Medical School Admissions (2013-2014 Cycle): Diversity

Are you deep into medical school secondary essay madness? I am sure you have seen or will see secondary questions like this:

"At the XXX Medical School, we are committed to building a superb educational community with students of diverse talents, experiences, opinions, and backgrounds. What would you as an individual bring to our medical school community?"

"If Applicable, describe a situation where you were not in the majority."

Diversity is one of the most popular secondary essay topics.  The point of these types of questions is to prove how you will make a unique contribution to the medical school class. 

When the word “diversity” is used, many think of racial diversity. But this is a very limited view.  Think outside the box. Do you speak a foreign language? Are you a non-traditional applicant with significant “real world” experience? Other possibilities include athletic achievements, musical/art/dance talent, and international experience. Everyone can add diversity to a class. 

Looking for help on how to answer secondary essay questions? E-mail me at info@MDadmit.com to get started.

Cheers,

--Dr. Miller

 

Suzanne M. Miller, MD, FACEP

Emergency Physician
CEO, MDadmit Medical Admissions
www.MDadmit.com
415.939.5251

Author of:
How to be Pre-Med
The Medical School Admissions Guide
How To Get Into Medical School with a Low GPA

Medical School Secondary Applications: “Other” Information

Please share with us something about yourself that is not addressed elsewhere in your application and which may help the Admissions Committee as we review your file.

The “other” information question often causes great stress amongst candidates. Given that it is usually an optional essay, the big issue is whether or not to answer it. The only reason to answer the questions is if you have personal information that is not provided on the AMCAS that will affect your application. Here are a few examples of appropriate topics for this essay:

1. Extenuating circumstances led to a dip in your grades sophomore year and you want to explain
2. Your band cut its first record after the AMCAS submission
3. You have a paper accepted for publication that occurred after AMCAS submission
4. You just received an offer to travel to Africa with a public health project

Do NOT fill the space just to fill the space. Only answer the question if you really have something important to say that will positively affect your application.

Looking for help on how to answer secondary essay questions? E-mail info@MDadmit.com or call 415.939.5251 to put a Harvard/Stanford MD and medical school admissions expert to work for you!

Check out www.MDadmit.com for more information.

Medical School Secondary Applications: Long-Term Goals

Another favorite secondary question revolves around long-term goals (ie. what you want to be when you grow up).

For example:

Are there any areas of medicine that are of particular interest to you? If so, please comment.

Though you are certainly not expected to have picked out your specialty and fellowship before even entering medical school, admissions committees like know where you are leaning. Do you see yourself working as a general surgeon at a large academic center? Or perhaps you’d like to run a small, rural family medicine clinic? Or maybe you want to be a Navy flight doctor. The sky is the limit. But be sure to be honest and ready to back up your dream job.

Exhausted? Overwhelmed with secondaries? E-mail info@MDadmit.com or call 415.939.5251 to put a Harvard/Stanford MD and medical school admissions insider to work for you!

Check out www.MDadmit.com for more information.

Medical School Secondary Applications: After-College Activities

Now that taking time off before medical school is completely accepted (and often encouraged), many secondaries ask about after-college activities:

Please indicate your activities for the xxxx-yyyy year. If you are in school, please list your courses. If you are working, please describe the nature of your job.

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

If you are still in college when applying to medical school, you will leave this question blank unless instructed otherwise. If you have just graduated, feel free to discuss your summer activities and upcoming plans before matriculation into medical school. And if you have taken time off, use this section to flesh out what you have done more fully than was allowed on the AMCAS activities list.

Overwhelmed by secondary applications? E-mail info@MDadmit.com or call 415.939.5251 to put a Harvard/Stanford MD, published author, and expert editor to work for you!

Check out www.MDadmit.com for more information.

Medical School Secondary Applications: Qualities/Characteristics

Medical schools love to ask you about what qualities you possess that will make you a great physician:

Describe the distinguishable characteristics you possess and tell us how you think these characteristics will enhance your success as a medical student and future physician.

Start by brainstorming a list of characteristics that you think great physicians possess. Here’s a short list from the top of my head in no particular order:

Psychological maturity
Character and integrity
Self-discipline
Judgment
Compassion and empathy
Communication skills
Concern for helping others
Intellectual curiosity and enthusiasm
Analytical and problem-solving ability
Motivation and persistence
Reliability and dependability
Resilience and adaptability
Accountability
Leadership skills
Teamwork skills
Experience with and knowledge of medicine

Choose the qualities that you possess and that can be backed up with examples from your own life. For example, if you that you have leadership skills, be sure that you have leadership experiences to prove it.

Looking for help on how to answer secondary essay questions? E-mail info@MDadmit.com to put a Harvard/Stanford MD and medical school admissions expert to work for you!

Check out www.MDadmit.com for more information.

Medical School Secondary Applications: Research

Some secondary questions focus specifically on research or scholarly activities:

Although research is not a pre-requisite requirement for the University Program, if you have participated in a scholarly project please tell us about it. Describe your experience, including the question you pursued and how you approached it, your results and interpretation of the results, and most importantly, any thoughts about what this experience meant to you. Remember that research is broad-based and can include such projects as a senior capstone or a thesis and can include both medical and non medically-related investigations.

Don’t panic if you have not published in Nature or performed amazing bench research. “Research” is a broad term and can include investigations in public health, health policy, and international health. You can even include non-medically oriented research.

Exhausted? Overwhelmed with secondaries? E-mail info@MDadmit.com to put a Harvard/Stanford MD and medical school admissions insider to work for you!

Check out www.MDadmit.com for more information.

Medical School Secondary Applications: Most Important Activity

Many secondary applications ask you to highlight one particular experience listed on the AMCAS. They often want to hear about clinical exposure. Examples of most important activity questions include:

From among the activities and experiences listed in your AMCAS application, please select one activity or experience that has most impacted your decision to undertake a career in health care. Please describe your role in the activity/experience and how this activity helped you make the decision to apply to medical school.

Though it may feel repetitive, you will often be describing activities already listed in the application. This is a chance to explain these activities more fully and highlight those most important to you. Focus on experiences that show dedication, leadership, or unique skills.

Overwhelmed by secondary applications? E-mail info@MDadmit.com to put a Harvard/Stanford MD, published author, and expert editor to work for you!

Check out www.MDadmit.com for more information.

Medical School Secondary Applications: Personal Challenge

Medicine is a challenging profession. Admission committees want to ensure you know how to meet challenges and handle ethical dilemmas. For example:

Please describe an experience or situation that you found personally challenging and discuss how it helped to shape you as a person. You may discuss a moral or ethical dilemma, situation of personal adversity, or other life-event you believe to have been important in your personal development.

Everyone has overcome a challenge. It is not acceptable to state that your life has been peachy keen and nothing has ever gone wrong. In others words, you can’t leave this one blank. You can provide an answer from any area of your life – personal, professional, extracurricular, etc. The key is to show how you came to a decision during a challenging situation and what you learned from it.

Don’t know where to start with secondaries? E-mail info@MDadmit.com to put a Harvard/Stanford MD, published author, and expert editor to work for you!

Check out www.MDadmit.com for more information.

Medical School Secondary Applications: Diversity

Diversity is one of the most popular secondary essay topics. The point of these types of questions is to prove how you will make a unique contribution to the medical school class.

For example:

At the XXX Medical School, we are committed to building a superb educational community with students of diverse talents, experiences, opinions, and backgrounds. What would you as an individual bring to our medical school community?

If Applicable, describe a situation where you were not in the majority.

When the word “diversity” is used, many think of racial diversity. But this is a very limited view. Think outside the box. Do you speak a foreign language? Are you a non-traditional applicant with significant “real world” experience? Other possibilities include athletic achievements, musical/art/dance talent, and international experience. Everyone can add diversity to a class.

Looking for help on how to answer secondary essay questions? E-mail info@MDadmit.com or call 415.939.5251 to put a Harvard/Stanford MD and medical school admissions expert to work for you!

Check out www.MDadmit.com for more information.

Medical School Secondary Applications: General Strategy

Though schools change their secondary essays from year to year, most of the questions fall into eight broad categories:

Diversity
Personal Challenge
Most Important Activity
Research
Qualities/Characteristics
After College Activities
Long Term Goals
“Other” Information

Instead of writing a new answer to each question for every school, I suggest that you compose general answers to each of these eight questions and change them as needed to a particular application. This will save you an incredible amount of time and energy. It also gives you a chance to write exceptional essays that, with minor tweaking, can be used multiple times. Most of the secondary essays range from 250 to 500 words. I suggest writing each essay listed below in 500 words or less than editing as needed to fit each particular word requirement. Each essay listed has been taken from real secondary applications. Get that literary mind going, you may have hundreds of secondary essays to write in the next few months!

Overwhelmed by secondary applications? E-mail info@MDadmit.com or call 415.939.5251 to put a Harvard/Stanford MD, published author, and expert editor to work for you!

Check out www.MDadmit.com for more information.

Medical School Secondary Applications

“Secondaries,” or medical school secondary applications, are sent individually from each medical school once the AMCAS application has been received and reviewed. Many schools use the AMCAS as an initial screening then send secondaries to obtain more information from applicants in order to determine who receives an interview. Sometimes secondaries are sent to applicants who meet certain requirements (often based on GPA and MCAT scores). More and more these days, schools automatically generate a secondary upon receipt of your AMCAS application with no screening performed.

Secondaries vary greatly in substance. Some require nothing more than your name and a check (average secondary charge is $75). Others entail up to 10 essays and are very time consuming. The due date varies by school. It is best to turn in a secondary as soon as possible after receiving it in order to move the admissions process along.

Overwhelmed by secondary applications? E-mail info@MDadmit.com or call 415.939.5251 to put a Harvard/Stanford MD, published author, and expert editor to work for you!

Check out www.MDadmit.com for more information.

Medical School Secondary Applications: “Other” Information

1. Please share with us something about yourself that is not addressed elsewhere in your application and which may help the Admissions Committee as we review your file.

2. Is there any other information that you would like to share with the admissions committee?

3. While we no longer require an essay, some applicants feel that additional information is necessary in order to provide us with a comprehensive understanding of their strengths as a candidate for a career in medicine. If you wish to use the space below to offer an essay or any other information, up to a total of 3000 characters (approximately 500 words), addressing any issue you feel is of importance, feel free to do so. If you choose to use the space, please do not duplicate information provided elsewhere in this supplemental application or in material you have submitted to AMCAS. Use this optional section only if you believe that the additional information will help us to learn something about you as a person, to get a sense of who you are and what you are about, beyond the basic facts of your academic work and your life history as it is otherwise available to us.

Please be assured that we offer this opportunity only for those applicants who wish to provide additional information and that it is entirely optional. For most applicants, no supplementary essay will be necessary and this space can be left blank.

The “other” information question often causes great stress amongst candidates. Given that it is usually an optional essay, the big issue is whether or not to answer it. The only reason to answer the questions is if you have personal information that is not provided on the AMCAS that will affect your application. Here are a few examples of appropriate topics for this essay:

1. Extenuating circumstances led to a dip in your grades sophomore year and you want to explain
2. Your band cut its first record after the AMCAS submission
3. You have a paper accepted for publication that occurred after AMCAS submission
4. You just received an offer to travel to Africa with a public health project

Do NOT fill the space just to fill the space. Only answer the question if you really have something important to say that will positively affect your application.

Looking for help on how to answer secondary essay questions? E-mail info@MDadmit.com to put a Harvard/Stanford MD and medical school admissions expert to work for you!

Check out www.MDadmit.com for more information.

Medical School Secondary Applications: Long-Term Goals

Another favorite secondary question revolves around long-term goals (ie. what you want to be when you grow up).

1. Are there any areas of medicine that are of particular interest to you? If so, please comment.

2. In a brief paragraph, please describe how you would want to be remembered at the end of your life.

3. What do you see as the most likely practice scenario for your future medical career?

a. Choose the single answer that best describes your career goals.

1. Private Practice: Individual patient care in a private solo or group setting. May include opportunities to do voluntary teaching or clinical research.

2. Health Policy: Work for organizations that develop plans for health care services to populations.

3. Academic Medicine: University-based practice combining research, teaching and patient care.

4. Public Health: Implementing programs in health promotion and disease prevention for communities, not individuals.

5. Health Care Administration: Manager of health care facility or system.

b. Why do you feel you are particularly suited for this practice scenario? What knowledge, skills and attitudes have you developed that have prepared you for this career path? Please limit your answer to 1,000 characters including spaces.

Though you are certainly not expected to have picked out your specialty and fellowship before even entering medical school, admissions committees like know where you are leaning. Do you see yourself working as a general surgeon at a large academic center? Or perhaps you’d like to run a small, rural family medicine clinic? Or maybe you want to be a Navy flight doctor. The sky is the limit. But be sure to be honest and ready to back up your dream job.

Exhausted? Overwhelmed with secondaries? E-mail info@MDadmit.com to put a Harvard/Stanford MD and medical school admissions insider to work for you!

Check out www.MDadmit.com for more information.

Medical School Secondary Applications: After-College Activities

Now that taking time off before medical school is completely accepted (and often encouraged), many secondaries ask about after-college activities:

1. Please indicate your activities for the xxxx-yyyy year. If you are in school, please list your courses. If you are working, please describe the nature of your job.

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

3. What have you done since college?

If you are still in college when applying to medical school, you will leave this question blank unless instructed otherwise. If you have just graduated, feel free to discuss your summer activities and upcoming plans before matriculation into medical school. And if you have taken time off, use this section to flesh out what you have done more fully than was allowed on the AMCAS activities list.

Overwhelmed by secondary applications? E-mail info@MDadmit.com to put a Harvard/Stanford MD, published author, and expert editor to work for you!

Check out www.MDadmit.com for more information.

Medical School Secondary Applications: Qualities/Characteristics

Medical schools love to ask you about what qualities you possess that will make you a great physician: 

1. Describe the distinguishable characteristics you possess and tell us how you think these characteristics will enhance your success as a medical student and future physician.
   
   
2. In addition to academic and intellectual achievement, what do you believe are the three most important qualities that a physician or physician/scientist must have to be successful in the current health care environment and why?

3. Describe the top 3 distinguishable characteristics (non-academic) you possess and tell us how you think these characteristics will enhance your success as a medical student and future physician.

Start by brainstorming a list of characteristics that you think great physicians possess.  Here’s a short list from the top of my head in no particular order:

Psychological maturity

Character and integrity

Self-discipline

Judgment

Compassion and empathy

Communication skills

Concern for helping others

Intellectual curiosity and enthusiasm

Analytical and problem-solving ability           

Motivation and persistence

Reliability and dependability

Resilience and adaptability

Accountability

Leadership skills

Teamwork skills

Experience with and knowledge of medicine

Choose the qualities that you possess and that can be backed up with examples from your own life.  For example, if you that you have leadership skills, be sure that you have leadership experiences to prove it.

Looking for help on how to answer secondary essay questions? E-mail info@MDadmit.com to put a Harvard/Stanford MD and medical school admissions expert to work for you!

Check out www.MDadmit.com for more information.

Medical School Secondary Applications: Research

  Some secondary questions focus specifically on research or scholarly activities:

1. Although research is not a pre-requisite requirement for the University Program, if you have participated in a scholarly project please tell us about it. Describe your experience, including the question you pursued and how you approached it, your results and interpretation of the results, and most importantly, any thoughts about what this experience meant to you. Remember that research is broad-based and can include such projects as a senior capstone or a thesis and can include both medical and non medically-related investigations.

2. What self-education, research, or independent scholastic work have you undertaken and what do you feel you have accomplished in this work?

Don’t panic if you have not published in Nature or performed amazing bench research.  “Research” is a broad term and can include investigations in public health, health policy, and international health. You can even include non-medically oriented research.

Exhausted?  Overwhelmed with secondaries? E-mail info@MDadmit.com to put a Harvard/Stanford MD and medical school admissions insider to work for you!

Check out www.MDadmit.com for more information.

Medical School Secondary Applications: Most Important Activity

Many secondary applications ask you to highlight one particular experience listed on the AMCAS.  They often want to hear about clinical exposure. Examples of most important activity questions include:

1.     From among the activities and experiences listed in your AMCAS application, please select one activity or experience that has most impacted your decision to undertake a career in health care. Please describe your role in the activity/experience and how this activity helped you make the decision to apply to medical school.

2.     What has been your most important exposure to clinical medicine?

3.     Briefly describe your most rewarding experience or some achievement of which you are particularly proud.

Though it may feel repetitive, you will often be describing activities already listed in the application.  This is a chance to explain these activities more fully and highlight those most important to you.  Focus on experiences that show dedication, leadership, or unique skills.

Overwhelmed by secondary applications? E-mail info@MDadmit.com to put a Harvard/Stanford MD, published author, and expert editor to work for you!

Check out www.MDadmit.com for more information.

Medical School Secondary Applications: Personal Challenge

Medicine is a challenging profession. Admission committees want to ensure you know how to meet challenges and handle ethical dilemmas.  For example:

1. Please describe to the Admissions Committee a challenge you have overcome and what you learned about yourself from that experience.

2. Please describe an experience or situation that you found personally challenging and discuss how it helped to shape you as a person. You may discuss a moral or ethical dilemma, situation of personal adversity, or other life-event you believe to have been important in your personal development.

3. What has been the most humbling experience in your life?

Everyone has overcome a challenge.  It is not acceptable to state that your life has been peachy keen and nothing has ever gone wrong.  In others words, you can’t leave this one blank.  You can provide an answer from any area of your life – personal, professional, extracurricular, etc.  The key is to show how you came to a decision during a challenging situation and what you learned from it.

Don’t know where to start with secondaries? E-mail info@MDadmit.com to put a Harvard/Stanford MD, published author, and expert editor to work for you!

Check out www.MDadmit.com for more information.

Medical School Secondary Applications: Diversity

Diversity is one of the most popular secondary essay topics. The point of these types of questions is to prove how you will make a unique contribution to the medical school class.

Here are some examples from recent secondary applications:

1. At the XXX Medical School, we are committed to building a superb educational community with students of diverse talents, experiences, opinions, and backgrounds. What would you as an individual bring to our medical school community?

2. How will you add a unique dimension to our medical school community? In answering this question, please also describe your greatest strength? What is your most significant vulnerability? Please understand that the "strength/vulnerability" questions will in fact require two distinct/separate responses; they are two different questions.

3. If Applicable, describe a situation where you were not in the majority.

When the word “diversity” is used, many think of racial diversity. But this is a very limited view. Think outside the box. Do you speak a foreign language? Are you a non-traditional applicant with significant “real world” experience? Other possibilities include athletic achievements, musical/art/dance talent, and international experience. Everyone can add diversity to a class.

Looking for help on how to answer secondary essay questions? E-mail info@MDadmit.com to put a Harvard/Stanford MD and medical school admissions expert to work for you!

Check out www.MDadmit.com for more information.

Medical School Secondary Applications: General Strategy

Though schools change their secondary essays from year to year, most of the questions fall into eight broad categories:

Diversity

Personal Challenge

Most Important Activity

Research

Qualities/Characteristics

After College Activities

Long Term Goals

“Other” Information

Instead of writing a new answer to each question for every school, I suggest that you compose general answers to each of these eight questions and change them as needed to a particular application. This will save you an incredible amount of time and energy. It also gives you a chance to write exceptional essays that, with minor tweaking, can be used multiple times. Most of the secondary essays range from 250 to 500 words. I suggest writing each essay listed below in 500 words than editing as needed to fit each particular word requirement. Each essay listed has been taken from real secondary applications. Get that literary mind going, you may have hundreds of secondary essays to write in the next few months!

Overwhelmed by secondary applications? E-mail info@MDadmit.com to put a Harvard/Stanford MD, published author, and expert editor to work for you!

Check out www.MDadmit.com for more information.