Students commonly benefit from “pre-writing,” or writing their secondary essays in advance. You can see the secondaries prompts from specific schools at website like prospective doctor or student doctor network. I typically advise writing secondaries that are around 150 to 300 words in length. It’s common to have multiple versions of one essay that are all different lengths.
As for what essays to write, I typically like to see at least one essay of each of the following. It’s often useful to have multiple diversity and challenge essays prepared.
Here is a list of the best secondary topics to prepare for.
1. Diversity
This question is usually framed as “how will you bring diversity to this campus” and it’s not just asking about race, gender, and orientation, but diversity of thought, experience, and perspective. Students will write about unique features of their childhood, like how they had to couch surf or living with many families in one home. Special skills or talents sometimes emerge here. If there is anything unique about you or your upbringing, or even anything you did in undergraduate, this is the time to mention it!
Upenn has this question: “How would your life experiences contribute to the student body and how would you contribute to an inclusive atmosphere at PSOM?”
2. Challenge
The best challenge essays are implicitly diversity essays. Remember that secondaries can be used to bring new facets of your application to the table. Show how the challenges you’ve faced make you an interesting and special candidate. This can be ANY challenge, from your childhood, personal, professional, clinical, etc.
These prompts tend to be quite broad which allows you to discuss nearly any challenge, however some will focus more on work, volunteer, or clinical experiences. Similarly, they may be VERY specific and ask about COVID, family, teamwork, or disparities. Here is a prompt from Cleveland clinic: “Please describe a significant personal challenge you have faced, one which you feel has helped to shape you as a person.”
3. Why our school
Check whether the school you’re applying to has this question, because many do, but many do not. You can write about any special connection you have with the school, like growing up in the area, having family nearby, alumni in your family, any special features of the school you’re interested in. It’s common to discuss student orgs, faculty and specific researchers, and any special programs or tracks. The best essays are emotionally evocative and establish deep meaningful connections.
Here is Mayo’s: “Why are you specifically interested in pursuing your medical education at Mayo Clinic”
Closely related is the “ties” question, which is aimed at seeing if you actually have a chance of practicing in this area after graduating. Here is the University of Arkansas’s ties question: “if you have strong ties to Arkansas (you have lived in Arkansas, you have a parent or close relative who resides in Arkansas, you attend(ed) an Arkansas college, etc.), you must describe your ties to Arkansas.”
4. What have you done (graduation and gap year)
This question tends to be framed in one of two ways, either it’s asking what you’ve done since graduating from undergrad or what you’ll be doing in your gap year. These tend to be optional and students only write this essay if it applies to them. I would write one of each essay ahead of time.
Here is an example from Albert Einstein’s secondary prompts: “I have taken at least a year off from school since college graduation, including this year that I am applying. If you answered, “yes” to the above question, please explain.”
5. Clinical
It’s always good to have a strong clinical anecdote on hand, this one is flexible and can be used in many places.
6. Why Medicine/Future
Many schools have an additional ‘why medicine’ question. Or else, they’ll ask about your future pathway. They may also ask for a biography, or a list of your experiences that guided you towards medicine. Sometimes these questions focus more on values, which you can express by expanding upon your childhood or experiences. I like to have an essay that broadly addresses all of these topics.
Stanford has a question like this: “What do you see as the most likely practice scenario for your future medical career?”
7. Teamwork
These questions tend to be more specific, and not all schools have them, but these essays can also double as challenge essays in a pinch. The question might ask about a time you worked with a team towards a goal. Other prompts focus on difficulty in a team like a time you disagreed with a boss, or had a difficult coworker.
8. Underserved
These questions tend to be more broad, and may ask for a time you worked with someone different than you. Some schools have more specific questions like asking about racism or the underserved. This type of essay can tend to fit many prompts.
Vanderbilt has a question like: “Tell us about a time when you interacted with someone who is different than you. What did you learn? What would you do differently?”
The University of Nevada has a question that more explicitly focuses on the underserved, “Describe how your prior experiences have prepared you to deliver care to underserved patients. “
9. Contribution/Proud
This question can be framed as “what is the proudest achievement” or “work that is the most meaningful” or “a time you were happy or contributed significantly.” Many students will write about their volunteer or clinical work, and some questions may focus more on community.
Here is an example from the University of Louisville: “What has been your most significant contribution to your community, through service or volunteerism?”
10. Anything else you want to tell us
This question is for red flags. Most leave this blank. I would only fill out this question if you have SERIOUS red flags, like going to 10 different undergraduate schools, having an institutional action, having many academic failures and a GPA below 3.0, or a having many MCAT exams with several sub 500 scores. Even then, I don’t always like to draw any extra attention to red flags on an application
Here is a prompt from GW: “Is there any further information that you would like the Committee on Admissions to be aware of when reviewing your file.”
Bonus:
11. Difficult to prepare for essays
USC is notorious for having interesting essays prompts for example “If you had to give yourself a nickname, what would it be?”
One year, Dell at UT Austin sent out video secondaries to a small proportion of invited applicants.
These are essays I would not try to prepare for.
