Hi! I'm Dr. Lauren Prufer. In this week's video, I'm going to be going over how to
write your secondary application for medical school. Last week was all about
your work and activity section, so if you missed that video make sure you check it
out and don't forget to subscribe to our channel to never miss a video. So today
I'm going to talk about when the schools send out these secondary prompts, how
long you should wait before returning them, and we'll also go over some common
prompts to help you prepare in advance. So let's get started! When can you
actually expect to receive secondary essays from the medical schools?
Usually the best answer to this is "It depends". Basically it's going to be a mix
of how long it takes AMCAS to process your actual applications so that's
usually about six weeks in the busy season plus how long it takes the actual
med schools themselves to process your application. Some med schools will just
send out their secondary applications to every student whereas others will have
some type of cutoff process so depending on how long it takes the schools to do
that and how long it takes AMCAS to actually process your application it can
really be anywhere from six weeks plus before you receive your secondary
application. Second of all we have "How long should
you wait before you submit this new application?" So basically you want to be
submitting it within less than two weeks the point of this is to show interest
dedication to the school the med schools want to know that they are a priority to
you and by submitting your application early you can show them this.
Great so let's get on to the stuff that you all came here to hear so what are
common prompts for secondary application essays and how can you go about
addressing them so I'm going to go through kind of the five most common
problems that we see I've also posted a link below this video so that you guys
can check out our list of props for various schools and see what schools
that you're interested in have posted in the past so in terms of common prompts
let's get started so our first most common prompt is why
our school and the key component of answering this question is actually
doing your research on the school. I can't emphasize this enough research
research research. It shows an interest in the school and that you're dedicated
to their program. You want to find out things like what type of population are
they dedicated to serving, what are their values and mission statements, what kind
of research opportunities do they have, and what extracurriculars and enriching
experiences do they offer their students so that could be things like global
health or community outreach or whatever it is. The next thing you want to do is
take a look at your own resume and find experiences that you had that were
similar that you maybe want to continue you know enhancing your learning on
you're then going to write an essay kind of outlining your past experience and
how you want to continue to build upon the skills that you learned during that
experience through it ending this school you want to expand upon why it would be
a good fit and this can include social things like maybe you have social
support or family in the area that's a great thing to include in your why us
essay as well. Once you've thought about all the reasons why this school is going
to be a good fit for you you want to create an organized paragraph that's
going to explain those those ideas clearly to the admissions committee. Our
second most common prompt is the cultural competency prompt. So cultural
competency is hugely important to medical schools as doctors are faced
with dealing with increasingly diverse populations. What they're really looking
for here is diversity of experience do you have experience dealing with
from different cultures, backgrounds, sexual orientations, ages, whatever it is.
You want to use an example here that shows you dealing with someone who's
outside your normal realm of experience great ideas while you're
brainstorming for this prompt include a time you've used problem-solving skills
to help someone from a social cultural background different from your own, a
time when you advocated on behalf of someone from a different social cultural
background from your own, a time you used your communication skills to overcome a
language barrier and help someone from a different culture of background. You get where
I'm going with this. Basically you want to show yourself using those teamwork,
leadership, communication, or advocacy skills to help someone who comes from a
background that's wildly diverse from your own. Realistically as physicians we
need to be able to approach people with different values and different beliefs
in a respectful and non-judgmental way and we need to seek understanding of
what those values and beliefs are so that we can treat them and manage them
effectively. It's part of caring for the whole patient and that's why med schools
place so much value on this type of prompt. Next we have the overcoming
challenges prompt. So what this overcoming challenges prompt is looking
for is what medical schools typically referred to as resilience. Practicing
medicine and going through medical school training is typically stressful
and in order to be successful you need to have ways of coping with and managing
stress so med schools are looking for individuals who already demonstrate
those skills throughout undergrad. Good ideas when you're thinking about
addressing this prompt could include a time of things didn't go according to
plan, how you overcame a setback, overcoming an illness or injury
personally or that of a close family member or a friend. When you're thinking
of this prompt do you want to outline the scenario what happened what you did to
deal with it and finally what you learned from the experience and how
we'll apply to your future. Next we have the future goals prompt for this prompt,
medical schools may ask you where you see yourself ten years down the road or
what your career goals are what they are looking for here is really that you've
reflected on where a career on in medicine will bring you. They want to see
that you know what your goals are and how career in medicine will actually
help you to achieve them. In order to answer this prompt you don't actually
have to know specifically what specialty you want to go into. A lot of students go
into medicine not knowing what specialty they wish to pursue and that's
absolutely okay because a lot of students to change their mind during med
school. It's okay in this case to say that you hope to continue to explore a
variety of careers while in medical school. What you really want to be
thinking about addressing this prompt is what's motivating you to pursue medicine,
what are you looking for at the end of the day and how is this career path
going to help you achieve that. In answering this prompt you want to choose
a specific experience maybe while you're shadowing a doctor or volunteering that
inspired you to pursue medicine and then think about what about that experience
made you believe that medicine was the correct career for you and then finally
kind of relate that to your future and where you see that taking you. Finally we
have the academic lapses or academic breaks prompt. So for this prompt it's
the admissions committee giving you a chance to explain any academic lapses or
breaks that happened within your transcript. Basically what you want to do
is briefly outline the situation that caused the academic lapse or break
without placing blame on anyone else and then you want to explain kind of what
you learned from the situation, what you did to overcome it, and how you'll use
those skills to overcome similar situations in the future. Essentially you
want to turn it around and make it a positive thing and a great learning
experience. You want to show medical schools that you built resilience
through this and that you learn skills to handle adversity in the future.
Alright so those are our five most common secondary essay prompts I definitely
recommend prewriting essays for all of these prompts, you want to be starting
almost as soon as you've submitted your actual AMCAS primary
applications so that they're ready edited and good to go for that by the
time secondary start rolling in. If you guys have been any more questions about
secondary essay prompts make sure you check out the two blog posts I posted
off to the side they're full of great tips and tricks and ideas on how to
actually format your paragraphs. If you liked the video don't forget to
subscribe to our channel, I hope to see you all next week!