If you're applying to med school, chances are you may have to write on some
secondary essay prompts. So today I wanted to give you a common secondary
essay prompt and help you think through some ways that you might want to
approach this document. First, Hi! My name is Dr. Sarah Kleeb and I'm an admissions
expert at BeMo. So secondary essay prompts are sent out by medical schools usually
at one of two stages. There are some universities who will send out secondary
essay prompts to anyone who applies so if you submit your application and get a
secondary essay prompt right away, chances are they send them out to all
applicants. Other schools will reserve their secondary essay prompts for those
applicants who've made it through sort of one stage of application review but
in any case this is a really important document or set of documents that you
really need to give a lot of care and concern to. The questions that are
asked in secondary essay prompts are asked for a reason that is to say
they're asking for specific information that the school wants to have from you,
specific context or information on experiences that you've had that they
really factor heavily into consideration of your application. So
it's important to bear in mind that these are sort of purpose-driven
documents they're not put out there just to give you another set of hoops to jump
through or another task to put on your ever-expanding to-do list.
They're asking these questions for a reason and the questions that they
select are also purposeful right they're asking these things because they want to
know specifically about these things. So there are prompts that are specific
to various schools but there's also a lot of overlap in those prompts so today
I'm gonna give you a secondary essay prompt from Mayo but this same essay
prompt or one very similar to it could be found in any number of different
institutions. So the prompt for today is this:
We are all unique in different ways. Explain how your personal diversity
manifests in your personal and professional activities. So they've given
you 500 words to write on this, 500 words isn't a ton of space. It's enough room to
you know give a good story, a good narrative but it's not you know a
multi-page essay or anything like that. So it's manageable for you, it's
manageable for them it's enough space to get some information out there but not
enough space to really go deeply in depth into some issues. Now some people
sort of panic or freak out a little when they see the word diversity thinking
that it's this kind of PC code word or something like that and I want to
emphasize that that's absolutely not the case. I've written a blog on this, I'll
post the link to it in the comments below the video here so that you can
access that. Asking about diversity isn't a way to see if you, you know, fit
into certain demographic boxes or things like that
diversity is generally very widely defined in instances like this. And so
they're not necessarily asking if you're you know a member of a minority
community or something like that although that's absolutely an aspect of
diversity and if you have that experience and want to reflect on it,
awesome, no problem. But you know even if you're sort of a mainstream or you know
middle-of-the-road kind of candidate, you still have diverse experiences and
diversity yourself. As it says we're all unique and we're all unique in different
ways and so think about some of the things that make you you. That's what you
reflect on in a prompt like this there are all sorts of things that you do, that
you are, that you value, or hold in high regard that are specific to you and
even if you have similar experiences to other people in some ways the ways that
all of these things sort of come together in your own self narrative is
unique to you. No one has had exactly the kinds of experiences that
you've had in exactly the same ways that you've had. So again yeah if you are part
of a marginalized community or something like that you can absolutely draw on
that in thinking through diversity, if you think about your own cultural
beliefs, whether these are minority or majority, those are unique aspects of
your own sort of identity and experience in the world. So if there are aspects of
your own culture that are meaningful to you and that you'd like to express as
meaningful to you, you can certainly talk about that. If you're part of various you
know religious or spiritual communities and that means something to you you can
reflect on that if you want but you can also you know think about the ways in
which common activities come together in unique ways in your own life. If you are
you know part of a sports team and the connections that you've made there have
given you insights into the community around you or given you opportunities to
engage and interact with others either in your community or outside of your own
sort of sphere of activity, that could be a diverse experience. If you are into
arts and music and things like that, those are aspects of your own diversity
all of these little things that make up who we are contribute to our own sort of
uniqueness what's most important is how you reflect on the meaning of those
activities, of those experiences, of that identity, that you hold so you don't want
to spend a whole lot of time talking about the what. What you want to focus
more on is the why right. Why are these things valuable to you. Of all the
various things that make up who you are, why have you chosen XYZ activities to
single out and talk about in this in this prompt.
And you know this is sort of, I'm gonna say, probably a common thread that's
going to come through all of these videos on secondary essays and that
reflect on our statements on personal essays as well. Talking about the why or
what I sort of called the "so what" of your experiences is usually the most
important aspect. Yes having a wide number of different kinds of experiences
in your own life and in your education and experience with the field of
medicine so far, that's important but what you do with those activities,
experiences, etc is just as important. Not everyone has access to a wide variety of
different kinds of activities and those people aren't necessarily or shouldn't
necessarily be excluded from pursuing medicine as a career if they have you
know the academics and the personal qualities and things like that necessary
to succeed in the field. So don't think that this is about sort of displaying
the fact that you've had this wide number of experiences or feel like you
can't contribute meaningfully if your experience set is more narrow thinking
through how these reflect on those key qualities and core competencies central
to the field and practice of medicine is what's central. So thinking about how you
developed cultural competence and working with people from different
backgrounds through the variety of activities you've experienced, that's a
great way to reflect on this. Thinking about things that you've pursued that
have challenged you and forced you to become resilient and adaptable, that's
worthwhile in terms of reflection. Areas where you can demonstrate your own
capacity for improvement or your desire to serve others or your own sense of
ethical responsibility, all great things to reflect on. If you've engaged in
teamwork, collaborating with others, another great value. Now you don't want
to try to reflect on every single one of these in a 500-word essay, obviously.
That's too much. You want to focus on quality over
quantity. So don't use this as a space to you know list the 40 different
activities that you've participated in or all of those things, every single one
of those things that make you who you are. No, prioritize, narrow things down,
pick a few things that really speak to your core as you want to demonstrate it
to the admissions committee, and those things that really reflect not just
yourself but your best self. That's I think the key here when you're putting
these application materials together when you're going through your original
application, secondary application even into your interviews, MMI, any of
that you want to focus on thinking about who you are at your best, who you are now,
and who you want to be who you strive to be, and use those activities that most
effectively demonstrate that. And then again show why these things demonstrate
that. So that is my advice in replying to this particular
statement asking about your own personal diversity, again if you think that
diversity refers to some kind of you know PC code word, get rid of that idea
right away, it's only gonna hold you back and it's a big misunderstanding of what
it is they're actually asking for and what's often asked for in statements and
questions on diversity. Instead focus on those things that make you who you are,
focus on who you want to be, who your best self is, and how you can most
effectively present that to the admissions committee. So I hope that you
enjoyed this video and that it was helpful. If so please do go ahead like it
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