill Cornell Medical College, adds that they “seek students who have also demonstrated exceptional personal initiative. Such initiative may take the form of leadership, creativity, research, community service, motivation, or other life experiences.”

Mickey Foxwell, MD, former associate dean for admissions at University of Maryland School of Medicine says, “Each applicant needs to be as sure as possible that this is what they want to do with their life. That motivation can be demonstrated through academic achievement and also through exposure to clinical medicine and community service. Does the applicant know what it’s like to take care of someone? Does the applicant have an idea about the advantages and disadvantages of a career in medicine?”

Schools also look for evidence that an applicant has demonstrated good judgment, compassion, and selflessness — qualities every physician should embody. Applicants can show evidence through their involvement in extracurricular activities, letters of evaluation, and their personal statement.

What happens when my application is received?

Each medical school has its own nuanced process for reviewing applications. For example, “Weill Cornell invites all applicants to complete the secondary application,” Ms. Nicolaysen shares. “Once the file is complete (including secondary application, letters of evaluation, and MCAT scores), the application is moved to screening. A number of experienced admissions committee members serve as screeners. Although Weill Cornell has fourth-year medical students on the admissions committee, the students do not screen applications.”

Dr. Raquel D. Arias, associate dean of admissions at Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, explains, “In order to give every candidate a fair review of their personal qualities and accomplishments, a single screener evaluates all candidates with a particular MCAT score at our school. This controls for the inevitable influence that this important test has on the process. An admissions officer reads every application submitted to the school.” (There is no automated filter.)

At Wake Forest School of Medicine, Ms. Tise explains, “Because of the large number of applications we receive, we use a formula that separates and groups applicants based on their primary AMCAS ®  application. The groups are: 1) Proceed and send a secondary application, (2) Hold for MCAT score or other extenuating circumstances and notify candidates, and (3) Risk, based on academics.

Those candidates in the ‘risk’ category are reviewed individually by the associate dean and an executive committee of five faculty and admissions committee members. From there, a decision is made to either proceed with the application process or reject the application.” Typically, after secondary applications are submitted, the associate dean and a committee review the applications and place candidates into interview pools. Because of the large number of applicants, only a small percentage is asked to interview.

How do reviewers decide whom to interview?

Medical schools consider each applicant’s academic proficiency, whether they are likely to thrive in the culture of the institution, and if their experiences, attributes, and goals are in line with the school’s mission and goals. Inevitably, medical schools receive many more qualified applicants than they can interview and matriculate. The decision to interview one student over another can be very difficult to say the least.

“It is incredibly challenging because there are so many admirable candidates,” Ms. Nicolaysen explains. “Ultimately, the committee screeners attempt to identify the best qualified applicants from diverse academic and personal backgrounds whom we deem most likely to build a dynamic learning environment at Weill Cornell and to become leaders in medicine.”

Dr. Foxwell adds, “At University of Maryland, outstanding grades and MCAT scores do not guarantee that an applicant will be invited to interview. Just as important are extracurricular activities and life experiences, essays and personal comments in [the] AMCAS [program], and letters of recommendation.”

Dr. Arias says, “The path to becoming a physician is unique to each applicant; therefore, we do not mandate any particular course of study. We have no preference for a particular major (or minor). Evidence of the personal attributes of integrity, adaptability, language skills, collaboration, and a commitment to service are evaluated with an eye toward the development of physician scientists. We infer the desired applicant qualities from both the content of the application and the care with which it is delivered. Every aspect of the application is important. Applicants who speak in their own voice, without ‘spin,’ is especially valued.”

Additionally, some public medical schools also may consider an out-of-state applicant’s ties to the state or institution if non-state residents are not typically considered for matriculation. (For more information, check with individual medical school websites or consult the AAMC  Medical School Admission Requirements™ .)

What are some common mistakes applicants make?

The same tips you might have received for undergraduate or job applications hold true for medical school applications. Always tell the truth and be sure to mention activities and volunteer, research, or work experiences that are most important, and if possible, occurred within the last few years. “Take your AMCAS essay questions seriously,” counsels Ms. Tise. “These essays are not creative writing exercises. You may start off with a descriptive experience, but move quickly into how and why you want to become a physician and how this experience helped determine that. Also, proofread carefully. There are no excuses for punctuation and grammatical errors. We know you are applying to several schools, but be careful to include the correct name in secondary materials.

“Redundant information is a waste of space. Inconsistencies can call an applicant’s authenticity into question,” cautions Ms. Nicolaysen. “We advise not including high school activities or activities in which your participation was minimal. Also, try to avoid boasting or exaggerating.”

Dr. Foxwell advises that “Applicants must begin to think like professionals. If a photograph is requested in a secondary application, make it a good one, not one that may call your professionalism into question.”

What advice does the review committee have?

“Do your homework. Know what schools are looking for, and work closely with your advisor,” cautions Dr. Foxwell.

Your application needs to be complete and truthful. When it comes to your personal statement, Ms. Tise recommends, “There is no secret checklist or formula. Remember, you are the applicant, and we want to know why you think you are a good one.”

Furthermore, Ms. Nicolaysen advises applicants, “Before submitting your application, ask some trusted mentors, friends, or family members to give you feedback about your experiences and essays. You might ask them questions like, ‘How would you describe me based on what you read? Did my essay hold your attention? Was anything confusing? Did you notice any typos?’.”

Most importantly, relax. Most applicants have one or two items that they wish they’d changed or perhaps a mistake they think they might have made. If you have further concerns or anxiety over the application process, check out the  Aspiring Docs fact sheet  on helpful tips for dealing with application anxiety.

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• 2024 Medical School Secondary Essays Examples

Be Memorable. Claim an interview spot. Get Accepted.

Our team of physician and medical student editors had the pleasure of helping students craft the following medical school secondary essays. 

“Why This School” Essay

Adversity essay, diversity essay, “how will you contribute to our school” essay, “future goals” essay, “academic lapses or breaks” essay, “why d.o.” essay, why are secondaries important, tell us about any specific reason(s) (personal, educational, etc.) why you see yourself here at the wake forest school of medicine..

The ending of the motto of the Moravian church, which has a strong historical connection with Winston-Salem, is “…in all things, love.” This concluding statement is an apt description of how I attempt to live my life. Wake Forest upholds such values of inclusion and love through the Lovefest tradition and programs such as the student-run DEAC Clinic. After working at free clinics in rural areas, I am committed to becoming a physician that will promote systems of care in the community. With my exposure to rural primary care, I want to use the Rural/Underserved Health experience offered to Wake Forest students through the North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians to further my understanding and training in this career path. Furthermore, as an extension of working in primary care, I am interested in being a geriatrician. Wake Forest, as one of the best geriatric hospitals in the country, has a curriculum that aligns with my interests. I am confident that through research, service, and patient care, Wake Forest will shape me into a leader of rural health care for the geriatric community.

Application Status: Accepted |School of choice: Wake Forest School of Medicine | Class of 2024

More Examples and Writing Tips for a Convincing  Medical School “Why Us” Essay | Click Here

Describe a significant challenge you have experienced in your life, share the strategies you employed to overcome the challenge, and what you learned from the experience..

One personal adversity I have overcome is my lack of self-confidence. I was always a quiet child who grew up with two older sisters doing most of the talking. As I aged, I came out my shell to an extent and became more outgoing. I have always struggled in one particular area: public speaking. My passion for medicine grew early as I observed my eldest sister work alongside physicians during her nursing training. However, my shy nature led me to select pre-nursing as my major, since nursing does not require the ability to speak publicly like being a physician often does. I did not truly consider a career as a doctor until my anatomy and physiology professor suggested I do so after recognizing my drive, aptitude, and passion. Even so, it took introspection and time to recognize that I held the potential to become a successful physician.

Over my undergraduate career, I have participated in many group presentations during classes without the benefit of being taught how to successfully prepare. On every occasion, I would become so nervous that I was unable to sleep the entire night prior. By the time I presented, I would be so distracted that I could not think straight, let alone get my point across clearly. This went on until I had the opportunity to participate in a class called Peer Instruction in Laboratory Occupational Training (PILOT), which was an extension of a class that I had succeeded in, Quantitative Biological Methods.

PILOT was designed to expose students to research articles and assist with laboratory techniques and homework. A large part of the grade for the class consisted of teaching a laboratory section of around 40 students for 15 minutes. I almost opted out of the class because of this requirement, but ultimately decided it was a great opportunity to work through my personal fear of public speaking and build my self-confidence.

I set a schedule six weeks ahead of the presentation to begin preparing. A few helpful peers offered advice, telling me that knowing what I wanted to say verbatim was a good way to improve confidence. Thus, I practiced daily until three weeks before the class. I found another tip online: practicing in the actual location of the presentation can help reduce nerves. Subsequently, I approached one of my laboratory teaching assistants and asked if he would let me practice in the laboratory. He was an excellent teaching assistant and took the time to watch me practice and provide feedback.

Ultimately, I felt that I was able to present eloquently and received an excellent grade. Life is full of challenges, and I learned that preparation is key to success. I planned and prepared early, pulled from available resources, and implemented advice from faculty and peers. This experience taught me that I do have the aptitude, strength, and drive to succeed in medical school and overcome any obstacle that I might face. I am eager to embrace more personal growth and realize my full potential as I continue on to medical school.

Application Status: Accepted |School of choice: Nova Southeastern University College Of Osteopathic Medicine | Class of 2024

More Examples and The 6 Steps for Writing the Medical School Adversity Essay | Click Here

“do you consider yourself a person who would contribute to the diversity of the student body of tufts university school of medicine” if yes, briefly explain why..

I am a Muslim, Saudi woman, but I am not the preconceived notions of being close minded, uncultured, or oppressed. I’m a passionate helper, an open-minded extrovert, and a curious explorer of the world. 

Though I grew up attending a school that taught me to be a leader and encouraged competition, and though travelling the world allowed me to explore new cultures, homogeneity was the ‘norm’ everywhere I went until I attended school in the US. George C. Marshall High School showed me how enriching diversity is. There, in a mixture of backgrounds and ethnicities, I was an ‘other’ among many ‘others’. The following year in Nebraska was different, and I experienced the damage of prejudice when I was the only ‘other’. My experiences drove me to work to bring different people together to give back. Years later, at NYU, this personal passion pushed me to create a volunteer tutoring nonprofit organization. 

I believe the ‘other’ in me, with the uncommon background, the unique experiences, and the interesting perspectives, will contribute to the diversity of the student body at Tufts.

Application Status: Accepted |School of choice: Albert Einstein College of Medicine | Class of 2024

Click here for More Examples and Steps on How to Write an Effective Medical School Diversity Essay

Explain how interactions with people who are different from you have shaped your worldview and relate how you would enrich the VTC community.

From my academic and work experiences, I have frequently worked with people who are different from myself. Working with students and professors from different backgrounds through college helped me appreciate different viewpoints, especially during my bioethics training.  Listening to my classmate, who was a Catholic hospice nurse, explain her differing stance on end-of-life care showed me to appreciate the legitimacy of different opinions. Likewise, I learned from sociology graduate students about the issue of the medicalization of mental illness, which I had not had to consider prior to speaking and working with them. These experiences will help me contribute to the community by enabling me to approach problems from multiple lenses and to listen to and value the input of experts in different fields.

My experiences engaging with different individuals will help me to enrich the community at Virginia Tech. As a tutor, I have been able to work with students of different ages and backgrounds with unique learning goals. For example, my student, Danny, was an adult student taking classes at a community college and had failed his statistics course three times before meeting with me. Even though I had excelled in math classes during school, I was able to listen to his frustrations and identify different ways to help him learn the content and be able to apply it for quizzes and exams. I helped him navigate through the material, and he ended up passing the course comfortably. By working with a wide variety of students like Danny, I have been able to understand the importance of listening actively to individuals’ struggles and unique experiences to learn about how to best help them and I am excited to apply this skill to help future individuals.

In addition to my experiences tutoring, I have been able to interact with individuals different from myself through volunteering. For example, at Judson Park, I volunteered by helping one resident, Ron, participate in art therapy. Ron had suffered two prior strokes and was wheelchair-bound and hemiplegic. I was able to help bring him down to the art room and organize supplies for him. Ron was unique in his needs, which was why he required individualized care to be able to participate in the art therapy. He also struggled with communicating verbally due to deficits from his prior strokes. I adapted by patiently waiting for him to respond at his own pace and looking for body language cues for what he needed at the moment. He was able to make incredible art creations, showing me the resilience of differently abled individuals.

These experiences have shown me the importance of valuing everyone’s unique perspectives and utilizing that consideration and compassion to help others. I can enrich the VTC community by providing this diverse perspective to help my peers and ultimately serve the greater community as a physician.

Application Status: Accepted |School of choice: University of Virginia School of Medicine | Class of 2024

Need help writing your secondary essays?

After residency, describe the community in which you see yourself practicing medicine..

Currently, I can see myself practicing medicine in a variety of clinical settings: a private specialty care system, a nonprofit medical facility, individual practice, or a different setting. I am open to all of the new experiences that medical school will bring, including exposure to a variety of clinical settings.

I have worked as a medical scribe at the largest non-profit health care provider in Seattle and have also volunteered for a private specialty hospital. Both of these experiences have exposed me to a different type of medical practice, and I have enjoyed both although in different ways. I loved the diversity of patients I encountered at the nonprofit and enjoyed experiencing different clinic visits whether for constipation or throat pain. At the specialty hospital, I was able to encounter unique and rare medical cases that I’ve only read about in books such as spina bifida or hydrocephalus. I was also able to witness the very specialized and personalized care. I am excited to explore the various clinical setting options in medical school and residency, and figure out which environment best suits my strengths and interests!

Application Status: Accepted |School of choice: Stanford School of Medicine | Class of 2024

Use this space if you’d like to address any identified deficiencies in your application.

When I suddenly lost my father to pancreatic cancer shortly before starting college, I was confused and frustrated about my loss. Although I had dreamt of becoming a doctor since I was a little girl, I was newly unsure of whether medicine was right for me. Because I lacked a tangible goal and motivation, my studies and grades suffered during my first years of college. However, once I began volunteering at the Children’s Hospital during my sophomore year, I developed a renewed sense of appreciation and passion for medicine. I started to care a lot more about school and enjoyed learning again. I began working extremely hard in my classes, and slowly but surely, my GPA rose.

Application Status: Accepted |School of choice: Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine   | Class of 2024

How do your professional ambitions align with osteopathic medicine?

My professional ambitions have always aligned with a medical career, ever since I observed my childhood hero and oldest sister, Brittany, work alongside physicians as a registered nurse. At the time, I was only eight years old and not yet privy to the nuances of allopathic versus osteopathic medicine.

Throughout my experiences with the medical profession as a patient and mother, I have found myself disappointed with some of the allopathic medical treatments. I have myself been treated pharmaceutically with medications and became non-compliant with my treatment due to side effects. Several years ago, I was diagnosed with herpetic neuralgia. My neurologist prescription Neurontin, which helped with the symptoms but left me in a fog. I found myself questioning whether there could be a better method.

As an undergraduate student, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to listen to a presentation by a doctor of osteopathy from Lake Eerie College of Medicine in Bradenton, FL. The speaker discussed osteopathic medicine, its principles, and manipulative medicine (OMM). He talked about a time when he bumped into an old friend who had been diagnosed with plantar fasciitis. His friend’s condition was so severe that he needed a cane to ambulate independently. The D.O. performed OMM for his friend and provided him with a set of exercises to perform daily at home. Ultimately, the friend did not require the surgery his allopathic physician had recommended.

After listening to his presentation, I felt as though I had a breakthrough. I realized that I wholeheartedly supported these principles as the better solution that I had been looking for. With osteopathic medicine, I could practice medicine in a traditional manner while wielding a valuable skill set that could spare patients from invasive surgeries and pharmaceutical therapeutics causing undesired side effects.

Furthermore, while studying for the MCAT a year ago, I developed a constant waxing and waning neck pain that would radiate to my right shoulder and down my arm. This worsened over a period of four weeks, and I took increasing amounts of ibuprofen to calm the symptoms. A good friend of mine is a physical therapist who manipulated my spine and sent me home with instructions for an exercise plan. She also taught me how to self-evaluate my posture, which has been valuable in preventing additional episodes. I was incredibly impressed with the outcome of the treatment that used my own body and its muscles to treat the pain without using pharmaceuticals or leaving me with residual deficits. As such, my personal trust in natural treatments has emphasized to me that osteopathic medicine is the path I am meant to follow. 

The more I learn about osteopathic medicine, the more excited I am to incorporate its principles into my future practice. I am thrilled to learn and practice medicine with a holistic approach to evaluate and treat patients. As a healthcare partner to my future patients, I feel inspired to encourage the implementation of prevention, maintenance, and natural remedies into their treatment plans.

Application Status: Accepted |School of choice: Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine   | Class of 2024

Why are secondary essays important?

• Schools ask these questions for a specific reason
• It’s your final chance to make a strong impression
• When they’re done right, you will lockdown an interview spot

Join over 1,500 of our accepted med school applicants by using Motivate MD's review service.

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Ansel N., MD/PhD

Radiation Oncology Resident Former Medical School: Ohio State

My name is Ansel Nalin. I am a current Radiation Oncology resident at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX. I graduated from the Ohio State University College of Medicine MD/PhD program.

While in medical school, I tutored first- and second-year medical students, helping them review lecture material and prepare for block exams. I taught study strategies to first-year students adjusting to the medical school curriculum. I worked individually with students during board exam preparation. I also led a review course for MD/PhD students prior to taking Step 1. In addition to my role as a tutor, I was also selected by the Ohio State College of Medicine Academic Office staff to serve in a leadership role for two years. In this role I led the team of 40 students on the peer tutoring team. I met weekly with College of Medicine staff to plan academic programs benefitting first- and second-year medical students. Together we organized and managed academic resources for medical students including our peer tutoring programs, group review sessions, and student-led review lectures. I coordinated the tutoring assignments for medical students involved in the program; over 100 students utilized the programs. We oversaw the creation of new student-led anatomy review sessions that were incorporated into the medical school academic program.

While enrolled in the MD/PhD program, I completed my PhD in cancer immunology studying natural killer cell development. I also collaborated on translational research projects seeking to identify new cell-based therapies for cancer. I published multiple papers in high impact journals and had the opportunity to present my work at both local and international conferences. I continue to pursue research that develops immune-based therapies for cancer and plan to pursue a career as a physician-scientist.

I joined the team at Motivate MD to help students achieve their goals in medicine. I have benefitted from the support of many outstanding mentors, and I strive to have a similarly positive impact in helping students succeed. My experiences as a tutor and teaching assistant, in both undergraduate and medical school, have helped me develop excellent skills in communication and mentoring. In addition to my teaching and leadership experience, I have developed specific skills to help students with the application and interview process for medical school and residency programs.

Not only am I familiar with what makes a strong application, I am prepared to help students highlight their strengths in their essays and interviews. I have extensive writing and speaking experience from my graduate studies. I have coached other students in communicating effectively. From my own experience in interviewing for medical school and residency, I can help students gain confidence in their communication skills and clearly express their motivations and goals. As a member of the Motivate MD team, I am passionate about helping students work toward their goal of a successful career in medicine.

I am an OBGYN resident and graduate of the University of Cincinnati. Throughout medical school, I engaged in research at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and UCCOM’s OBGYN department. I have a strong background in mentorship. In medical school, I was a part of an organization that would mentor local Cincinnati youths. I was also involved in mentoring medical students in the years below through her medical scholar’s program. I also have a lot of experience editing medical school essays and mentoring my scribes when I was a chief scribe during my gap years. I took two years off prior to applying for medical school. During this time, I completed research at WashU with a neuroimaging lab as a clinical research coordinator and scribed in an emergency department. The medical application process was daunting for me. I went through the process of taking the MCAT multiple times and struggled to figure out where I would be a competitive applicant. I chose to work for Motivate MD to assist students with this intimidating process and help in areas where I felt I was lacking guidance prior to medical school! I am very excited to get the opportunity to work with you!

Jisoo is a medical student at Harvard Medical School. She has a background in neurobiology wet-lab research, and has a strong interest in mentorship, especially of underserved populations. Everyone has a unique journey to medical school, and Jisoo is committed to helping applicants present their own unique journeys in a meaningful and comprehensive manner. She has lots of experience working with individuals that have diverse pathways to medical school and closely collaborates with applicants from the beginning to the end of their application process, providing individualized support for each applicant.

Hi! My name is Rhys (pronounced like “Reese’s Pieces”) and I am a medical student at Yale School of Medicine.

I have upwards of 9 years experience mentoring peers, most recently aiding students through the premedical path at my undergrad. I also have worked as an executive function/planning tutor for Los Angeles area high school and college students. Earlier in college, I worked as a research aide/teaching assistant helping students leverage “writing-to-learn” in order to improve their understanding of complex concepts.

After graduating  Summa Cum Laude  with a Bachelors of Science in Biomedical Engineering and Health Policy from the University of Southern California in 2021, I took a gap year primarily to scribe at a pediatric clinic to boost my clinical experience hours and to continue to work on a philanthropic start-up I co-founded while at USC.

At USC, I had multiple research experiences ranging from biomedical device research in a hybrid wet lab to policy analysis. I also was heavily involved in pro-bono consulting for non-profits and social enterprises.

I have personal experience approaching the common “Why Medicine?” question from a non-traditional angle (engineering major/activities and low clinical hours compared to non-clinical), tying in a non-standard major “X factor” extracurricular into the overall theme of an application, and expressing interest in dual degrees/interdisciplinary medical careers (policy, public health etc).

I look forward to helping you plan for and execute your unique path to medical school!

George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences

Hi Everyone! My name is Anthu Gnanakumar and I am a medical student at the George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences. I majored in neuroscience and minored in English at the University of Virginia prior to taking a gap year and attending medical school. During my gap year, I worked as a medical assistant (MA) at endocrinology and pediatric primary care practices. I really value the hands-on experience I got through being an MA and would highly recommend taking a gap year if you are at all considering it!

I remember being daunted by the significant uptick in medical school applications during the pandemic and can empathize with the ever-increasing competitiveness of getting into medical school. I have mentored and advised multiple peers and friends from high school and college as they navigated the application process and look forward to extending that mentorship to many of you. It is my hope that we can work together to shape your narrative into meaningful essays and interview responses!

Duke University School of Medicine

Hi all! My name is Arthi and I’m a medical student at Duke. I am originally from New Jersey and went to Duke for undergrad where I was able to discover interests in medical humanities, global health, and peer mentorship. Having previously taught in an art studio, I found ways to engage with medical humanities through storytelling and creative arts with elders with dementia. In medical school, I help run a program that allows admitted patients to share their life story and with cartoon creations to simplify medical diagnoses. I also majored in global health and worked on projects in based in Uganda and India during undergrad that focused on studying how evidence-based interventions actually function in practice. I spent my gap year as a global health research assistant which allowed me to gain experience with all stages of project initiation, management, and dissemination. I’m working towards spending Duke’s MS3 research year engaging with global health implementation research on site. I don’t have any family in medicine so I asked for a lot of advice from upperclassmen and medical students throughout. I was a peer tutor for over 3 years and during my senior year, I started a peer advising program that’s goal was to reach beyond just academics. During that time, I mentored many premed students on course choice, finding research and volunteering experiences, applying to summer program and gap year jobs, MCAT, and building a school list. I continued many of these relationships since graduating and have been able to provide continued support through brainstorming and editing primary and secondary applications, interview prep, and ultimately decision making. One thing I’ve come to learn from my process and that my classmates is that there isn’t one right way to do things and it can be valuable to talk through and understand your priorities and the things that make you the most excited and craft your application around those. I know how stressful and draining each step of the application process can be and I would love the chance to provide some of guidance and support I received at whichever turn you need.

NYU Grossman School of Medicine Admissions Committee Experience

Hi! My name is Kate and I’m a current medical student at NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City! I’m originally from Kingsport, Tennessee and attended Clemson University where I completed my undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering and a master’s degree in Applied Health Research. I have many years of experience as an advisor and mentor, mainly through working as study abroad ambassador and as a peer tutor and peer mentor through a Women in Engineering organization at my school. Later in college, I also worked as a teaching assistant for a challenging chemical engineering course in my degree. I also volunteered my time as a tour guide and was able to provide loads of advice and guidance to future students through that role. While finishing my master’s degree at Clemson University, I worked as a scribe at a gastroenterology clinic to boost my clinical experience hours. During this time, I also served as a mentor and health coach for a local volunteer organization with a mission to help people get off of government assistance. At Clemson, I had multiple research experiences ranging from social psychology to OB/GYN clinical research. I was also heavily involved with STEM outreach at local schools, ran a pitch competition, and volunteered as a conversational partner for international students who were learning English. I also spent the summer after I graduated college working at Interlochen Arts Camp as a camp counselor and reigniting my passion for theatre and the arts. I have had a slightly more non-traditional path to medicine (engineering degree/extracurriculars, taking a year to do a master’s, working at an arts camp), and I have a lot of experience in how to best weave together your own unique story in order to stand out to admissions committees. As a current medical student, I now spend my time working as an Admissions Ambassador and serving as a mentor to incoming students. I also currently interview for my medical school and so I can provide a lot of insight as I’ve sat on both sides of the Zoom interview screen. I look forward to helping you put your best foot forward in your applications and interviews for medical school!

Hello! I am a medical student at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons planning to apply into neurology this upcoming fall. I have extensive mentoring and advising experience both prior to medical school, when I served as a peer advisor for my undergraduate institution’s pre-health club, and as a medical student, continuing to advise undergraduates on essay writing, interview preparation, and general application and career advice. I also work as a mentor in the local community, tutoring and advising 8 th grade and high school age students interested in the health sciences. I have significant research and publication experience beginning as an undergraduate and continuing throughout medical school, having published four first-author manuscripts while contributing to multiple others. Prior to medical school, I spent a gap year as a National Institutes of Health Post-baccalaureate Intramural Research Training Award fellow, a role in which I studied Alzheimer’s disease proteomics and metabolomics. Currently, my research focus has shifted towards neuroinfectious diseases and contributions of infectious exposures to lifetime dementia risk. In addition to clinical medicine, I have a strong interest in public health and anthropology that informs my research and clinical pursuits. 

Hello! My name is Jessica, and I am a medical student at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine. I completed my undergraduate degree in Molecular & Cellular Biology at Johns Hopkins University, along with a minor in Entrepreneurship & Management. At Hopkins, I played on the varsity tennis team, served as a peer tutor, and volunteered at the JHH Sickle Cell Infusion Center. After graduating from college, I took on a full-time position at the Sickle Cell Infusion Center as a clinical research coordinator. I stayed in this role for one gap year, where I ran the largest registry of sickle cell disease patients in the United States, helping to characterize disparities faced in health outcomes and access to care. Since starting medical school, I have become heavily involved in cervical cancer research, volunteering at the Chinese Hospital in downtown San Francisco, and advocating for vulnerable populations. As a first-generation medical student, I understand how overwhelming the application process is and how vital near-peer guidance can be. I’ve helped several applicants through their application writing and interview process, who will all be matriculating to medical school this upcoming fall. I look forward to helping you curate your own story, put your best foot forward, and pursue your dream career!

• Medical School Secondary Essays

Harvard Medical School Secondary Essay Examples

Learning by observation is one of the most effective ways to study, so reading Harvard Medical School secondary essay examples in 2024 will sharpen your application, and let you write your own essays with confidence.

Essay writing is a difficult skill to master, so start by reading up on how to write a college essay . Understanding acquired knowledge is easier, however, if you can see what the application of that knowledge looks like. To that end, reading secondary essays will help you glean how to go from a prompt, through good essay writing methods, to the best practices in what a final essay will look like. By thinking about writing in those terms, you will strengthen your own work immensely.

Most medical schools in the US ask for you to write medical school secondary essays , and Harvard Medical School is no exception. They have both required and optional prompts, and this article will take a look at all of them, giving you sample essays for each.

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Article Contents 13 min read

Harvard medical school secondary essay example for prompt #1.

On average, how many hours per week did you devote to employment during the academic year

I dedicated as many hours as I could afford while keeping to a vigorous academic schedule. At the same time, I took off only as few hours as I could in order to make rent.

Life is a demanding experience, and mine is no exception. I have found that careful planning and time budgeting helps to keep me on track, working hard, but with enough downtime to prevent burnout.

I held down a part-time job at a hardware store that offered me between 20 and 30 hours per week. I was more often working 30 hours than 20. I respected the store owner very much, and wanted to show my appreciation for being given the job.

Spare time was often spent back at the lab – my true passion this last semester – so even when I wasn’t officially there, I was still there.

My typical week, by hours:

Working at Jim’s Hardware               30 hours/week

Class hours                                         20 hours/week

Studying hours                                   15 hours/week

Lab hours                                           20 hours/week

Exercise                                              5 or 6 hours/week

Learn everything you need to know about med school secondary essays in our video:

If you have already graduated, briefly summarize your activities since graduation.

This essay has a limit of 4,000 characters

It felt like I was opening up forever, as the summer often does, but somewhere down inside, I knew that I had no time to waste. The time between my last semester and my next semester would be a crucial, tightly-timed period in which I had to study hard, gain experiences, and save money for the next phase of my life.

I had a job lined up, lucky enough to have had at a paid internship in a laboratory. Over the months between my graduation and now we have been looking at vitamin capsules, tablets, and chewable gels. We were essentially trying to find out a better way to make these things so that people can derive more benefit from them by ensuring more of the vital ingredients get absorbed properly into whomever is using them.

Although I was mostly there to assist and follow orders, I nevertheless got to observe the meticulous processes of a professional lab environment. I shared in the frustrations of early experiments’ results, the process of advancing ideas and making progress, and the thrill of actually arriving at some useful – or, potentially-useful – results.

When I wasn’t at the laboratory working, I was looking to my volunteer hours.

My uncle is a hospital administrator, and set me up with a couple of doctors to shadow. One of these doctors, Dr. Stevens, is a psychiatrist – an area of specialization which I enjoy very much. Although confidentiality prevented me from following him on certain aspects of his job, I nevertheless got to learn a lot from him. He was very patient, friendly, and answered my myriad questions – even giving me his personal email address so I could learn more. I wasn’t shy about taking advantage of this, and have been back-and-forth with him, asking questions and getting to know my preferred area of medicine.

I said, “Hi,” a lot, too, as I found myself back at the hospital a lot of other times. I enjoyed my time there immensely, and sought other ways of volunteering to assist. Most of my volunteer hours weren’t as clinical as shadowing, but I still got to spend time helping patients and staff. My primary area where I volunteered was helping with older patients, and I was often an arm to lean on for exercise, or an eye to read a book, or sometimes just an ear to hear a patient who needed company.

Home time was spent studying, pouring over MCAT preparation materials and working hard to get my numbers up. I was eager to get ahead last year, and actually arranged to take the MCAT. I was under-prepared, and did not receive a score that I thought reflected my potential. So, for the past months, I have been studying to hold myself to a higher standard. The next time I take the test, I know I won’t disappoint myself again.

Of course, there was down-time as well. I couldn’t work all the time, and my particular favorite pastime is music. Study breaks often consisted of grabbing my guitar from beside my bed, running scales, singing along a bit, and just enjoying the feeling of playing. I have no illusions about becoming some rock star someday. I’m not the best guitar player in the world, but I’m not really trying to be. I love the instrument, and I love getting better at it; I’ve always enjoyed challenging myself. It’s a wonderful way to relax.

I believe that relaxation is very important. We can’t work all the time – it isn’t healthy – and there are many ways to enjoy life. My great fortune, is that I got to spend my time since graduation in many different ways that I enjoy life: not just with music, but with helping, healing people, and diving into the medical arts.

If there is an important aspect of your personal background or identity, not addressed elsewhere in the application, that you would like to share with the Committee, we invite you to do so here. Many applicants will not need to answer this question. Examples might include significant challenges in access to education, unusual socioeconomic factors, identification with a minority culture, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity. Briefly explain how such factors have influenced your motivation for a career in medicine.

One day, I will become a cliché: an old man lecturing his grandchildren on how, when he was a boy, he used to have to really work just to get to school. My family live well off the beaten path, and my round trip just to get to school was three and a half hours. Some of it was uphill, and some of it was by foot, and I had to get up very early to walk to the bus stop on time.

We moved when I was very little, refugees from overseas, my parents barely speaking English, and me speaking nothing at all – I was only just one year old. We moved from a country we were told does not exist, but which we call Tibet.

My father is a farmer and my mother is a school teacher, which came in handy while we tried to figure out education, since she could handle some of the load. We moved in with my uncle, who had immigrated before us, and he had a small farm out in the bush in Pennsylvania.

The life I knew was one of isolated calm, which kind of works when you’re growing up Buddhist. I never felt particularly isolated, because I had a loving family around me, but my first several years as a child were spent in a forest-farm sanctuary. Every now and then we’d drive the almost two hours to town to pick up something we couldn’t grow, make, forage, or build for ourselves.

When I hit school age, my parents decided I couldn’t just be taught at home. Despite my mother’s background in education, they knew that I would lose out on social interaction and linguistic ability. They were right. In fact, I already was behind my classmates.

I don’t remember much of kindergarten, or grade one, but I do know that I was in the middle of more people than I had seen in my life, yet I still felt isolated. We spoke little English at home, and so I had a difficult time communicating with my classmates at first. My progress was slow; at home, my mother made an effort to continue to speak English with me, to give me practice, but my father had poor English skills, and my uncle had just enough English to buy a few things in town on those rare trips out.

Perhaps this is what prompted the second move. When I was around ten or eleven years old, my parents finally took us from our isolated spot and moved into a rural village – just a little town, but it felt to me like a metropolis. Mom’s English had improved with mine; she really did put in a lot of effort. She had acquired a job as a teacher, and so she and I would drive to school together. My father dropped us off in a car my uncle gave them – so old and used that I think it ran on prayer as much as gasoline.

Even at the time, I know my father was uncomfortable with my mother being the primary breadwinner in the family. Or perhaps it was that he was feeling more isolated than ever, living away from his country and now his brother.

My family’s circumstances have given me some unique perspectives. I have spent so much of my life feeling alone or cut off that it doesn’t really bother me. I can sit in solitude. I have become quiet patient as a result. That solitude has made me deeply appreciate what it means to have friends, however, and though I do not have many friends, I love them all dearly.

It would be easy to become cynical and think of myself as an outsider – a refugee is always a little in transit – with language barriers, physical distance between myself and large groups of people, and a cultural heritage that doesn’t match anybody around me; there are very few Buddhists in rural Pennsylvania. But I do not think of myself as an outsider at all. Rather, my perspective is that we are all, in our own ways, outsiders. We all have inner thoughts, and the isolation of our minds keeps us all to ourselves, in one way or another. The joy here, however, is the realization that that makes none of us outsiders. If we all understand isolation, we all need connection. I feel I am connected to my roots, my heritage, my family, my friends, and my people – who are, of course, everyone.

Check out this video for more secondary essay examples:

The Committee on Admissions understands that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted applicants in various ways. If you wish to inform the Committee as to how these events have affected you and have not already done so elsewhere in your application, please use this space to do so. (This is an optional essay; the Committee on Admissions will make no judgment based on your decision to provide a statement or not.)

My mom has asthma, so when the COVID-19 virus hit my family, working its way from one family member to another, what would happen to mom became an all-consuming thought in my mind. The sight of mom’s asthma medication used to seem totally innocuous. Now, that little “puffer” is changed to a harbinger of doom.

More than that, though, the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to change everything about the world. It changed trips to the grocery store, how we say hello to friends, how we think of jobs, and how politics permeates everything.

I never thought of myself as a political person prior to the pandemic. I thought of myself as a fairly neutral person, right down to my professional aspirations. Being a doctor isn’t a political thing; they heal and they help all people, so how could being a physician be political?

Despite my full vaccination, despite the booster shots, my family still contracted the virus. I still believe in vaccination, but a lot of people don’t. A lot of people found themselves doubting the medical professionals who were risking their lives trying to keep people healthy and cure the ones who weren’t.

My perception of healthcare and healthcare professionals changed – radically – and I have absolutely begun to see these professions as political. COVID changed that, too, and for me it struck home with such intensity, lying in my bed, coming down with symptoms, developing a mild anxiety about whether I’d be able to smell flowers or taste food in a month’s time, and hearing my mom wheeze downstairs.

Do you know how silencing a wheeze can be, in those quiet moments?

I recovered from the coronavirus fairly quickly – zonked out for about twenty-four hours before bouncing back – but by the time I was over it, my mom was developing symptoms, and hers were bad. They were very bad, as a matter of fact, and I knew that the asthma was always going to be there to make this a tough fight.

My dad, my sister, and I all got lucky; we were out of harm’s way by the time mom hit the nadir. We were isolating and scared.

What can you do with all of that going on and nowhere to escape to? I had school – doing virtual classes – but I couldn’t go to work and I found it hard to concentrate. I became a caretaker. I had the experience, after all, and although I am not a doctor yet, I knew that I had a certain knowledge base that I had been developing for exactly this purpose: to help heal.

So, I did what I could – we all did, my dad, my sister, and me – and mom pulled through. It took her almost a full week, but she came back from the edge.

So much for asthma, but what about politics?

When I got back to in-person classes, I was talking to some friends about the experience. We had been in touch, of course, but I was sharing it with them again, getting it out, like I was releasing the last week, and in the middle of it, another classmate – a boy by the name of Stuart – injected himself into the conversation, running his mouth about how COVID vaccines were a useless conspiracy and that the virus itself was practically mythological.

I am proud to say that I have only punched Stuart’s lights out in my mind. I have done it a dozen times, but I am proud to say that I never let it leak out into real life. In fact, I did the opposite of my angry, reactionary impulses, and asked Stuart why he thought the way he did, and what I should read to be better informed.

This opened up a dialogue between myself and Stuart, one which I continued for the rest of the semester at school. I challenged him, and he challenged me sometimes. I don’t think I have fully convinced my new friend about the truth of the pandemic, but he’s a lot closer.

COVID-19 taught me about patience, about doing what I can, about perseverance, and about how to pull through with my family and friends – the importance of a good support network. It gave me an aspirational goal for my work in the medical field: to save and heal people, like my mom, but also to keep open dialogues with people like Stuart.

Harvard Medical School Secondary Essay Example for Prompt #5

The interview season for the 20XX-20XX cycle will be held virtually and is anticipated to run from mid-September through January 20XX. Please indicate any significant (three or more weeks) restriction on your availability for interviews during this period. If none, please leave this section blank.

During the second week of September, and until the first week of October, I have decided to undertake a tremendous opportunity. My family, on my father’s side, comes from Portugal. He is Azorean, and this summer he is returning to the Azores for a time to help as a doctor.

My father is an MD, and immigrating years ago with the dream of becoming a doctor in America. He fulfilled that dream, and along the way, he met my mother. She was studying English Literature at Yale at the same time he was studying medicine.

Our family have made frequent trips to the Azores over the years; my father wanted me to be in touch with where we come from. I have grown to love them as a second home, these islands of tranquility, with tomato-growing soil, and the Holy Ghost Festival.

The last few years, however, we have not found the time. Life has been busy, complicated, and not terribly conducive to travel. But my father recently accepted a call from a friend to come over for a few months and help as a physician.

I am going for a short time to shadow my father. So, from September 12 th until October 3 rd , I will be saying hello again to old friends, learning by watching my father, and getting back in touch with the tomato-growing soil of the Azores.

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Technically, yes. If no limit is imposed, you can write as you please. However, you should consider some factors in how long to make your essay.

First, as a general rule, the limit for your essays should be about 1,000 words. You could go a little more, but that’s a reasonable length for an application essay. You want to give yourself enough room to say what you need to say, but not so long that you will bore your reader and make your application tedious.

Second, consider the topic asked for. If the topic is very specific and covers a small subject, it’s okay to let your essay be a little shorter.

Third, check out the other essays’ lengths. Two of the Harvard Secondary essay prompts have a limit of 4,000 characters. The others have no stated limit. You probably shouldn’t exceed 4,000 characters on the essays without official limits, since that seems to be a length that Harvard has deemed reasonable.

Lastly, a little advice from Shakespeare: “Brevity is the soul of wit.” Better to say what you mean, say it well, and say it quickly than to add nothing to your ideas but ink and air.

Best practice is to write all optional essays to take every opportunity you have. You have a chance to shine out and rise to the top of the pile with every action you take, so you should take those actions.

Speaking specifically to the Harvard Secondary prompts above, prompt no.5 is certainly truly optional. It is based on the empirical fact of whether or not you have a schedule conflict. If you have no conflict, you have no essay, and don’t need to write it.

Prompt no.4 provides you an opportunity to speak to your interaction with a world-enveloping health issue. There is room here to stand out, so take it. Even though the committee are not grading these essays, your response here can still cause them to think favorably of you, or give you a subconscious “edge”.

Prompt no.3 applies to specific personal experiences, but such a wide range is given that most students will be able to speak to one category, or something like those categories. Again, another opportunity to add to your personal story and relatability is a good opportunity to take. If you can, write this essay.

Ten to fifteen percent short will put you close to the limit and allow you the room to say what you need to say.

Your first goal should be to answer each essay in a way that shows your best attributes to the admissions board. Effectively show your skills, experiences, qualities like perseverance or leadership, personal growth, and passion for the medical field.

Your essay should have an introduction paragraph, a body, and a conclusion. So, that format and structure will necessarily use up most of the word count, if you are following it properly.

Not really. You don’t require things like references, but you should still follow standard essay writing format, with an introductory paragraph, a supporting and expanding body, and a conclusion.

Give your essay an attention-grabbing opening sentence, and close it off by wrapping up what you talked about throughout the essay.

Following each prompt is paramount. Essay number three is explicitly about your personal background and challenges you’ve faced, so that is your subject matter.

But, that doesn’t mean that you can’t highlight certain elements, or choose more advantageous stories.

Whichever school you’re writing for – in this case, Harvard – go find their mission statement. What qualities is in that? Harvard says that they are looking to educate “students and student-leaders". If they value students and student-leaders, they value leadership. They value a search for knowledge, just as two examples.

Every school will be looking for perseverance, leadership skills, teamwork skills, personal growth, ethical responsibility, and any experiences you have had with healthcare, even in peripheral ways, whether professional or volunteer.

Take a couple weeks to get them write. The key to writing – any kind of writing – isn't the first draft, it’s the edits you make.

Read your essay over and make changes. Ask yourself if the paragraph order is perfect, if the sentences are well-written – not overly verbose, not too simple – and if you have used every opportunity to highlight your best qualities.

Take a few passes at it before coming to the final draft, at which point you can triple-check the spelling and grammar, and make sure you are within the character or word limits.

If they are applicable, yes. You might need to do some edits, of course, but if two – or more – schools have essays addressing your experiences with diversity, you will probably find that you can use material in both essays.

A note on editing, however: check and check again that there is nothing in the essay that applies to one school while writing to the other. Don’t reference a mission statement that belongs to another academic institution, for instance. It’s easy to miss those things, so read your essay carefully to avoid a dreadful, embarrassing misstep.

They are neither the be-all and end-all of the matter, nor are they inconsequential.

All you have to do is put yourself in the shoes of an essay reader – a member of the admissions committee – and imagine that you read one application with good essays and impeccable grammar and another application with good essays and bad grammar. Who do you choose?

Poor spelling might affect a subconscious perception of you, as an applicant, as well.

Of course, if one or two small errors get left in, it’s not the end of the world. It’s unlikely that a strong application will be rejected on that basis alone. Still, don’t risk it; edit carefully, and get somebody else to proofread, if possible.

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Do You Have To Write Essays In Medical School? (Explained Plus Tips!)

Because writing isn’t a huge part of being a doctor, you might be thinking it’s pretty low on the list of activities med students do.

We know you have to write essays for applications, but do you have to write essays in medical school?

Some med schools, specifically the top tier ones, expect students to write formal research essays in med school. Others might ask for essays as part of a final assessment for a specific course. Although essay writing isn’t as heavy as it can be in other majors, it is often required of med students.

In this article I’ll go into the question further. Here’s what we’ll cover:

• When you might need to write essays in med school
• What types of subjects/topics you could be asked to write about
• If you have to write a medical dissertation or research paper
• What tips you can use to improve your med school writing

Having written my fair share of med school essays myself (especially in subjects like biophysics, social medicine and even anatomy and physiology), I know how annoying a task it can sometimes be. And that’s as a former English major!

The truth is, for many of us, writing is a serious drag. Especially when we thought we’d escaped it by studying medicine…

So are you ready for the good and bad news? Let’s go!

When do I have to write essays in med school?

Depending on where you study medicine, the amount of writing you’ll need to do in med school can vary.

Some schools, like Yale, Harvard and NYU, require you to do a research thesis as part of your degree. In this case it’s not optional (opportunities to publish in these respective schools’ journals also exist).

But most other med schools almost always require some form of essay writing too.

Here are some circumstances that call for it:

• As a “final” exam component of a particular course/subject
• Detailed patient history or physical reports
• Group papers/presentations in classes/seminars

Of course the quantity and level of writing vary. Depending on where you go to school and what’s assigned, you might only ever need to do 1-2 pages of writing for a single course each semester. Others might only ever grade you based on oral examinations or question-based tests.

The different medical school curriculums also factor in. Practice based learning (PBL) schools have a reputation for a fair bit of writing.

Check out the specific curriculums (and grading criteria) for the med schools you’re interested in to get a sense of how much (or if) you’ll need to write. Or talk to existing students.

That’s the only way to know for sure.

What med school subjects involve the most writing?

Common med school subjects that can involve essay writing include:

• Medical ethics
• Clinical practice
• Psychology/psychiatry
• Biostatistics
• Public health and sociology

These are subjects that are a little more “esoteric” than the harder sciences. And ones where a thesis or case study goes well.

Other subjects might ask for essays too. As I mentioned before, I’ve had to write mini-essays for many subject finals (including anatomy, biochemistry, biology, physiology and more). Here’s how it usually works:

• The course syllabus lists all possible topics making up a subject (anatomy, in my case, had something like 350+)
• You draw a topic at random to write about for a set time (usually 30-60 minutes)
• You then present this essay to the professor and are asked questions about it
• Finally you’re awarded a grade based on your performance

Of course this is just my own experience as a student at MU Varna . Your med school might not operate this way, while the pandemic has also encouraged a shift away from the “essay-oral” format.

Related : A Rough Guide To European Medical School Exams

The bottom line is; you could be asked to write an essay on any syllabus topic for any subject in med school.

It depends on the subject’s department and how they like to format final and mid-term exams.

Do you have to write essays in medical school in the UK?

The UK is similar to both US and most European international med schools. Many of their schools expect med students to write essays. Oxbridge is a case in point. Here are a couple of students explaining exactly how this works…

Many other students at UK-based schools suggest the same.

Follow the same advice to know for sure; double check with existing students and the course curriculum (if publically available).

Are med students good at writing essays?

Obviously I write a blog about medical education (and healthcare work) so am no stranger to writing.

For most med students however the story can be quite different.

Not all students are confident writers. Or have a lot of experience.

Oftentimes the closest they’ve got to writing essays are in earlier studies (as pre-meds) or in their carefully put together med school applications. It’s not something you typically get a lot of practice with.

There’s obviously a lot of international students in medicine whose native language isn’t English either. For some, writing essays can seem even more anxiety-provoking.

How well are med students expected to write?

The good news is, at least in my experience, that the standard of writing (especially when it comes to the types of essays you do in final exams, midterms or class presentations), by no means has to be perfect.

The most that’s expected are factors like:

• Handwriting that’s not too difficult to read
• Good grasp of grammar and punctuation
• Solid understanding of the topic you’re asked to write about

Med school professors aren’t looking for well polished, proofread, near perfect essays for the most part.

Not unless they’re submitted as a research thesis (which you’re expected to have put serious time and effort into).

In that case they’re expected to be as professional as possible. For which you’ll usually have a thesis supervisor or research lead to help guide you.

Do medical doctors have to write a dissertation?

There’s no rule that says doctors have to write a dissertation (or even do published research). It’s possible to get into med school, graduate and find a job without ever having done any serious writing.

But it is rare.

To be competitive, especially when it comes to residency applications (and even admissions in some cases), medical dissertations or research papers can help. A lot.

General writing tips for med school essays

As for tips on how to approach your writing in med school, here are a few pointers that’ve helped me:

• Don’t aim for perfection : keep the language simple and the arguments easy to understand
• Define everything : your professor will be looking to see you understand what you’ve written about
• Break it up : use subheadings to divide the essay up and improve the flow (don’t throw it all out there in one chunk)
• Practice : sketch out essay outlines for the high yield topics (those likely to show up on exams) and attempt a couple

Getting comfortable with the process will help improve your confidence.

Med school essays aren’t anything to fear for the most part. For the more serious research or thesis-based essays, make sure you follow the guidance of the research lead or project coordinator.

Summary: Writing essays in med school

You might get lucky and never have to write an essay in med school but it’s unlikely. Writing is more central to a successful doctors career than you might think.

Being more confident with it (and learning how to do it better) can definitely help when it comes to reports, research, patient communication and everything else.

Writing is still a major skill you’ll want to focus on if you plan on a career in healthcare.

• https://medicine.yale.edu/education/research/mdthesis/

Born and raised in the UK, Will went into medicine late (31) after a career in journalism. He’s into football (soccer), learned Spanish after 5 years in Spain, and has had his work published all over the web. Read more .

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July 24, 2022

Duke University School of Medicine Secondary Application Essay Tips [2022 – 2023]

Duke University’s Medical School is ranked 6th by U.S. News for research and 78th for primary care, and is known for its focus on interdisciplinary learning . It aims to use medical research to solve global problems. Duke emphasizes diversity, inclusion, and attention to community health problems. Consequently it comes as no surprise that Duke’s secondary application questions ask you to consider your role as a physician in global and local communities.

For more information about the program, check out our podcast episode: Deep Dive Into Duke Medical: An Interview With Dr. Linton Yee, Associate Dean of Admissions >>

Duke secondary application tips 2022-2023

Duke secondary application essay #1: advocacy.

Describe a situation in which you chose to advocate for someone who was different from you or for a cause or idea that was different from yours. Define your view of advocacy. What risks, if any, might be associated with your choice to be an advocate? (400 words)

Advocacy is fighting for, recommending, or supporting – a person, cause, system or ideal. What is your style of advocacy? When have you helped someone after they experienced discrimination, hardship, or bias? When did you recommend someone often overlooked due to bias to receive recognition, opportunity or reward? Have you ever amplified a marginalized person’s viewpoint, supported services to improve the life of someone with a disability? What happened? What did you do? What was the outcome of your actions? Looking back, what was the risk of advocating in light of the situation? 

The prompt asks for an individual example, but you can also think about an individual you have worked with who represents a broader group of people. This question is asking you to think about your role as a physician-advocate, someone who will represent their patient in the quest to obtain fair and adequate healthcare. The question also addresses Duke’s emphasis on the physician as a member of the community with a duty to improve care for all.

Duke secondary application essay #2: Coping with Disappointment

Not achieving a goal or one’s desire can sometimes be disheartening. What have you learned/gained from your setbacks and disappointments and how does this translate to your current way of thinking? (400 words)

This prompt challenges applicants to be truthful about a disappointing moment, an initiative or effort that didn’t have the desired results. If looking at oneself as “having failed” sounds too self-deprecating, then turn the table here. Tell the story of a setback as a growth moment. Keep in mind, hitting road bumps on the way to achieving life goals is inevitable. Being able to adapt and learn, perhaps, is the moral of this story because physicians adapt to circumstances and compensate for gaps in patient care often.

Duke secondary application essay #3: Value Systems

Describe a situation in which you had to utilize your values to interact with people from different backgrounds. How did those values impact the relationship? ( 400 words )

We are all shaped by our cultures, experiences and values. People respond to challenges often in keeping with ingrained cultural habits. For instance, was it common to have friends join your family at the dinner table? What value is associated with always having room to feed another person at the table? Have you invited international friends or friends whose families live far away to join you and yours when they had nowhere to go to celebrate Thanksgiving? Why did you do this? What belief led you to extend such an invitation? 

Were you ever asked to assist with a ceremony that was not part of your own spiritual practice? Was this challenging? How did this request feel like an honor? 

Did this experience change or build relationships?

One could take this prompt in another direction too, to engage with people of a different background whom you do not know. If you are white, did you ever attend a Black Lives Matters march because it was unequivocally the right thing to do? If you are straight, did you help others achieve LGBTQIA+ inclusivity, hang a “safe zone” sticker on your door and someone seeking a safe place came knocking? If you are a woman, did you ever endorse a white man for a leadership position even though leadership positions are saturated with white men? 

What relationship, if any, came from a “doing the right thing” experience? What did you learn about how to build multicultural, diverse friendships or relationships?

Duke secondary application essay #4: Leadership

Leadership, teamwork, and communication flow synergistically. What do you value most as a leader and as a contributor? What attributes do you possess as a leader and as a team member and how do you apply them on a daily basis? (400 words)

This is a very broad question about critical skills in medicine. Doctors are leaders, but they are also part of a medical team. Communication with patients, peers, and other members of the healthcare professions is mandatory.

When did you take on a leadership role ? How did that go? What guiding principles helped you lead effectively, or what guiding principles came to light while adapting to a leadership role? Discuss which skills and attributes contributed to your effectiveness as a leader and/or a team member . What worked for you when you were in a leadership role? How did this experience change how you “walk the walk” of a leader?

Duke secondary application essay #5: Critical Thinking

Critical thinking involves a number of characteristics. Research experience enhances critical analysis skills. Describe any research experience or another situation in which you utilized critical thinking. How will critical thinking be important in your future career? (400 words)

In your research, how do you analyze and evaluate the progress of your work to stay in line with the research goal? How do you provide context for a research outcome so others understand its value or potential impact in medicine? Effective critical thinking demonstrates cognitive ability to assess complexity. Your answer, therefore, should demonstrate how you think through an essential issue inherent in the research project. How does this research progress or propel medicine into the 21st century?

Duke secondary application essay #6: Understanding the Need for Health Care Changes

Potential sources of health inequities exist. Duke’s Moments to Movement (M2M) is a collective stand to address these issues. Describe your experience and reflection with race and its relationship to disparities in health, health care and society. Consider the values of justice, diversity, inclusion and equity (400 words)

Minority populations are often at risk for poor health and have limited or complicated access to care. Why is this so? Tell a story about race, your own or someone else’s experience, as it was affected by health care disparities. How was race a critical factor to a poor outcome? Be sure to briefly explain the reality of this truth. From here, what does this disparity mean regarding a doctor’s approach to patient care? How should physicians respond to this situation?

Duke secondary application essay #7: COVID-19 Implications

How has the COVID-19 pandemic influenced your journey to medical school? Have these events changed your outlook on medicine’s role in society? (400 words) 

Almost all medical schools require a response from applicants to the current COVID-19 pandemic . This prompt, like others, asks how you were affected. If possible, you should also answer with how you responded — did you start or participate in an initiative to help shut-ins obtain food, for example? However, the emphasis in this prompt, and the majority of one’s thought in addressing it, should be spent on the answer to the second question. Duke University SOM is asking you what this unexpected shift in preparing to be a doctor has done to you. Moreso, it is asking how this unexpected shift in preparing to be a doctor has revised your vision of “doctoring” in the future. This surely engages some insight and perspective about public health, the common good, the disparity of risk among less advantaged populations, cultures and demographics. It may also be an opportunity for you to reveal adaptability, initiative, grit, and/or resilience.

Duke secondary application essay #8: Tell Us Who You Are

Tell us more about who you are. This is your opportunity to tell us how you wish to be addressed, recognized and treated. (500 words)

As schools are taking more factors into consideration when it comes to diversity, they are also asking applicants to put more thought into the relationship between diversity (of patients and colleagues) and their own identity. This is one such question. You should feel free to talk about aspects of your identity that might not be obvious from your application. I suggest doing so through the use of examples in order to illustrate how those parts of your personality inform your behavior towards others. You should also explain how these qualities or experiences will impact how you treat and interact with others. What story can you tell about yourself that defines you?

Duke secondary application essay #9 [Optional]: Race/Ethnicity/Geographic Origin/Socioeconomic Status/ Advantage/Disadvantage/ Religious Affiliation

Use the text box below to provide additional information on how these parameters have/will influence you.( Optional , 200 words )

Clearly, any aspect of yourself that identifies and is defined by Race, Ethnicity, Region/Country, SES, Advantage, Disadvantage or Religious affiliation suggests that this aspect of you will continue into the future, and perhaps influence how you regard others, practice inclusivity, and take action to help others. Avoid telling a story that makes one parameter an identity marker that limits your ability. For instance, don’t write about your family’s economic struggle when you were young as a reason you could not participate in exclusive academic programs, even though that may have been true, but rather tell the story in such a way that how you had to claim an education worthy of a noble career like being a physician was only possible by having ingrained resilience at a young age due to an economic struggle or disadvantage. How does this truth influence what you do for others – this should be a “never forget” story or “forever formed by” story that compels you to lift up others.

Applying to Duke? Here are some stats:

Duke average MCAT score: 518

Duke Medical School average GPA: 3.86

Duke Medical School acceptance rate: 2.9%

U.S. News  ranks Duke #6 for research and #78 for primary care.

Check out the Med School Selectivity Index for more stats.

Has this blog post helped you feel more confident about approaching your Duke secondary application? We hope so. It’s our mission to help smart, talented applicants like you gain acceptance to your top choice medical school. With so much at stake, why not hire a consultant whose expertise and personalized guidance can help you make your dream come true? We have several flexible consulting options— click here to get started today !

Duke University Med School application timeline 2022 – 2023

Source: Duke University School of Medicine website

Related Resources:

• School-Specific Secondary Application Essay Tips
• Deep Dive Into Duke Medical: An Interview With Dr. Linton Yee, Associate Dean of Admissions , a podcast episode
• What NOT to Write in Your Medical School Secondary Application Essays
• 7 Simple Steps to Writing an Excellent Diversity Essay

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After you submit your primary application, it’s usually time to write your secondaries. Does it matter how fast you turn around the secondaries and get them back to the schools?

[00:25] Submit Secondaries Within Two Weeks?

A lot of students see this mythical two-week turnaround time for secondary essays, and they’re confused about how they can actually finish all their essays in just two weeks. For some students who apply to a lot of schools, you just get inundated with secondary essays. You might have 10 or 20 different medical schools to write secondary essays for, and they all hit you at once.

If you apply early in the cycle, there’s usually a window between when you submit your primary application and when the schools are notified that you’ve submitted and they send out secondaries.

[Related episode: What Does the Med School Application Timeline Look Like? ]

But when you’re  applying later in the cycle , that window is gone. You typically submit and then lots of secondary essays just hit you at once.  So if you’re applying to a lot of schools, you’re just slammed all of a sudden with a lot of essays.

Plus, you still have other things to do—maybe still studying for the MCAT and your remaining classes, shadowing, or just living life in general. All these things can get in the way of writing all those secondary essays.

[02:03] When Do You Really Need to Turn In Your Secondaries?

Some schools will give you a deadline. They will give you thirty days to submit the secondary application. Can we trust that deadline? Consider that the normal deadline for primary applications is typically the end of October. But that doesn’t mean you should apply to medical school in October. You should apply in June or as soon as you can.

So you need to get the official deadline stuff out of your head. Submit early with both your primary and secondary applications because it’s not until you turn in your secondary application that it’s complete.

[03:15] Medical School Rolling Admissions

Most of these schools are inviting people for interviews on a rolling admissions basis. And most schools are accepting students on a rolling admissions basis, as well.

When your complete application is finally in—with your primary, your secondary, your MCAT score. and your letters of recommendation —then you can be reviewed for an interview.

Hopefully, your personal statement and secondary essays are all good enough to get to that interview.

[Related episode: Secondary Essay Mistakes and How to Avoid Them ]

[03:55] Secondaries Are Easier to Write!

Should you turn around your secondaries as fast as possible? Yes. But you should not sacrifice quality. They don’t have to be as perfect as your personal statement. And usually, they’re much easier to write than your personal statement.

You’re answering specific questions with secondaries, while your personal statement is like an overview of why you want to be a doctor . The secondaries would usually ask about the diversity you’re going to bring or a time you’ve advocated for somebody. Or they ask about why you want to come to their specific school.

So they’re very specific questions, making it much easier to write. And basically, schools ask the same things from you. So there could be a lot of copying and pasting that happens once you get further down the line.

[05:10] Do Schools Track Your Secondaries?

Some schools track how long it takes for you to submit your secondary application. And they’ll use that information to determine how interested you are in that school. This could give them data to figure out who they should invite for an interview.

These medical schools want to invite the applicants who are more likely to accept the interview invite and those who are more likely to matriculate once accepted.  They try to figure out the number of people they have to interview for the total number of seats they have. And they try to determine how many people they have to accept to fill those hundred seats.

But the point is that some medical schools will use that data of how long it took you to submit your secondary essays to figure out how interested you are in that school.

[07:30] Takeaway Points

Number one: Turn around your secondary essays as fast as you can because it’s a rolling admissions system at most schools.

Number two: Submitting it as fast as you can shows the school that you’re very interested in going there.

Number three: Pre-write your essays as much as possible. The sooner that you apply for your primary application, the longer time you have to write your secondaries. This gives you less burden on the back end. Look up your schools in our Medical School Secondary Application Essay Library , and see what prompts that school usually sends in their secondaries. Then you can pre-write your essays, so when the actual secondaries come, you can just triple check your work and send it right back in.

Lastly, don’t sacrifice overall quality just for speed. You don’t need to send your secondary essays to a grammatical editor, but at least do a brief review. Use tools like Grammarly to get tips on how to improve your writing. It’s a great tool for your personal statement , as well.

Links and Other Resources:

• Check out our Medical School Secondary Application Essay Library !
• Check out my Secondary Application Essay Editing services .
• Related episode: Secondary Essay Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
• Related episode: Director of Admissions Talks About the Admissions Process
• Need MCAT Prep?  Save on tutoring, classes, and full-length practice tests by using promo code “MSHQ” for 10% off Next Step full-length practice tests or “MSHQTOC” for $50 off MCAT tutoring or the Next Step MCAT Course at  Blueprint MCAT (formerly Next Step Test Prep) !

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