how to write secondary essays for medical school

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By submitting my email address. i certify that i am 13 years of age or older, agree to recieve marketing email messages from the princeton review, and agree to terms of use., 5 tips for medical school secondary applications.

There is no rest for the medical school applicant! A few weeks after you submit your AMCAS application , med schools will start mailing secondary applications, composed primarily of a short list of essay questions. Here's how to tackle them.

Who receives Secondary Applications?

Most schools indiscriminately send secondary applications, meaning that every living, breathing candidate who submitted a primary application will likely get a secondary one, regardless of their chances for admission. There are, however, a few student-friendly schools that will review GPA and MCAT scores  to be sure you meet their minimum admissions standards before they send a secondary application. In many cases, schools betray what type of student they are looking for in the type of secondary question they ask. If you have strong answers for their questions, it is possible you have the characteristics they are most looking for in an applicant.

Writing the Secondary Essay

Check out our top strategies for writing your secondary essays and relieve some med school application stress.

1. Answer the Question Being Asked

Unlike primary applications, secondary applications ask specific questions about your goals, experiences, and your personal views on a range of topics, including your decision to go to medical school. Your secondaries will be read to see how they complement what you have said in your primary application. At the most basic level, your secondary application is another test to see whether you can adequately understand directions (this time, the school’s specific directions), and focus yourself to answer the question that was asked.

2. Focus on New Material

If you are willing to put in a little effort, secondaries are a great time to elaborate on elements that received less attention in your primary application. For example, if you write in your personal statement about a primary care experience, you may want to point out some research experience in your secondary applications. A discussion of how research broadened or deepened your interest would show that you are an even broader applicant than your initial application suggested.  

Read More: How To Make Your Med School Application Stand Out

3. Every Word Counts

If you are given enough room on certain questions, you may want to follow the thesis, body, and conclusion structure that you would use for a longer essay. Don’t, however, try to squeeze in extra words by using a font more than a point smaller than your AMCAS application. That approach always appears forced, and you come across as a rule bender—not an ideal image to portray to med schools.

4. Know What To Expect

Secondary questions run the gamut from personal to political to pointless. If you want to see what a school’s secondary application entails ahead of time, many premed advisors keep a file with the previous year’s secondary applications. To give you an idea of what to expect, here are a few questions from recent applications.

• "What do you consider to be the role of the physician in the community?" (Emory University)
• " What personal accomplishment are you most proud of and why? " (University of California, Irvine)
• " What has been your most humbling experience and how will that experience affect your interactions with your peers and patients? " (Duke University)
• " Tell us about a difficult or challenging situation you have encountered and how you dealt with it ." (University of Chicago)
• "W here do you see your future medical career (academic medicine, research, public health, primary care, business/law, etc.) and why? " (New York University)

5. Make a Game Plan

As you begin to receive secondary applications, you will have a few potential approaches.

Strategy 1:

Focus your energy first on the schools that you would most like to attend.

Strategy 2:

Hold off sending secondaries to the more competitive schools until you’ve sent out a few to the less competitive ones. For many students, their last secondaries will be better written than their first.

Strategy 3:

Reply first to schools whose secondaries ask questions to which you can easily give solid answers. This allows you to work your way up to the more difficult applications.

Strategy 4:

Practice writing secondary statements even before you get your first ones, so that you can send out well-written, personalized responses to your top choices first.

Only you can know which approach will work best for you! Check out more tips about writing the personal statement for medical school .

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March 14, 2017

How to Create Sizzling Secondary Applications

You’ve taken the MCAT, completed all the pre-reqs, and maybe shadowed a physician, done some research, and volunteered. Now it’s time to make sure you’re all in for the last legs of this long journey. In this series , we’ll discuss how you can continue to navigate your way to a med school acceptance by analyzing your profile, creating a strong med school application, writing stellar AMCAS and secondary essays, and nailing your interview.

After you submit your AMCAS application, if everything goes well, you’ll be asked to submit secondary applications. Each medical school requires different information.

The following tips will help you write these challenging essays :

1. Timing is critical.

The general rule is to complete each secondary application within two weeks of receiving it.

2. Prioritize schools.

If faced with more secondaries than you can handle , prioritize. Complete the secondaries from the schools you are most interested in attending and/or have the greatest chance of being offered an interview first.

3. Be thorough and do not rush.

The essays in your secondary application are as important as your personal essay, and in some cases, more important. Do not rush through them.

4. Research each school.

Before starting to write any essays, spend some time reviewing the website, the mission statement, and the curriculum of the medical school. (This is something you want to repeat again before interviewing.) Try to incorporate in your essays some of the information you learn so that you stress why you are a good match and what you can offer your target school . In essence you want to personalize each essay. Try to reinforce how your past experiences match the school’s mission statement or how your interests match their specialty offerings. Each school has a special focus (such as a unique curriculum, strong research base, a focus on the underserved or primary care). Think about what you have to offer that aligns well with their focus or mission and reinforce that in your essay.

5. Answer accurately.

Seems obvious, I know, but many applicants need the reminder: Answer the questions as they are written and not as you wish they were written. You may write a lovely essay about your shadowing stint at your local ER during high school, but if the question was about extracurricular activities in college, then you still haven’t gotten the job done right. This also means that if you’re trying to reuse stories in multiple applications, you need to read the questions very carefully and make sure you’re on target.

6. Give state school essays enough attention.

When completing an essay for your state school, stress why you want to go there just as you would any other school. Financial reasons and proximity to home are important reasons, but you still want to reinforce why you are a good match for the school.

7. Share additional information.

Each secondary application provides a place for you to show a little more of yourself. Try to include information in your essays that you may not have been able to incorporate into your AMCAS application. The secondary essays should complement, not duplicate, the AMCAS essay.

8. Edit effectively.

You don’t just want to tell your story; you want to tell your story well – this includes choosing the right topic, writing about your experiences with interesting and relevant details, and – last but not least – editing the essay so that it gleams . A successful secondary essay isn’t messy with typos and poor grammar; it’s neat, organized, and error-free. If English is not your first language – and even if it is – you will most definitely benefit from having another set of eyes (or more) look over your essay to ensure that it’s top-notch and ready for send-off.

Again this is the final piece of information that will be considered by admission committees prior to interview offers, so put time into each and make sure you customize them for each school.

Related Resources:

•  Secondary Strategy: Why Do You Want To Go Here? •  Applying to Med School: How to Juggle Secondaries •  How to Write Succinct Secondary Essays

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• Medical School Application

Medical School Secondary Essays: Top Writing Tips

• June 21, 2021

By Emma Fenske

At this point, you have likely submitted your primary medical school application via AMCAS, AACOMAS, and/or TMDSAS. The apprehension and nervousness loomed in the pit of your stomach as you hovered over the SUBMIT button. This feeling was washed with pure elation once your meticulously planned work was finally whisked away to the carefully designated schools. Now, your email inbox is inundated with medical school secondary application invites and questions roll across your screen:

“Why our school?”

“please tell us about a situation in which working with a team was challenging.”, “describe a non-academic challenge you have faced and explain how you overcame it.”, “describe your understanding of race and its relationship to inequities in health and health care.”, “is there any further information that you wish to share with the admissions committee”, “please take a moment to explain how the covid-19 pandemic directly and personally affected you as it pertains to preparing for medical school.”, “how would you add to the diversity of the incoming class”.

It is a lot, right? I understand completely and I was in your shoes once. Let’s walk through secondary  prompts together, from the top, using my rules for success I often implement when editing medical school secondary essays:

1. Brainstorm

Much as you had with your personal statement, sit down with a cup of coffee and plan the direction that you want your med school secondary essay to go. Correspondingly, you may ask yourself the following:

• What is the major theme or message I want the reader to take away?
• Have I already discussed or emphasized this in my primary medical school application?
• Is there an example or anecdote from my experiences of which I can highlight to demonstrate the content I want to discuss?
• What are the values or principles emphasized by this particular medical school and how might I write to parallel these?

Once you have an outline or direction in which you would like to proceed, you are far less likely to go off on a tangent. Similarly, you are also more likely to answer the prompt to demonstrate your candidacy for acceptance into medical school.

2. Answer the Secondary Prompt 

This may seem like a no-brainer, but believe me, it happens! 2500 characters later and it is still rather unclear how the applicant would exactly add diversity to the incoming medical school class. To that end, while it is beneficial to use showing language as opposed to telling language , it is also of the utmost importance to say exactly what you mean. The reader can often infer certain points from your writing but it is so important that with a limited number of characters, we tell the admissions committee members exactly what we want them to know. Remember, when applying to medical school, admissions committees first view you through a lens of your writing. Therefore, it is ESSENTIAL to paint a picture of yourself exactly how you would want to be perceived (see number 4 for more details).

Read More: Medical School Secondary Essay Examples

3. Do Not Just Copy and Paste

You may have found that medical schools often ask similar questions or derivations of common questions. While the question may be “basically the same,” remember to tailor your secondary essay response in order to address exactly what the question is asking. For instance, suppose University A asks “ Diversity of inclusion and thought is essential to our institution. How will you add to the diversity of the incoming class?” while University B asks “At University B, we hold diversity to a high regard. How have you implemented diversity in your everyday life, including academically and professionally?” As you can see, both of these questions address the idea of diversity though are pinpointing different topics overall . Should a student quickly copy and paste their essay, they may be caught not exactly answering what the question is asking. Correspondingly, keep in mind that admissions committees ask specific questions intentionally in order to learn more about who you are!

4. Paint A Picture Of Who You Are 

This is so important! Unfortunately, one of the drawbacks of the medical school application process is that the admissions committee’s first impression of you is through your writing. If you were to stand in front of the admissions committee and present yourself verbally, what would you say? Along those same lines, this might be something of which you decide to present in your writing as well. 

Is writing not your strength? We get it – at Motivate MD, we have a multitude of experienced medical students and physician editors here to help you succeed and show who you are through writing. For more information, visit here .

5. Be Specific, Intentional, and Make Each Character Count

While there are varying character limits for secondary essays, there is no doubt that saying everything you would like with a looming character limit is no easy feat. My best advice for any character limit is to be sure you have established the content first as to not limit creative expression. Then, once the content is set and answers the prompt, eliminate characters of which do not take away from the overall message. Similarly, when writing, be intentional and specific. Doing so will often avoid unnecessary characters and allow you to adhere to the character count.

6. No Secondary Essay Is Actually “Optional”

Use any opportunity presented to you between now and matriculation to demonstrate your candidacy. To that end, nothing is really optional!

7. Be Genuine

Medical school admissions committees read a multitude of essays daily and can likely discern genuine, authentic answers from students of whom are writing what they think the school wants to hear. Therefore, you are never at fault for showing authenticity and what makes you unique. This will often go a long way in having your application stand out from the rest of the stack. 

8. Use Anecdotes or Examples, When Applicable 

As an editor and writer myself, I believe one of the best ways to captivate your audience is showing language, a narrative lead, and/or anecdotes of which articulate the overall message you are trying to convey. Often, this language draws the reader in, keeps them interested, and forces them to continue reading. Further, this tactic frequently shows you performing an action or depicts the same qualities of which you would otherwise simply tell the reader.

9. Time Is Of The Essence 

Occasionally, med schools will not list definitive “deadlines” for secondary essays but remember that interview invites are often distributed on a first come, first served basis. Therefore, be sure to budget your time wisely between not only your secondary applications but between your mental health, well-being, and other responsibilities. If your top choice of medical school has sent a secondary application, you may consider prioritizing this school over others. Otherwise, you may prioritize by their initial sent date. As an aside, a little organization never hurt anyone. A simple Excel sheet might be the tool to come in handy. 

10. Use Proper Grammar, Punctuation, And Spelling

After all of your hard work, the last thing we want is for a misspelling or lack of punctuation to come between you and your dreams of becoming a physician. For this reason, have a trusted mentor, friend, or advisor read over your work prior to submission. My quick rules for grammar include the following:

• Avoid using contractions in formal writing 
• Punctuation goes on the inside of quotations
• Medical specialties are not capitalized UNLESS included in the title of a proper noun. 
• Avoid using real patient names to protect privacy. Create a pseudonym, introduce this name with quotations, and then drop the quotations after the first use. For instance:

  …I met “Wanda” on my first shift at the emergency department (ED). Wanda was nervous at first.

11. Have A Trusted Editor Review Your Work

At Motivate MD, you can submit your secondary essays to an experienced editor who will not only look over grammar, punctuation, and spelling but confirm your content will impress the medical school admissions committee members . Click here for affordable medical school secondary essay editing . 

Undeniably, secondary essays are a significant and often overwhelming challenge of the medical school application process. Regardless, look at it this way: each word you articulate is just another opportunity to show admissions committees just who you are and why you will make a fantastic physician. Take it one day at a time and before you know it, you will find yourself in medical school!

Want to gain a competitive edge over other applicants?

Our medical student and physician editors are ready to help you write effective secondaries. Many of our editors have even served on their program’s admissions committee. 

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Medical School Secondary Essays: Your Full Guide

Mark Bradford

Getting into medical school is like solving a big mystery - full of ups, downs, and surprises. After conquering the MCAT and acing your main application, there's one more challenge waiting for you: secondary essays. Imagine them as tricky puzzles, asking for more than just book smarts. What do they want from you, and how can you tackle them successfully? Join us as we explore the world of these follow-up essays, uncovering their secrets and giving you the tools to ace this important part of your medical school journey.

Purpose of Med School Secondary Essays

So, what are secondary essays for medical school, and why do they matter? Well, med school secondary essays play a vital role in giving applicants a chance to shine beyond their academic credentials. These essays allow aspiring medical students to showcase their uniqueness and explain why they are an excellent fit for a specific program.

The main goal of these essays is to delve deeper into the applicants' personalities and motivations. While primary applications provide essential information, secondary essays offer a platform to highlight personal attributes and experiences that make candidates stand out. Admissions committees look for qualities aligning with the values of the medical program, making these essays a crucial step before the interview stage.

While prompts may differ, common types of secondary essays frequently appear:

Challenge Essay:

• Overcoming Adversity: Discuss a significant challenge, emphasizing resilience, problem-solving, and personal growth.

Diversity Essay:

• Embracing Differences: Share experiences that showcase unique perspectives, backgrounds, or contributions to inclusivity.

Gap Year Essay:

• Justifying Time Away: Explain how experiences during a gap year contribute to skills, understanding, and commitment to medicine.

‘ Anything Else You'd Like Us to Know?’ Essay:

• Open-Ended Reflection: Use this space to discuss hobbies, passions, or aspects of personality not covered elsewhere.

‘Why Us?’ Essay:

• Demonstrating Program Fit: Articulate why a specific medical program aligns with your goals, values, and experiences.

Don't forget that we're always here to lend a helping hand. Just ask us, ' Write essay for me ', and together, we'll create an authentic narrative that showcases the real you.

Medical School Diversity Essay

Now that we've uncovered the basics of secondary essays, let's shine a spotlight on a specific one - the Medical School Diversity Essay. This particular essay isn't just about showcasing your GPA or test scores; it's an opportunity to let your unique story and background shine. The purpose? Well, medical schools aren't just looking for cookie-cutter candidates. They want a diverse group of future doctors who bring different perspectives and experiences to the table.

The Medical School Diversity Essay gives you the chance to share how your background, culture, or life experiences have shaped you and will contribute to the rich tapestry of the medical community. It's your time to stand out and show that you're not just a student with good grades but a person with a valuable and unique perspective to offer.

Medical School Diversity Essay Prompts

Now that we understand the importance of the Medical School Diversity Essay, let's tackle the next challenge: the prompts. These essay prompts are like the roadmap guiding you to articulate your individuality and experiences effectively. The questions might vary, but they all share a common thread—inviting you to reflect on your background, culture, or experiences that make you stand out.

Here are some common prompts you might encounter:

• Share your unique background or experiences and how they will contribute to the diversity of the medical school community.
• Describe a situation where you faced adversity related to your background and how you overcame it.
• Discuss a time when you had to navigate and bridge a cultural gap, and how this experience influenced your journey to medicine.
• Reflect on a personal experience that shaped your perspective on diversity and inclusion in healthcare.
• How do your cultural, socioeconomic, or educational background and experiences contribute to your future role as a healthcare professional?

Medical School Diversity Essay Example

Medical school adversity essay.

In the maze of medical school applications, there's another essay that tests your storytelling prowess – the Medical School Adversity Essay. Unlike other sections, this one isn't about showcasing achievements; it's about resilience and growth. The purpose? Medical schools want to know how you handle challenges, setbacks, and obstacles because, let's face it, the journey to becoming a doctor isn't always smooth sailing.

The Adversity Essay prompts might ask you to recount a difficult experience, discuss how it impacted you, and reveal what you learned from it. This is your chance to demonstrate your ability to navigate adversity and emerge stronger. Whether it's a personal struggle, academic setback, or a professional challenge, use this essay to showcase your resilience and highlight the qualities that will make you a determined and capable future physician.

Medical School Adversity Essay Prompts

The Medical School Adversity Essay prompts are like keys that unlock your ability to handle life's curveballs. Here are some common prompts you might encounter, each inviting you to share your experiences of overcoming challenges:

• Discuss a significant personal challenge you have faced and how it has impacted your journey to medicine.
• Describe a time when you encountered a setback in your academic or professional life. How did you respond, and what did you learn from the experience?
• Share a difficult personal experience that tested your resilience. How did you cope, and what growth emerged from that adversity?
• Reflect on a situation where you faced ethical or moral dilemmas. How did you navigate through it, and what lessons did you take away?
• Discuss any obstacles you encountered on your path to medical school. How did you overcome them, and what did those challenges teach you about yourself?

Adversity Essay Medical School Examples

The medical school 'why us' essay.

As you navigate the intricate landscape of medical school applications, there's a pivotal essay that requires you to play matchmaker – the 'Why Us?' essay. This piece is your opportunity to demonstrate not just why you want to become a physician but specifically why you're drawn to a particular medical school. It's the moment to connect the dots between your aspirations and what the school uniquely offers.

The purpose of the Why Us Medical School Essay is twofold: medical schools want to know if you've done your homework about their institution and if you see yourself thriving within their academic and community environment. It's more than listing facilities or programs; it's about articulating a genuine and well-informed connection.

Why Us Medical School Essay Prompts

Here are some common prompts that might pop up, urging you to elaborate on your connection with the medical school:

• Explain why you are drawn to our medical school and how our mission aligns with your personal and professional goals.
• Share specific aspects of our curriculum, faculty, or research opportunities that resonate with your aspirations in medicine.
• Discuss any unique programs, initiatives, or community outreach efforts at our institution that you find particularly appealing. How do you see yourself contributing to these activities?
• Describe a firsthand experience or interaction with our medical school community that left a lasting impression on you. How did it influence your decision to apply here?
• Highlight any specific resources or support systems at our institution that you believe will contribute to your success as a medical student and future physician.

Approaching these prompts requires thorough research and a personal touch. Showcase your understanding of the medical school's distinct features and convey how these align with your goals and values. Remember, it's not just about why you want to be a doctor but specifically why you envision yourself thriving within the unique environment of that particular medical school.

Why Us Medical School Essay Example

Gap year essay medical school.

In the realm of medical school applications, the Gap Year Essay serves as a platform to explain the space between your undergraduate studies and embarking on your medical journey. Whether you spent that time gaining experience, pursuing a passion, or facing unforeseen challenges, this essay allows you to share the valuable lessons you've learned during this period.

The purpose of the Gap Year Essay is to illustrate that the time away from traditional academics was not a detour but rather a strategic and purposeful part of your journey towards becoming a healthcare professional. It's your opportunity to showcase personal and professional growth, highlighting how these experiences have uniquely equipped you for the challenges of medical school.

Gap Year Essay Medical School Prompts

The Gap Year Essay prompts for medical school applications are designed to help you articulate the purpose and value of the experiences you gained during your time away from traditional academia. Here are some common prompts that might invite you to reflect on your gap year:

• Explain the reasons behind taking a gap year and how this time contributed to your personal and professional development.
• Describe specific experiences or challenges encountered during your gap year and how they influenced your decision to pursue a career in medicine.
• Share any skills, perspectives, or insights gained during your time away that you believe will benefit you as a medical student and future physician.
• Discuss any unique opportunities or projects you undertook during your gap year that have shaped your understanding of healthcare or your commitment to the medical field.
• Explain how your gap year aligns with your long-term goals in medicine and how the experiences gained have prepared you for the demands of medical school.

Gap Year Essay Medical School Example

Medical school leadership essay.

Imagine the application process as a cool journey, and the Leadership Essay is like a special stop where you get to share times when you led the way. Medical schools aren't just looking for good grades; they want folks who know how to guide and inspire others in the world of healthcare.

This essay is your chance to tell stories about when you took charge, maybe in a formal role or just helping out when needed. It's about showing how you encouraged others, faced challenges, and made things better in your community or team.

Medical School Leadership Essay Prompts

The prompts for the Medical School Leadership Essay are like friendly invitations, asking you to share moments where you've taken charge and made a positive impact. Here are some common prompts that might prompt you to reflect on your leadership experiences:

• Describe a specific situation where you demonstrated leadership skills, formal or informal and the impact it had on those around you.
• Share an example of a challenge you faced as a leader and how you navigated through it. What did you learn from the experience?
• Discuss a time when you collaborated with others to achieve a common goal, highlighting your role in fostering teamwork and achieving success.
• Explain how you've contributed to the improvement of a community or organization, showcasing your leadership role in creating positive change.
• Reflect on your personal leadership style and how it aligns with your future goals in medicine. How do you envision incorporating leadership into your medical career?

Approach these prompts with openness and honesty, using them as an opportunity to highlight your unique leadership experiences and how they have shaped your journey toward becoming a healthcare professional.

Medical School Leadership Essay Example

How to write secondary essays for medical school.

Here's a guide on how to approach and master medical school secondary essays for a compelling and well-rounded application:

1. Understand the Purpose : Before diving into writing, grasp the purpose of each secondary essay. Whether it's about diversity, adversity, or why you're drawn to a particular school, each prompt serves a unique function in painting a complete picture of you as an applicant. Tailor your responses to showcase different facets of your personality, experiences, and motivations.

2. Personalize Your Responses : Avoid generic responses and personalize each essay to reflect your individual journey. Share specific anecdotes, experiences, and reflections that offer depth and authenticity. Admissions committees are interested in understanding how your unique qualities will contribute to the diverse and collaborative environment of medical school.

3. Conduct Research on Each School : For 'Why Us?' essays, conduct thorough research on the medical school's values, programs, and community. Be specific about what attracts you to that particular institution. Mentioning unique features, initiatives, or faculty members shows that you've invested time in understanding the school's offerings and how they align with your aspirations.

4. Showcase Reflection and Growth : Adversity essays provide an opportunity to showcase resilience and personal growth. Discuss challenges you've faced, how you navigated through them, and the lessons learned. Emphasize how these experiences have uniquely prepared you for the demands of medical school and strengthened your commitment to a career in medicine.

5. Address Gaps in Your Application : If there are gaps or potential concerns in your application, such as a lower GPA or a gap year, address them proactively. Be honest and focus on how these aspects have contributed to your overall readiness for medical school.

6. Maintain Conciseness and Clarity : Admissions committees read through numerous applications, so clarity and conciseness are crucial. Be direct in your responses, avoiding unnecessary jargon or excessive details. Focus on conveying your message effectively without overwhelming the reader with information.

7. Seek Feedback : Before finalizing your essays, seek feedback from mentors, peers, or pre-health advisors. Outside perspectives can provide valuable insights and help ensure that your essays are clear, impactful, and free of errors.

Final Outlook

As you finish up your secondary essays, keep it simple and sincere. They are like snapshots, capturing unique parts of your story. Share your experiences, talk about challenges, and explain why a specific medical school feels like the right fit for you.

Think of each essay as a chance to show the real you beyond grades and achievements. Be yourself, be honest, and let your passion for medicine shine through. The medical school secondary essays examples are not just about getting into your dream school; they're about finding the place where you belong and can grow into the doctor you want to be!

Why Do Medical Schools Require Secondary Essays?

Can i reuse content from my primary application in secondary essays, how should i approach the diversity essay.

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How To: Master the Med School Secondary Essay (with examples) 2023

After you submit your primary applications , medical schools will ask you to submit secondary applications (most automatically) the majority of which require you to write secondary essays of varying lengths.

The essay prompts should serve as clues to the culture of the medical school and indicate what kind of information is important for them to know about applicants. As you research each school to apply to, begin to make notes about what draws you to that school so you can use these thoughts in your secondary essays.

You can prepare for these in advance by organizing notes in these areas: my accomplishments, obstacles I have overcome, challenges I have had and how I’ve handled these, why I want to attend this school, what kind of physician I want to be, what activities I’ve been most intimately involved with and what have I learned.

Secondary Essay Basic Guidelines

• Write essays for your top choice and target schools first! You are likely to be overwhelmed by the tidal wave of secondary applications you will receive so don’t make the mistake of completing, for example, all of your reach schools first!
• Do not rush your work. Unless a medical school specifies a return date, there is no “deadline” to complete your essays. Complete all of your essays, if possible by August 1st or by Labor Day at the latest.
• Answer the essay prompts carefully. The biggest mistake students make is trying to squeeze a prewritten essay for an inappropriate prompt.
• Some prompts will force you to repeat information that is in your primary application. This is okay!
• Don’t feel that every topic you write about should be momentous. Sometimes writing about more personal details of your life can offer more insight into your values, ideals, and life decisions.

Most Common Essay Prompts

Several common secondary essay topics that are listed below.

Greatest Challenge/Failure/Adversity Essay

Essays that ask about personal challenges, failures or adversities are seeking information about your ability to manage conflict and challenge. They also want to know how you cope with conflict and that you can be objective when things don’t go your way.

Medical schools want to know that you are level headed, and that you won’t crumble when feeling vulnerable or faced with less than ideal situations. Students often immediately gravitate to academic or scholarly subjects for these essays, but, sometimes the most compelling topics are those that are personal. Why? These topics can often say much more about your character, values, ideals, and decision making. Ideally, you should also write about what you learned and how you grew or changed as a result of the challenge, failure, or adversity. 

Students also consider writing about red flags for this topic such as a class failure, poor MCAT exam or institutional action. Generally speaking, we find that these topics are usually less interesting and don’t offer enough information about who you are as a person.

Essay Example:

I had worked on my presentation for weeks. I knew it was so important, not only for me, but for my principal investigator (PI), that I present the work we had done succinctly and clearly since I would be speaking in front of the entire biochemistry department. Public speaking has never been a strength and I was very nervous. Before it was my time to speak, I could feel my heart racing and my palms sweating. When I got to the podium, I was literally unable to speak; I was shaking uncontrollably and had to sit down while my PI took over. It was the most humiliating experience of my life. I was able to calm down, and, rather than leaving the auditorium, I waited until the conference was over and apologized to my PI who was kind and forgiving. I then resolved to improve my public speaking skills. The the next day I signed up for a Toastmaster’s course and have taken every opportunity since this incident to speak in public. Although I still get nervous before I have to speak, I have learned to actually enjoy speaking in public.

I saw the Microsoft Word document on the screen of my roommate’s computer. It looked familiar. I realized that this essay my roommate had written on the works and life of Jane Austen contained the exact language I had seen elsewhere. Where had I seen it? Why was this so familiar? I also asked myself, “Do I have a right to be looking at  this document?”

Then it dawned on me. When my roommate got this assignment for her literature class, we discussed it with our housemates from down the hall.  One girl offered to give my roommate a paper she had written on this topic for an AP class in high school. She printed out the paper and gave it to me to give to my roommate. Curious about the topic, since I am a Jane Austen fan, I read it before handing it to my roommate. The document on the computer in front of me contained parts of this paper that were copied, verbatim.

The issues here were complicated. First of all, I was invading my roommate’s privacy. I should not have been looking at her computer even though we often shared our computers. But now that I was aware of what she had done, I felt an obligation to confront her.

That night, when my roommate returned home from studying, I first apologized for invading her privacy and explained that I had read the document on the screen. I then told her that I realized she had plagiarized and told her I thought this was wrong. She explained that she felt under tremendous pressure since she also had a big organic chemistry mid-term that week and it just seemed so easy to copy the paper even though she recognized it was not right to do so. With my urging, since she had not yet handed the paper in, she stayed up late into the night to compose an original essay and, in the end, she thanked me for noticing and for encouraging her to do the right thing. I realized that even confronting my roommate, which was uncomfortable and awkward for me, encouraged her to make a better choice and reinforced for me the importance of acting ethically even if these easier choice would have been to look away.

Diversity Essay

Medical schools have broadened their definitions of diversity and for essays like this you can write about your unique interests, talents, or experiences. Maybe you have a distinctive background, perspective, or outlook. Think outside the box when writing about diversity. Do you have a special hobby or accomplishment that sets you apart?

Or, you can also choose to write about your own experiences with diverse or minority populations to illustrate your cultural competence which most people think of as the more “traditional” approach to questions about diversity. We find that most applicants do not currently write about these more traditional topics. Sometimes it can be more impressive to write about topics that are more distinctive to you and your background.

I grew up in a diverse community even though my undergraduate college was quite homogeneous. During college, I sought out  experiences beyond campus to immerse myself in more diverse communities. I volunteered in a free clinic, tutored children in Africa, and traveled during my vacations, when possible. I gained insights into the challenges facing  others and how their backgrounds and experiences influenced their perspectives and attitudes. On a medical mission abroad the summer after my junior year, I worked in medical clinics helping to care for Mexican families, which helped me understand that such challenges and unfair inequalities in education and health care also exist internationally.

Through my experiences, I came to realize that all patients, regardless of their background, fare better when their unique circumstances, cultures, and outlooks are considered. To improve my ability to communicate with some of these populations, I minored in Spanish and became more proficient in  the language through my studies in Spain. I have learned the importance of listening and seeing situations through the eyes of those I help. Throughout such experiences, apart from realizing that I hope to work with these populations as a future physician, I was continually reminded of the pervasive societal inequalities and injustices both locally and internationally.

Another Example:

Whether playing a Beethoven or Brahms sonata, playing music has always been an outlet for me. Since the age of seven, I have emulated my mother, a professional cellist. In fact, even during college, my goal was to practice medicine while working as a professional pianist. While doing my premedical coursework and majoring in biology, I also minored in music and composed my own work. The year following college, while playing piano professionally, I realized this wasn’t what I wanted to pursue for my lifetime. However, my musical interests will always be more than a hobby and serve as my escape from the stresses of daily life.

Why XXXXX School Essay

Medical schools want to know that you have the qualities and characteristics they are seeking. Before writing these essays, read the medical school’s mission statement and review their student biographies (if offered) to get a sense of what the school values in applicants.

The key in writing “Why our School Essays” is to offer as many specifics as possible. You want to show you will take advantage of the medical school’s opportunities and that you will make valuable contributions as a medical student. Do this by showcasing how your interests and experiences are aligned with opportunities at the medical school, that you can benefit from what the medical school offers and that you will contribute to the medical school community.

Also, many students fail to look beyond the first and second year curriculums when writing about why there are interested in a medical school. What you do during your third and fourth years of medical school, in clinical settings, is just as important. Show that you understand this!

Example Essay:

My interest in geriatrics and emergency medicine evolved as I worked clinically in these two departments last summer. Through my coursework in health policy, I also learned of the imminent need for geriatric specialized physicians to support the aging baby boomer generation. Through your hospital’s renowned telemedicine and information technology departments, I would be offered the unique opportunity to explore this interest further. I would also take advantage of the medical school’s summer research program to participate in research projects related to geriatrics or  emergency medicine.

At the clinic where I worked, I gained first hand exposure to disease complications, which often were  caused by lack of access to primary care. My travels and work in India have shown me how common these issues also are internationally. Your unique medical school program would allow me to continue my active community participation during my first year, while providing care to diverse populations who lack access to care. This endeavor also could be augmented through participation in research and study in South America, so I could pursue my interest in global health while caring for other underserved communities and  improving my language skills.

Of supreme importance, the urban location and suburban hospitals affiliated with the medical school as well as the Level I trauma center would offer unparalleled exposure to novel academic and clinical opportunities. Apart from the school’s location in my favorite city of Great City, it is the superior curriculum, supportive medical educational environment, opportunity for community involvement, and team-oriented culture that would make your medical school a perfect fit for me.

What are you doing next year or what have you done since graduating from college?

Answer these questions in a straight forward fashion. Typically, medical schools require that only applicants who are not full-time students answer the question. In answering these questions, write about what you will be doing, but also include information about what you hope to learn and how this will prepare you for medical school.

For the upcoming academic year, I will continue my research on breast cancer at Outstanding Oncology Center, where I have been working for one year. Our findings last year have already provided evidence for the etiology of what receptor is involved in  the development of tiny cell cancer, and we hope to build on these findings to continue our work. I have already become proficient in using the literature to design experiments, and I hope that this year I will learn how to analyze our findings. My hope is that our findings will be significant enough to lead to a publication on which I would be an author.

I  will also shadow several doctors throughout the year to broaden my understanding of clinical medicine. Right now I have plans to shadow an internist, a surgeon, and an ophthalmologist.

My Saturday mornings will be spent volunteering at Inner City Clinic, where I will be promoted to the level of triage. I will be responsible for taking vital signs and basic intake histories on patients.

This year will be productive and, I hope, will provide the foundation I need to be an excellent medical student.

Secondary Essay Writing Tips

For each essay prompt you receive, pay attention to the character and word limits and use them as cues for how much information a medical school is seeking. A medical school that limits your responses to only 50 words, for example, is asking you for a simple, straightforward response. On the other hand, the school that allows 1,000 words per essay wants you to elaborate and go into some detail.

Secondary prompts vary, and I find that students can often recycle essays for multiple schools. But reading secondary prompts carefully is important. The most common mistake students make is providing a response that does not really address what is being asked. Even though writing secondary essays can get laborious, don’t try to make an essay you have already written “fit” for a prompt if it just doesn’t work. Remember, good secondary essays can help you earn a  medical school interview.

Sometimes, especially if your primary application is comprehensive, responding to a secondary essay may force you to repeat information that is already in your primary application. That not only is  okay but also suggests that you are in good shape; many schools determine prompts by identifying topics that applicants frequently leave out of primary applications.

I discourage  applicants from  writing a “one size  fits all document” for various secondary essay themes. Since the character/word limit for secondary essays is so variable (50 – 3,000 words) it would be a waste of time to write an essay before knowing specific character limits for each prompt. Having an idea of what you would write about for  each of the common themes is wise, however. Some schools’ secondary essay prompts do not vary from year to year, and you can often find these essay prompts and start working on them in advance. But, be warned, schools do change secondary essay prompts on occasion.

Above all, just as you did with your personal statement, write authentically and honestly and don’t try to spin your responses to tell admissions committees what you think they want to read. 

A couple of additional tips: 

• Never quote others; your essays should be about you!
• Optional secondary essays are truly optional. Don’t fill a space or recycle an essay unless you have a good reason to do so.
• Unless medical schools specify a secondary essay “due date,” there are no real turn around rules. Submit your essays when they are ready and ideally within two to three weeks after receiving the secondary application.

Secondary Essay Editing Services

MedEdits’ secondary essay review and editing services will ensure that your secondary essays address what is being asked by the prompt while ensuring you highlight what is necessary to distinguish your candidacy.

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Secondary Essay Prompts By School

*Data collected from MSAR 2022-2023, 2022 Osteopathic Medical College Information Book, and institution website.

Disclaimer: The information on this page was shared by students and/or can be found on each medical school’s website. MedEdits does not guarantee it’s accuracy or authenticity.

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Advisor Corner: Preparing for Secondary Applications

New section.

Secondary applications are specific to each school and focus on their specific values and interests. We asked three prehealth advisors to offer their best advice for applicants on how to approach your secondary applications

Once you submit your AMCAS application and it has been processed and verified, the AAMC will send your application to your selected medical schools on your behalf. At that time, you will begin to receive requests directly from schools to complete secondary applications. Unlike the AMCAS application, secondary applications are specific to each school and focus on their specific values and interest. So it’s not surprising there are many questions about how to approach these supplemental essays. To help get you started, we asked three prehealth advisors for their best advice on how to approach secondary applications.

Celeste Crowe, Director, Health Professions Advising Office at Appalachian State University:

Before you apply, it is helpful to discuss or outline with your prehealth advisor the ways that you have developed skills and knowledge based upon the AAMC core competencies . Many schools will look for evidence of these competencies, so it’s important to incorporate them in your secondary essay responses. Here are examples of prompts we give to applicants to help them as they prepare for their secondary application:

To highlight the competency of Teamwork: 

• While leadership is an important aspect of becoming a health care provider, so is teamwork. Describe a time or situation where you were not the leader or could not be. What was your role within the team? What did you learn from that experience?

To highlight the competency of Cultural Competence

• Describe an experience or time interacting with people who are different from you or adhere to a different set of cultural norms. What did you learn about yourself from that experience?
• If you have had limited opportunity to experience different cultures or work/serve with diverse populations, discuss how you plan to develop skills and experiences to become a culturally competent health care provider. 

Mariella Mecozzi, Senior Assistant Director of Pre-Professional Services, University of Michigan:

• Be ready to receive secondaries as soon as you submit your primary application and beyond.   AMCAS immediately notifies the schools designated by an applicant about that individual's intention to apply there. Many medical schools send secondaries automatically to all applicants;  some  even send secondaries to applicants as soon as they receive this notification from AMCAS. This explains why some of you  may  receive secondary applications from certain schools even though your AMCAS application status indicates that your application is still queued for processing.
• Wait until you’re formally asked to submit your secondary application before you do so.  Some applicants find links and questions listed on online forums and submit secondaries early in an unwise attempt to push their application forward. Submitting a secondary before being invited is poor application etiquette, and such a practice is frowned upon by medical schools. This is the equivalent of showing up to a party uninvited. You do not want to be that person.
• Stay on top of all your correspondence, both mail and email.  Medical schools tend to send email messages to applicants in large batches, which may be interpreted by servers' email filters as spam.   It seems like a hassle, but while you are applying, we recommend getting in the habit of checking your spam folder periodically. Also, make sure that your mailbox does not reach its capacity limit, which causes email messages to bounce back.

Alex Tan, Director of the Post-Baccalaureate Premedical Program at Johns Hopkins University:

Because your primary application sends the same message to every school, it is inherently limited in its capacity to act as your envoy. In contrast, your secondary essays afford you the opportunity to send a tailored, unique ambassador to each and every school. Yes, this is more work. Yes, schools often ask deceptively similar questions. Nonetheless, you must resist the urge to take that similarity as an invitation to send the same answer.

Why send different answers to the same question? Imagine you go on a series of first dates. Your dates ask you similar questions. Would you answer each with a memorized answer you recite on cue? No, not if you want a second date. I am not suggesting that your answers should be completely different, but, while the meat of your answers remain the same, you should emphasize different details about the experience or give different examples entirely. For example, there are lots of things I like about my favorite book, and I could be completely honest while taking different approaches to talking about that book so that I am answering the questions AND actively engaging my companion in a meaningful way.

Similarly, meaningful experiences are meaningful for many reasons. One experience may help me cultivate teamwork skills, allow me to practice leadership, help me better understand how to create a meaningful patient-caregiver relationship, learn to advocate for those in my care, and problem-solve issues of access and limited resources. In writing about it, I can help schools understand how I fit with what the medical school values by emphasizing the aspects of my experience that best illustrate how my values, passions, and goals overlap with those of each individual school. More general questions, as with discussing a challenge I have faced, are even easier to tailor. I face challenges constantly, so I can easily pick whichever one best helps me communicate my perspective.

Unquestionably, this is more time-consuming than recycling your answers, but I’ve never heard a student who was unsuccessful report their gratefulness for saving all that time nor have I heard a successful one regret the time they dedicated to their success. 

Medical School Secondary Essays: 5 Tips to Nail Them & Essay Prompts

• Cracking Med School Admissions Team

Right about now, you’re probably at that time when you’ve submitted your AMCAS application.  Pat yourself on the back because a big portion of your application is successfully complete! The thing is, it seems like only a few weeks have passed and your are now beginning to receive medical school secondary essays, signaling the next battle in the medical school admissions process: the secondary application.

Topics Covered In This Blog Post:

• What are Medical School Secondary Essays? 
• 5 Tips to Nail Your Medical School Secondary Essay
• Database of Medical School Secondary Essay Prompts
• Frequently Asked Questions from This Year’s Applicants – UPDATED JULY 29, 2019
• Secondary Essay Editing and Secondary Packages

Medical School Secondary Essays: Everything You Need to Know Including Tips, FAQs, & School Prompts

What are Medical School Secondary Essays?

After submitting your primary AMCAS application, many medical schools will ask you to complete a secondary application. Most medical schools, in addition to asking for an additional fee, will also ask you to write an additional essay or multiple additional essays that vary in length and focus. These essays are called medical school secondary essays, but despite their name, they are still of PRIMARY  importance !

Medical school secondary essays can be a very heavy load of work. Again, these essays are still very important and you should try to write them to the best of your ability. There are several things you can do to minimize your pain in writing secondary essays, while giving yourself the best chance of getting granted a medical school interview.

Contact us if you need help editing your medical school secondaries and check out our medical school secondary application packages .

download your secondary Essay Guide

Use this essay guide and workbook to write standout secondaries.

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5 Tips to Nail Your Medical School Secondary Essays

1. look up secondary essays from med school applicants in previous years.

Don’t wait to receive the prompts from the schools you applied to — take advantage of the few weeks in between filling out your AMCAS application and receiving secondary essay prompts! Medical schools don’t change their secondary essay prompts every year, so you can Google search previous years’ prompts and get started outlining or writing your secondaries before the essay prompts even come. This is a great way to save time later on, and you’ll need all the time you can get, because secondary essay prompts tend to differ between schools.

Better yet, check out our database of medical school secondary essay prompts down below.

2. Your Medical School Secondary Application Needs to Complement Your AMCAS

Your medical school application should be one cohesive document where everything ties together in some way, and different parts of the application should complement one another. Don’t think of your secondary application as a separate entity — remember the story you told in your primary application and continue telling that story in your secondary application!

Look carefully at your primary application. What have you already covered? What could use further elaboration? Are there puzzle pieces in your application that haven’t been put in place yet? Do the pieces of your application fit together? These are critical questions that you must consider when writing your medical school secondary application. While it’s okay to repeat some things from your primary, you don’t want to write the same thing verbatim. You can also take the opportunity to write full essays about topics that may have been included as one-sentence descriptions in your AMCAS Application. Another approach is to introduce a whole new topic that complements and supports the story you told in your primary. In any case, the most important thing, as always, is to have a cohesive application that connects your past accomplishments with your future goals.

3. Answer Secondary Essay Prompts Carefully — Don’t Copy and Paste

This may seem obvious to most, but it’s worth repeating here. Take time to answer each secondary essay prompt with care and thoughtfulness. A lot of times, applicants are exhausted by the time they start writing medical school secondary essays and try to cut corners in an effort to save time. Copy-pasting and repeating verbatim from information in your primary application is a recipe for disaster. Or worse yet, answering the prompt of another school’s essay while not adequately responding to the school at hand’s prompt, is a very embarrassing situation! While there’s no guarantee that admissions officers will read all your secondary essays — particularly if your primary application blows them away — if they make it to your secondary application, having them be poor quality will make it much more difficult for you to land an interview.

Some tips to make your secondary sound unique for each school:

• Look at specific programs and research mentors you want at each school.
• Discuss how the curriculum at each school is different. With the pre-clinical curriculum, some medical schools are problem-based, others are organ-based. Some med schools offer classes in public health and entrepreneurship. With the clinical curriculum, some medical schools have almost all “electives” during their fourth year while others have stringent clinical rotation requirements. Discuss why these elements are important to YOU.
• Write about unique opportunities and projects you want to be involved with at that specific med school. For example, if you are interested in pursuing global health, research what the global health opportunities are at each med school and how you see yourself taking advantage of them.

4. Have a Fast Turnaround Time with the Secondary Application

The time sensitivity of medical school applications is something people don’t talk about enough, and unfortunately it’s news to many med school applicants when it’s too late. Interview spots dwindle the later in the application cycle you are. A quality secondary application done in a short time window will increase your likelihood of getting an interview. This goes back to point #1 of front-loading the process; you don’t want to wait til the last minute and either submit secondary essays late, or submit them on time with poor quality. Quality and timeliness are both equally important.

5. Stuck? Ask Us to Review Your Primary and We Can Suggest Topics For Your Secondary Application!

The authors of Cracking Med School Admissions have written over a hundred secondary essays among ourselves as well as edited THOUSANDS of medical school secondary essays! We know what it takes to write a great secondary application, and we’ve passed on our knowledge to help hundreds of students succeed too. Check out our secondary essay packages and other services we offer.

As always, you can email us questions at [email protected]

Medical School Secondary Essay Prompts Database

• Albany Medical College Secondary Application Prompts
• Baylor Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• Columbia Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• Cornell Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• Drexel Medical School Secondary Prompts
• Duke University Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• GW Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• Harvard Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• Howard University Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• Johns Hopkins Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• Mayo Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• Miami Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• Mount Sinai Secondary Application Prompts
• Northwestern Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• NYU Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• Ohio State Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• OHSU Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• Penn State Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• Rosalind Franklin Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• Rutgers Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• SUNY Downstate Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• Texas Tech Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• UC Irvine Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• UC Los Angeles Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• UC Riverside Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• UC San Diego Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• UC San Francisco Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• University of Chicago Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• University of Cincinnati Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• University of Michigan Medical School Secondary Essays Prompts
• University of Oklahoma Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine Secondary Application
• University of Pittsburgh Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• University of Rochester Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• University of Washington Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• Vanderbilt Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• Virginia Tech Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• Washington University St Louis Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• Wayne State Medical School Secondary Application Prompts
• Yale Medical School Secondary Application Prompts

secondary Packages

Stand out   with our Secondary Essay Editing Packages!

FAQ’s about secondaries from This Year’s Applicants

UPDATED JUNE 26, 2019

Q: When do I have to submit secondaries by?

As soon as possible. We do not like to exchange quality for quantity (quick turnaround). An ideal turnaround time for secondaries is within 2 weeks of receiving them. 

Q: Can you help me brainstorm topics for my secondary essays?

This requires an extremely personalized approach and answer. Please contact us below or email us at [email protected] if you need help!

Q:  Do you have any tips about medical school secondary essays that ask you to write about the autobiography?

Purpose : The purpose of the medical school secondary autobiography is to tell the admissions committee about your values and roots. Your autobiographical stories need to show and convey to the reader who you are. Therefore, every single paragraph and story you tell about your childhood and upbringing needs to reflect something about you. If you talk about your  relatives, what did they teach you? If you talk about music, then why is that meaningful to you? If you bring up your mom’s career, how did that motivate you? 

Tips: After you talk about some of your values, you need to then tie it to your more recent experiences. Your values really need to reflect that you have done in college and beyond. Your values and personality traits should be apparent through the activities that you chose to pursue.

Thinking about these connections will help you write a superb medical school secondary essay autobiography! 

Q.  What topics can I write about for the “Diversity essay?”

Diversity can literally mean ANYTHING. Don’t think that diversity only equals discussing your ethnic or cultural background.

Our Cracking Med School Admissions mentees have written about these topics for the diversity essays:

• Extra-curricular activities
• Difficult up-bringing
• Interesting aspects about their up-bringing
• Jobs they have held
• Leadership positions
• Travel experiences
• Global health activities
• Cultural influences, including cultural instruments and dance

Q. A school has optional essays. What are your thoughts about answering them?

In general, the Cracking Med School Admissions team thinks that almost all the time, 

Q: One of the schools asked about “challenges in my pre-med journey.” What are appropriate topics to write about?

Students in the past have used this optional essay to write about difficult circumstances in their: family situation, upbringing, health issues, and failing a course. 

Q:  Does having a B- in a course sound like a challenge?

Typically, we advise students to NOT write about B-‘s as a challenging life circumstance. It usually comes off as very superficial!

Q: What are your prices for secondary essay editing? 

Please see our secondary packages below. 

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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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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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Why are secondary essays important and what should you be doing to make sure you have the best chance of getting into your school of choice?

The medical school application process starts with your primary application, whether that’s thought AMCAS, AACOMAS, or TMDSAS. Secondary essays come after you submit your primary application. It is a way for schools to learn more about you. It helps the medical schools determine your fit to their mission and it helps you do some research to see if you truly want to go there.

All the normal essay writing stuff is important here: grammar, typos, etc. Turning them around quickly is also important so you don’t miss any deadlines and to show your interest in the school.

[00:50] Is There Screening Involved?

Some schools will screen based on stats and what they’re looking for to determine if they want to send you a secondary essay.

Most schools do not screen and they will just send you a secondary essay whether or not you’re a qualified candidate or not. 

Therefore as an applicant, it’s important for you to figure out and determine where you have a shot among the schools you’re applying to because the secondary essays cost a lot of money.

[01:20] Things to Prepare For

The average is probably around $75 and if you multiply that with, say, 20 schools you applied to then that’s a lot of money for secondary essays. To get an estimate of the cost, check out our Medical School Applications Cost Estimator .

Time & Effort

Depending on the school, you may get very simple questions, or maybe just one question. Prepare for questions like what you did during the gap year if you’re not in schoo or how you’re going to add diversity to their class.

Some schools also have very in depth questions. They do that to determine if you’re going to be a good fit for their school and to see if you’re really motivated to go there because it’s going to take a lot of time to fill out those secondary essays.

[02:32] When Do Schools Send Out Secondary Essays?

If you’re submitting your primary application early on in this process, you’re not going to get secondary essays for a little bit of time. And that’s because the application services will hold the applications until they send that first wave out either mid to late June, depending on the application service. So you have some time between when you submit and when secondary essays come. Hopefully, you submit early because of the rolling admissions.

[03:06] Pre-writing Your Secondary Essays

To take a look at all of the essays for the schools you apply to and so you can start pre-writing, check out secondaryapps.com . You also get to have access to videos on how to answer the most common types of secondary essay questions.

Most schools typically don’t change their questions. And even if they do change their questions, you have now gotten into a mindset of trying to think about how they’re thinking, and trying to figure out the best way to answer that. So you have a headstart in terms of thinking through your story, your background, and how to best answer whatever new questions are there once you get the secondary.

[03:44] Secondary Essay Timelines

There are some schools that want secondary essays back in five days. There are some schools that say two weeks or 10 days.

To help you get your head around this, first, prioritize the schools you want to go to the worst or the most. Then prioritize schools that have deadlines on secondaries. 

As soon as you submit that primary, be prepared to write for several months to come, assuming you’re applying to a lot of schools.

[04:22] How Important Are Secondaries to This Whole Process?

When I was writing The Premed Playbook: Guide to the Medical School Personal Statement , I reached out to a dean of admissions, and he commented that personal statements are terrible. Nobody knows how to write them properly. So they look at secondary essays to determine a large chunk of who they’re going to invite for an interview.

Secondary essays are important. Schools are using them to determine fit for their mission. They’ll ask you questions that are about fit for their mission. Now, even though they’re important, they’re not really hard. They may take a lot of time depending on the school, but they are asking you a very specific question. And as long as you answer that question, and hopefully, work in a little bit of your life story with an anecdote, they’re really easy to write, assuming you’ve done some reflection on your journey.

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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.

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blogging my journey from premed to md & all the little life things in between

How To Write Secondary Essays for Medical School – All You Need To Know!

July 1, 2020 · In: Application Advice , Pre-Med

Secondaries are sadly a necessary evil in the application process, so you need to know EXACTLY how to write secondary essays for medical school in order to maximize your chances. In the 2020 – 2021 application cycle, I was able to submit 28 secondary applications! That’s compared to being overwhelmed by just 4 of them in 2017.

If you didn’t already know about these tips & resources for completing your secondary applications, reading this post will help you through this process tremendously!

This post is all about how to write secondary essays for medical school.

What Are Secondary Applications for Medical School?

After your primary application, you will receive secondary applications from schools you applied to. In order to submit your secondary application, you also have to complete different essays. Unlike the essays you write for your primary application, these essays are specific to each school.

When Do Secondary Applications Come Out ?

First, your primary application has be verified before you can receive any secondary applications. Afterwards, some schools send them automatically and some screen the primary application first to check that you meet their minimum GPA and MCAT requirements.

When Are Secondary Applications Due?

A good rule of thumb is to aim for submitting your secondaries within two weeks of receiving them . This obviously takes some planning, otherwise you will get all your secondaries at once and probably fall far behind that goal.

To get full clarity on the entire application timeline and how YOU can prepare ahead, download my FREE 12-month planner here:

How Much Do Secondary Applications Cost?

The cost of secondaries greatly differs from school to school and can vary from $50 to over $100 per school. Make sure to also factor in any indirect costs though, like postage for mailed materials, fees for sending official transcripts or costs for a headshot.

For more details, check out my post How Much It Costs To Apply To Medical School

Does FAP Cover Secondary Applications?

Yes, if you qualify for the Fee Assistance Program , and the cost for secondary applications can be waved. So make sure to check if you are eligible to get those extra reductions in your medical school application.

Best 7 Tips for More Success & Less Headache

Tip #1: pre-write your secondaries.

If you only remember one thing from this post, I hope it is this tip! Secondary essays are going to be a headache regardless… but imagine how much worse it would be if you got all of them at once! If you apply to 20 medical schools, then you could have 60 essays waiting to be written withing two weeks. Not fun.

Instead, go to this website here . You can look up all the prompts to the schools you plan to apply to. Set a certain amount of essays to write each week and stick to it. That way, when you start getting secondary applications you are half way or completely done and can submit them early!

Tip #2: Don’t Repeat Anything From Your Primary Application

This is easily the hardest and most frustrating thing to try and avoid. The secondary application that I submitted earlier in the week was for ATSU, a DO school in Arizona. They ask you to list your three most meaningful clinical experiences and explain why. So I had to figure out how to write why being an EMT is meaningful to me without saying the same thing from my primary application.

Being told not to repeat yourself, then being asked almost the same question twice… so incredibly frustrating. But if you want to get an acceptance, the best thing to do is suck it up & nix the complaining now because you will have to do it a lot!

Tip #3: Look up The School’s Mission Statement

The same website that has all the secondary prompts for each school, also includes their mission statements . I find this also frustrating because some mission statements a quite vague. Either way, know the school’s mission statement when you are completing their secondary application.

Your essays should convey that accepting you as a student for their medical school would be in line with their mission statement and values . Not an easy task, but use the resources later in this post to help you get a feel for what that means!

Tip #4: Use Your Personal Stories to Show Who You Are

AKA don’t say “You should accept me into your medical school because my best attribute is collaborating with others”. Tell a story about that time when you actually collaborated with others .

For example, one of the essay prompts for ATSU’s secondary application was to tell them what would be my strongest attribute as a SOMA student. In one quick sentence to answer the question directly, told them what I believed to be my strongest attribute (promoting a collaborative environment with my classmates). Then the rest of the essay was a story from college where I actually did just that. I explained a problem my equestrian team was having, how I recruited other teammates to work together to find a solution, then explained the outcome and how I hope to use that attribute as a future medical student.

Unlike other aspects of applying to medical school, writing stories like these are actually pretty enjoyable for me personally. After all the stories I wrote to explain my activities in my primary application, I really feel like whoever ends up reading it will feel like they are getting to know who I am. That is exactly what you want to feel like after writing a story in your essay. So do some reminiscing and come up with good personal experiences that show who you are!

If you could more tips on this ( and many other must-know strategies ), sign up for my Free Premed Workshop and I will shares different examples on how to share your unique story and avoid sounding cliche! Enter your details below to save your spot for the next available dates:

Tip #5: Copy, Copy, Copy!

What do I mean by this? Well, when you get a secondary application it is basically a link to a website where you will fill out the application. If you use said website to do the actual writing (instead of Word or Notes) you should definitely copy it to a Word document , or whatever you prefer to use, before you hit submit or save.

Why, you ask? Because if you spend 10 minutes writing out an essay (or worse, way longer!) the system will most definitely log you out. AKA, when you go to submit or save that particular essay you will be logged out and it will NOT be saved!

So please, avoid the tears and just copy it over to Word before you hit save. Then log back in, copy your essay, and hit save right away.

To avoid this problem completely, you could just use Word to do your essay. Just take not of what word count you have to stay within and copy it over when you are done! No tears needed!

Tip #6: Ctrl+Z is Your Best Friend

So despite already knowing about the above tip, my brain failed me and I forgot my own advice. It sucks, but it happens. Earlier this week when I finished up one of my essays, I hit save and… it was gone. There may have been a tear or two. Then I refused to even look at my laptop for the next five minutes. Then I went into desperation mode and to my happiest surprise there is actually a way to fix it!

Granted, this definitely doesn’t work in all cases. If you go to a went to a new page or anything like that, your essay is sadly gone for good. But in this case, I learned that if you right click and hit “Undo” or do Ctrl+Z, it comes back!

I consider myself a somewhat tech savvy person, at least for the basics. But I never knew you could do this! I’m honestly surprised I even looked for a way to undo it because I had no idea it was possible. Anyway, hopefully you don’t need to use it and go through that added stress. But just in case, now you can have some hope there is a way to fix your blunder!

Tip #7: Ask a Friend to Proofread or Pay a Professional

So far, I personally plan to stick with the former suggestion. Paying a professional company that edits your essays is expensive AF . If you want to go the free route, just ask someone to look over your essays for grammar essays.

Especially if you are like me and you are submitting essays you started and finished in the same day. After you work on something for over an hour, it is very easy to miss silly mistakes. Applying to medical school is a rough process, don’t risk going through it a second time because you had too many silly mistakes in your applications!

Despite knowing this I was still so over it I just wanted to hit submit and be done. Knowing that’s just plain dumb though, I asked George to look for any errors. He found like three… for example, I wrote “the patient’s at the hospital” and didn’t notice I had a completely unnecessary apostrophe. The person reading your essay doesn’t have to be a grammar genius to catch silly mistakes like that so definitely have someone proofread for you!

Also, if you are still in college, schedule a few appointments with your writing center ! They are a great free resource and will probably have a better eye for grammar mistakes than your chemistry major friend. Just note that I would be skeptical if they give you advice on what to write about unless they have experience specifically helping premeds. Students at the writing center probably don’t know much how the process, so I personally would just use them as a resource for grammar help.

Intermediate $

If you want to go the intermediate route as far as money goes, you could offer to pay someone you trust to edit your essays . I asked one of my friends from college to edit my essays and paid her $150. That is a small price to pay for increasing the quality of your essays and WAY cheaper than the professionals.

Just don’t ask any ol’ Joe Schmo you walk by, make sure you are asking someone who is good with grammar and editing for other people. My friend was an English minor and worked at our writing center in college (she also had applied to medical school before, bonus !). Try to ask someone with similar credentials!

Expensive AF $

If you have the money to pay the professionals that work specifically to help premeds with their applications, then I believe it is soooo worth it. I am NOT saying it is necessary to do, simply because there are so many free resources to help you. I just personally believe that something like that is an investment into your future. Those guys know their stuff and writing better essays helps (but obviously doesn’t guarantee) your chances of getting an acceptance letter.

As someone who is applying to medical school for a second time around, I think it’s not a bad idea IF you have the money. I personally don’t feel like it’s worth spending my last penny to do so and feel confident enough using mostly free resources.

Best Resources on What & How to Write Secondary Essays

Dr. ryan gray’s youtube channel.

If you are a premed student and you don’t already know about Dr. Ryan Gray and Medical School Headquarters , you need to look him up! He is especially helpful for non-traditional premeds (like me) applying to medical school. This is because, if you are no longer in school then you most likely don’t have an advisor to help you anymore. As long and complicated as applying to medical school is, you really need someone to help you through it. Dr. Gray has been that person for me and I think my primary applications turned out 10x better because of it.

Getting Started

I watched this video on Dos and Don’ts of Med School Secondary Essays a couple days before I planned to start my first secondary application.

Amazing Advice for Common Questions

Once again, Dr. Gray is killin’ it with the most helpful advice around. He made a playlist that answers how to go about answer many of the most common secondary essay prompts. If you are like me, listening to advice like this makes it so much easier to get the wheels turning before I sit down and write an essay. If you haven’t already been convinced Dr. Gray is an amazing premed resource for applying to medical school, this playlist might do the trick!

AAMC’s Website

As far as trusted resources go for applying to medical school, it doesn’t get more trustworthy than information straight from AAMC . I think other resources are more helpful because AAMC’s articles can be vague and detail lacking IMO. Still, everything to do with applying to MD schools is through the AAMC, so it is obviously worth reading whatever info they give us. I read the article linked below for some extra ideas on how to write good secondary essays.

Road to Acceptance

If you don’t want to scramble together all the tips and resources yourself, trying to make sense of it all while being super busy with your medical school application – this is for you! In my course Road to Acceptance I guide you through each step of the application process , including a full module on secondaries. You get step-by-step video lessons, worksheets, templates and tons of examples (like 70+ secondary essay examples) to learn from.

Final thoughts on how to write secondary essays for medical school

The only thing left to do is to stop putting off those essays! Rip off the band-aid and start on your first one today! Whether that means doing one essay for a secondary application you have already received OR pre-writing one you know you will have later, there is no better time to start than now !

If you are also taking the MCAT soon, head on over to this post to learn 9 ways you can prepare for test day (besides studying). Or my other blog post that explains 5 incredibly helpful things I learned after taking the shortened MCAT exam on June 19th HERE .

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Yale medical school secondary essays: tips + samples.

Reviewed by:

Akhil Katakam

Third-Year Medical Student, Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University

Reviewed: 5/13/22

Is Yale your dream medical school? You’re in luck! Follow along to learn expert tips on how to create stand-out secondary essays for Yale medical school. 

The Yale University School of Medicine is one of the most prestigious medical schools in the world. On top of being part of the Ivy League, the school consistently ranks within the top 10 medical schools globally each year in both the US News and QS World rankings. 

Class-topping students from across the globe are consistently applying to Yale medical school - but how can they do so successfully when the competition is so fierce? One way is to zero in on the quality of your secondary essays. 

Essays are the biggest opportunity to differentiate yourself from other candidates because you can begin to present your personality.

Here we’ll go over how to write the Yale medical school secondary essays. We’ve included tips on how to create compelling pieces of writing from admissions experts, successful essay samples, and more here. 

If you’re looking for a partner to help you throughout your application journey, feel free to contact one of our admissions advisors at any time. We’re here to help!

Let’s get started.

Get The Ultimate Guide on Writing an Unforgettable Personal Statement

Yale Medical School Secondary Essay Prompts

To begin, we must first analyze the Yale medical school essay prompts. The following prompts are updated for 2022-2023. 

Essay Prompt #1

“ Yale School of Medicine values diversity in all its forms. How will your background and experiences contribute to this important focus of our institution and inform your future role as a physician? (500 words limit)”

How to answer: To give Yale a deeper understanding of who you are, use this  secondary essay as an opportunity to showcase your unique perspective. As this prompt is a " diversity essay ," consider the various aspects of your identity that make you stand out. This can include your ethnicity, culture, interests, background, and values. 

Reflect on experiences from your past that have shaped your identity and choose one to focus on in your essay. Be authentic in your writing and avoid cliches. Additionally, make sure to connect your background to how it will contribute to your future as a physician and conclude your essay by highlighting how it makes you a suitable fit for the role.

Required Essay #2: Select One Of the Following Prompts

“ MD applicants: Please answer either one of the following questions

MD/PhD applicants: Please answer question 2 as it pertains to your proposed PhD research.

• While there is great emphasis on the physician-patient relationship, Yale School of Medicine also emphasizes the importance of training future physicians to care for communities and populations. Describe how your experiences would contribute to this aspect of the mission of the Yale School of Medicine. (500 words limit)
• Research is essential to patient care, and all students at Yale School of Medicine complete a research thesis. Tell us how your research interests, skills, and experiences would contribute to scholarship at Yale School of Medicine. (500 words limit).”

How to Write the Yale Medical School Required Essay #2

First, choose the appropriate prompt.

How to answer prompt one: To respond to the first prompt, which asks you to connect your experiences to the value of treating communities and populations, consider a specific experience from your past that had a significant impact on you. 

Your topic could be a time when you volunteered, were part of an underserved community, or had a role as a representative. When selecting your topic, focus on a time when you learned something through a community experience that changed you. 

Share your story from a position of growth, highlighting any challenges or mistakes you encountered, but also how you learned and improved from them. Conclude by explaining how the experience has made you a better person and how it will contribute to your future as a physician.

‍ How to answer prompt two: Prompt two is targeted at MD/PhD applicants who are interested in medical research. 

Use this opportunity to elaborate on any experiences that have sparked your interest in the field of medicine. Whether it was encountering an incurable disease, facing obstacles in research, or other experiences, highlight your passion for uncovering answers and understanding. 

Keep in mind that you do not need to have specific experience in medical research to answer this prompt, think broadly about any experiences that have contributed to your growing passion for learning. Reflect on what answers you hope to uncover in the future and how your experiences and passions will make you an excellent doctor one day. 

Most importantly, be genuine in your response and avoid writing what you think Yale wants to hear. This is the chance for Yale to get to know you, your motivations, and why your experiences and passions will make you a great fit for the program.

Yale Medical School Secondary Essay Samples

Here are some examples of successful essays to reference when writing your own. Please do not copy our samples, as they are meant only for use as a writing guide. 

Essay Prompt #1 Example

Yale medical school’s first prompt asks the applicant to write a “diversity essay,” which intends to express how your unique point of view has shaped your current goals. Here’s an example of a successful medical school diversity essay .

“Being South Asian, I have firsthand knowledge of what it means not to access basic health care. As a child, my mother took me to Pakistan every year, where I spent summers with my grandfather, a top pediatrician in the nation. He had a free clinic attached to his home in Faisalabad, and his practice was so renowned and respected that people from all over the country would travel great distances to have my grandfather treat their children. Pakistan is a third-world country where a significant part of the population remains illiterate and uneducated due to the lack of resources and opportunities. This population is the most vulnerable, with extremely high numbers of infectious disease and mortality rates. Yet, it is entirely underserved. With the lack of hospitals, clinics, and doctor’s offices in rural Pakistan, parents of ailing children must travel great distances and wait in long lines to receive proper health care. Every summer at my grandfather’s clinic, from ages five to 17, my job was to open the doors to long lines of tired, hungry, and thirsty parents with their sick children. I would pass out bottled water and pieces of fruit. I would record names, where the patients came from, and the reasons for their visits. I would scurry back inside with the information for my grandfather to assess, and then he’d send me running back out again to let the next family inside. I learned in my formative years how to communicate with diverse patient populations with special needs and a lack of basic necessities. I learned to listen to every family’s unique reasons for their visit, and some of their desperation and pleading for the lives of their children will stay with me forever. When I get into medical school, I hope to share the story of how Gulzarah carried her dehydrated daughter for 12 miles in the Pakistani summer heat without rest (thanks to my grandfather, she later made a full recovery). I want to tell my peers that doctors like my grandfather are not only healers in biology but healers in the spirit by the way he made up heroic songs for the children and sang the fear out of their hearts. I want to show my peers that patients are unique individuals who have suffered and sacrificed to trust us with their health care, so we must honor their trust by providing quality treatment and empathy. My formative experiences in pediatrics contributed to my globally conscious mindset, and I look forward to sharing these diverse insights in my medical career.”

Why this essay works: The writer chose to focus mainly on their childhood experiences as their unique point of view. 

They successfully describe how they first became passionate about medicine with their compelling stories of their grandfather’s practice. In the end, they include how they would like to use their unique point of view to contribute to the field of healthcare.

This writer has a moving story, and although not everyone has such a drastic connection to medicine, it’s important to recognize the three main points in this essay:

•  The writer describes their unique perspective. 
• The writer presents how their unique perspective lends itself to their interest in medicine.
• The writer concludes by stating how their unique perspective will help them become a better physician.

When writing your essay you should include those three main points to connect your story regardless of your subject. 

Essay Prompt #2 Example

Here we’ve included an essay on serving different communities and populations in response to Yale’s first question in the second essay prompt. 

This essay focuses on underserved communities, though you should keep in mind that your own essay should concentrate on the area of medicine and the community or population you are most passionate about. 

“On Wednesdays, I was the only visitor for Jorge, an elderly patient in the AIDS and Tropical Disease Ward at Carlos III Hospital in Madrid. A native of Equatorial Guinea, Jorge had full blown AIDS and had been living in Spain illegally because, according to Jorge, his country lacked enough resources and trained doctors to provide an adequate level of treatment. Over several weeks I witnessed his losing battle, not only with a terminal illness but also with cultural incongruence and a continual feeling of unease, thousands of miles away from home. Talking with Jorge during my experience as a volunteer for the NGO Soldarios Para el Desarollo in the fall of 2001, led me to question the justice of health care discrepancies that make it so difficult for people like Jorge to get sufficient treatment in underdeveloped nations.  ‍ Jorge was a victim of health care inequality, a subject that has been at the forefront of my mind since enrolling in “Race and Medicine in America” during my sophomore year. The course revealed to me the historically poor distribution of quality medical attention and how treatment continually evades socio-economically disadvantaged communities. I came to understand how, in the US, a national shortage of physicians and unlikely prospects of financial gain have caused few doctors to take an interest in these communities, leaving a diminishing level of access to services and expertise. This unfortunate reality inspired me to take an interest in treating these populations, in hopes of helping to improve the care for our country’s poor and underserved. Jorge’s story broadened my perspective, as I further realized that this need is exponentially worse in developing nations.  ‍ The combination of my studies and real world experience strengthened my desire to practice medicine focused on treating underserved populations, nationally and abroad. In pursuit of my goal, I sought additional exposure to medical conditions in the developing world.  ‍ During the summer of 2002, I contributed to a public health research initiative in Ghana. My research on malaria infectivity in and around the capital city Accra sent me to shanty town communities with poor hygiene and chronic illness and gave me yet another perspective on the impact of economic disparity in health outcomes and treatment options. Exorbitant patient volume and endemic disease are but a few of the many obstacles to doctors serving these communities and trying to provide quality care.  ‍ Despite these difficulties, I witnessed skilled physicians in this setting performing complex procedures in substandard conditions. At the Komfo Ankye Teaching Hospital in 7 the urban village of Kumasi, I scrubbed-in during the removal of an osteosarcoma tumor from a man’s jaw and an ileostomy, where I saw a scalpel filling the role of an absent screwdriver and doctors working in a hot ward with minimal ventilation and only basic amenities.  ‍ These resourceful doctors were still able to perform, reaffirming my expectation that despite complications, the addition of well-trained doctors can make a marked difference. I began to understand how, by taking my medical school training to such environments, I could serve as an intermediary - bringing first world knowledge into a third-world context.  ‍ Since my time in Ghana, I have continued to participate in health care projects in poor communities. During the summer of 2003, I conducted research in an obstetrics ward of a public hospital in Sao Paulo, and the following fall participated in an infectious disease initiative that brought medical attention to impoverished suburbs of Lima, Peru.  ‍ Most recently, I worked at a bilingual health clinic in Chicago serving a primarily Latino immigrant community. With each experience, I gained a deeper understanding of the complementary skills necessary to make a real difference. I have learned that medical knowledge, cultural understanding, and political savvy are critical components to a holistic approach to community health care and development, and are skills possessed by the most effective contributors to positive change.  ‍ I continue to hone my language skills in anticipation of serving Spanish and Portuguese-speaking populations; and I am building an understanding of how to work in a complex funding environment and link medical treatment with public policy. I wish to pursue my medical training and a Master’s in Public Health, so that I can improve access to health care and serve as an effective physician. My desire to perform medical public service developed from concern and sympathy for people in need of medical care, most specifically those with the least access. I further recognize the importance such compassion plays in effective communication between doctors and their patients.  ‍ It was my childhood doctor’s ability to convey understanding and elicit trust that inspired my initial interest in the medical field. He combined calm and compassion with medical expertise in a thorough form of healing that I grew to expect, but have infrequently witnessed in poor communities. As I strive to bring better health care to underserved populations, I hope to do so with the same personal care and attention that comforted me in my youth.”

Why this essay works: In this example, the writer clearly highlights their passion for healthcare and how it all began. 

Importantly, they clearly emphasize the communities they are most passionate about helping through medical care. Whichever population or community you intend to care for later on should be clear in this essay, even if you change your mind later on. This is an opportunity to demonstrate your unique perspective and attributes to Yale.

FAQs: Yale Medical School Essays

Here are our answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about how to write the Yale medical school secondary essays.

1. How Many Secondary Essays Do You Need for Yale Medical School?

There are technically four essay prompts for Yale medical school, although only two are mandatory to write. The second prompt has two questions you can choose between, and the third prompt is an optional essay that you can choose to write if you want to explain an abnormal circumstance on your application. 

2. How Do I Write the Yale Medical School Essays?

When writing the Yale medical school essays, make sure to highlight your unique perspective. Consider the unique qualities you bring to the table and how your personal history has influenced your career choices. Remember, your essays are the perfect opportunity for Yale to get to know the person behind the numbers. It’s your time to shine! Also, utilizing an online plagiarism checker ensures the originality of your essays.

Final Thoughts

Writing Yale medical school essays is challenging for most aspiring med students simply because creative writing is not often their strong suit. However, if you can master the art of telling your story and providing your unique perspective on healthcare - you’ll be sure to wow the admissions committee. 

Good luck with your essays!

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• 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.

>> Want us to help you get accepted? Schedule a free strategy call here . <<

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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.

Looking ahead to your med school interview? Check out what an Interview Prep Course can do for you:

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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How to Write the Medical School Secondary Diversity Essay

• By Med School Insiders
• June 13, 2022
• Secondary Application

The medical school secondary diversity essay exists because admissions committees want to ensure their campus is as diverse as possible. Medical schools want to attract applicants from all walks of life so that each student contributes something unique to the student body. The diversity essay is an opportunity for applicants to discuss their minority background or otherwise unique history or identity and how their uniqueness will contribute to the college community.

In this post, we’ll break down why this prompt is asked, what admissions committees are looking for, and how to best answer it.

Medical School Secondaries

The AMCAS application opens for the following year’s medical school class around the first week of May. Submissions open around the end of May to early June, so you have a month to prepare your primary application. Therefore, if you hope to begin medical school in the fall of 2023, you must apply in the spring of 2022.

Your secondary applications will take about two to four weeks to arrive after you submit your primary application. Secondaries must be completed as soon as possible without compromising quality. We recommend taking no longer than 7-14 days to submit each secondary you receive.

This is especially true because, at Med School Insiders, we recommend applicants apply to around 20 different medical schools . This could mean receiving 20 different secondaries, all within the same general time frame.

For more information about ideal scheduling, read our Medical School Application Timeline Guide .

Why Do Schools Include a Diversity Essay?

Colleges, and not just medical schools, believe their college culture, community, and campus learning experience can be enriched by including a wide array of different backgrounds, perspectives, identities, and beliefs. Therefore, many admissions committees assign a diversity essay so that each applicant can explain in their own words how their identity and background will help enhance the student body at large.

Diversity essays are an opportunity for applicants with minority backgrounds, unique family histories, an unconventional education, or otherwise distinctive experiences to explain how their uniqueness will add to the campus community.

How to Answer the Medical School Secondary Diversity Essay

1 | diversity comes in many forms.

This is an extremely important point, as many applicants who don’t come from a specific socioeconomic or ethnocultural background believe they are unable to add diversity to a prospective medical school class. This is a common misconception. Diversity isn’t limited to the color of your skin or which religion your family belongs to.

Did you experience a non-traditional upbringing growing up? This could include losing a family member, having a sibling or family member with a health concern or disability, growing up in a single parent home, needing to work at a young age, or much more. There are many, many factors that could contribute to your diversity.

Focus on your story. Which personal qualities make you unique? What aspect of your personal identity, upbringing, or family has separated you from your peers?

2 | What is Your Personal Identity?

If you’re stuck on what direction to take this essay, take time to look inward and consider your own identity. Who are you? What kind of person are you? What makes you, well, you? What makes you unique from other candidates?

Your identity is made up of a number of different factors, including your ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and health.

You might also consider any non-traditional experiences you’ve had or a non-traditional upbringing.

• What was your home life like?
• What was your financial situation growing up?
• What is your family’s education level?
• How much did you have to work when you were younger?
• Do you come from a multicultural background?
• Have you experienced a personal health scare?
• Do you have family members who have significant health concerns?
• Have you lost close family members?
• Did you lose a parent at a young age?
• Did you grow up in a single parent home?
• Have you experienced any kind of traumatic event that has informed your values and identity?

3 | Get Personal

Don’t hold back when sharing your experiences. Surface-level stories or bland anecdotes will not stand out. What personal details can you add that will better illustrate your points?

Describe in detail how the experience made you feel. What did you learn? What qualities have you developed as a result of the experience? How will you apply what you learned and the qualities you earned to your medical education and eventual career?

At the same time, remember that your experience may be brought up during your interview. Anything you mention in your application is fair game to be asked about on the interview trail. Do not write about any experience you will be unable to speak about in person. It’s good to be open and show vulnerability, but it’s also vital that you maintain your composure during your interview.

If you don’t think you can speak about the experience face-to-face with an interviewer, leave it out of your essay.

4 | Don’t Repeat Yourself

You may have been asked a diversity question in your primary application, or you may have chosen to focus on this aspect of your life in your personal statement.

Do not repeat yourself in your secondary. Admissions committees already have access to your primary application. Repeating the same stories won’t provide adcoms with any additional insight into who you are. The secondaries are an opportunity to add something new to your story.

If you’re going to touch on an experience, moment, or lesson you’ve already mentioned, ensure that you are adding to it. You must provide a notable amount of additional context if you utilize the same examples in your secondaries.

5 | Continue Crafting Your Narrative

An essential piece of a successful primary application is the cohesive narrative you build throughout it about who you are and why you want to be a doctor. The secondary application is no different. The diversity essay is an opportunity to continue the narrative you established in your primary application.

It’s important that the diversity essay fits well with the rest of your secondary application. Each piece of the application should add to your story and provide additional context about how you’ve arrived at where you are today.

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

Medical School Secondary Diversity Essay Examples

There are a number of different directions you can take your diversity essay.

You might discuss a time when you or someone you care about experienced prejudice. How did that experience make you feel? What did you learn? How did it shape who you are? If you took action in response to this, what action did you take? Did you try to support others who are experiencing prejudice?

You might discuss the difficulties you’ve had growing up with parents who have different values than your own. How did these differences change your relationship with your family? How did that conflict in your life shape who you are today? Were you able to resolve your differences with your family, or did you need to prioritize your own needs and identity?

You might discuss how your cultural background has been a positive influence on your life. How has learning another language and participating in cultural values distinct from those of the US shaped who you are? What have you learned from the traditional values of your family? How can you apply what you’ve learned to interacting with people who come from other ethnic or socioeconomic backgrounds?

You might discuss how from a very young age you needed to help support your family financially. How did taking on that burden when you were young shape you? How were you able to help and support your family? Was it financially or with your time? What did you learn from that experience growing up, and how has it informed your priorities and outlook on life?

Other Common Secondary Questions

The diversity essay is only one of the common medical school secondary prompts you can expect to see in one form or another. Knowing which questions are likely to appear on secondaries will help you prepare your answers in advance.

Some of the most common secondary questions include:

• Why are you a good fit for our school?
• What are your strengths and weaknesses?
• Why do you want to be a doctor?
• Why us? / Why do you want to join this program?
• Describe a moral or ethical dilemma you faced. What did you learn from the experience?
• Describe a time when you failed and what you learned.
• Did you take time off after undergrad? What did you achieve during this time?
• Where do you see yourself in ten years?

With these questions in mind, start writing your responses to common secondary questions long before you actually receive your secondaries. Once you do receive a secondary, deeply research the program and tailor your answers to suit their values and offerings.

Learn more about the complete secondary process and how to plan ahead in our Medical School Secondary Application Guide .

Secondary Application Editing With Med School Insiders

We get it. We understand how long you’ve already been working on the application process,  but now is not the time to give up. It’s time to knuckle down and drive this thing home.

Med School Insiders can help. Our Medical School Secondary Application Editing services will help you write the kind of singular secondary applications that will get you noticed by your top choice medical schools. Our doctor advisors have served on medical school admissions committees, and they’ve read hundreds of secondary essays. Our team will help you craft a stellar secondary application tailored to each school you apply to.

Med School Insiders

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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The Growing Importance of Environmental Health in Medical Education: How Premeds Can Prep

Stay informed, conduct research and get involved in activities and organizations prior to medical school.

Environmental Health in Medical School

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Get involved with an organization or club focused on environmental health, sustainability or climate advocacy.

As the global rise in temperature and associated anthropogenic climate change continue unabated, consequences for human health and disease are increasingly apparent. The medical field is beginning to recognize this critical intersection between human health and the environment.

The World Health Organization has categorized climate change as the most significant threat to human health in the 21st century, highlighting its increasing relevance for students pursuing medical education.  Medical schools seek applicants who are prepared and motivated to deal with future health challenges. By taking an interest in environmental health, premedical students can demonstrate this preparedness while learning about a highly relevant topic.

Here are some ways premed students can prepare for the growing relevance of climate change and the necessity of environmental health awareness in the medical field. 

Stay Informed 

Educate yourself about current environmental issues and stay up to date with environmental research and policies that relate to health care and public health . Consider resources such as the WHO, Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, Environmental Protection Agency and Environmental Health News.

Also, read the latest reputable, primary research through PubMed or Google Scholar so that you are familiar with the latest data. You can subscribe to PubMed alerts from a few relevant research groups so that you can remain informed automatically through your email inbox. 

If you can, take a course and attend conferences, workshops or seminars on environmental health, sustainability efforts, the impact of environmental factors on human health, etc. You may find coursework in environmental science, public health or climate studies particularly relevant. Courses such as environmental epidemiology, toxicology and environmental policy can provide valuable knowledge and widely applicable skills.

These kinds of experiences provide opportunities to learn from experts in the field, network with professionals and stay informed about current issues and initiatives. 

Volunteer or Work in Relevant Organizations 

Ideally, premed students with genuine interest in climate change and other environmental issues will seek out experiences that demonstrate their commitment to addressing these issues throughout their career in the medical field, while also enhancing their medical school application . 

A great way to begin is by working in volunteer initiatives or applying to internships with organizations focused on environmental conservation, sustainability or climate action. For example, participating in or leading projects related to pollution reduction, habitat restoration or community resilience can demonstrate a dedication to environmental stewardship with clear implications for the health care field. 

Student organizations are a great place to start. Get involved with an organization or club focused on environmental health, sustainability or climate advocacy. These opportunities can also provide valuable leadership experience and teach you to think creatively about ways to participate in the national and international dialogue regarding climate change.

You may also find a crossover between local sustainability initiatives and community outreach, allowing you to meaningfully engage with your local community before entering the medical field. 

Depending on your locale, you may find – or create – clinical experiences with an environmental focus. Think about working in communities frequently affected by environmental hazards, or volunteering in clinics that serve populations disproportionately affected by climate-related disasters. 

Engage in Research

The intersection of environmental factors and human health is an extremely active area of research , with many exciting projects aimed at reducing the effects of climate change that routinely make international headlines. Opportunities to become involved with such projects have never been more prevalent. These include joining laboratories studying the health effects of air pollution, water contamination, climate-related disasters, etc.

Obtaining research experience in any field demonstrates critical thinking skills and a commitment to advancing knowledge – traits that are invaluable in medicine. 

Advocate for Change 

Get involved in advocacy efforts aimed at addressing environmental health disparities, promoting environmental justice and advocating for policies that prioritize and protect public health. Popular examples include initiatives to highlight health disparities in specific communities and populations, identify effective interventions to address such disparities, advocate for policymakers to implement policies that address environmental challenges and inequities, and advocate for the adoption of stricter environmental regulations (exposure to pollutants, access to clean air and water, etc.).

Also, consider the significant adverse environmental impact of health care and biomedical research, where advocacy for sustainable practices in academic institutions remains quite nascent. 

If you have taken the time to stay informed, volunteer and engage with environmental health, be sure to integrate such experiences and themes into your medical school application materials.

When writing your personal statement , experience descriptions or secondary essays, highlight how your interests and experiences relate to environmental challenges and climate change. Emphasize your commitment to addressing these issues within the context of your future career in medicine. 

By actively engaging with the myriad environmental challenges facing society and incorporating these experiences into your application, you can demonstrate your dedication to addressing pressing global issues while enhancing your candidacy for medical school admission.

Where Famous Docs Earned Medical Degrees

Tags: medical school , environment , public health , graduate schools , education , students

About Medical School Admissions Doctor

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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