Medical School Secondaries: Use This Checklist Before You Hit Submit

You’ve submitted your primary application and now it’s time to start churning out those medical school secondary application essays. With most applicants applying upwards of 10, 20, or even 30 schools, it’s easy to get confused or at least worry about it. How can you make sure that you are ready to click submit on your medical school secondaries? Keep reading.

We’ll be laying out the ultimate medical school secondary checklist so that you can be sure your secondary is ready to be sent off to admissions committees. We have all heard the dreadful stories of applicants accidentally submitting the wrong secondary prompts to a school or even writing a different school’s name in the response. With the quantity and the rate that students are turning these secondaries around, it is easy to make a mistake.

This post highlights all the concepts you need to review before hitting submit on your medical school supplemental essays.

The Ultimate Medical School Secondary Application Checklist

1. Scan for the School Name First.

You must avoid the biggest faux pas in the medical school secondary world — submitting a secondary to a school with the wrong medical school name. It’s a fact that most medical school applicants will employ some form of “recycling” when it comes to secondary essays. A lot of prompts are the same but do not let it show through this mistake. Make sure you scan your essays for the school name as well as any acronyms of the school (and spell it correctly!). If you are using an acronym, do your research and make sure it is the correct one (for example, the acronym for the medical school at UCLA is DGSOM for David Geffen School of Medicine, not UCLA SOM).

2. Try to Have Spelled Out the School Name at Least Once (if Applicable).

Most medical schools will ask you “Why this school?” or “What do you hope to add to the community at ‘X’ medical school?” or “How will your training and education at ‘X’ school help you in your future career?” If the character count is large enough (about 500 words or greater) or you have extra unused characters, I would try to type out the school name at least one time. It does sound stronger and helps to mix it up if you’re using the acronym over and over. However, if you need the character count to convey something more important then use it in that way.

3. Monitor Your Character Count.

Most secondary application portals will have character counters but some do not. Make sure you are staying within their word limit, do not take advantage if a school doesn’t monitor the count directly on the portal. If you are trying to cut down on characters, double check that there are no extra spaces in your paragraphs (e.g. after a period or even between words), unnecessary uses of the word “that” (this was a big one for me!), try replacing long adjectives with shorter but still strong ones, and scan your essays for overuse of the words “experience” or “opportunity” (these are long and often overused!)

4. Review Your Each Essay in THIS Order: Read Your Response First, Then Read the Question.

The reason you must do it in this order is to make sure you are answering the question being asked. Because a lot of the time we have an idea and get carried away, we can start writing a prompt and take it in a totally different direction than what is being asked. Especially if you are recycling medical school secondaries a lot of the time schools will ask similar but slightly different questions. So read your response and then read the question and decide if you have truly answered it appropriately.

5. Review for Overlapping Concepts.

Do not repeat concepts between different secondary essays. Something new or a new take on an experience must be revealed in every single essay. There are definitely some schools that ask multiple questions that as the applicant, may elicit similar answers. You really need to focus on each question and make sure you can craft two unique answers. Try mapping out both essays to make sure each is revealing new things about who you are as a potential medical student. Every character counts and is too valuable to repeat yourself.

6. Get a Second Look on Your Medical School Secondary.

Like any part of your application it is important to get a second opinion. Sometimes what makes sense to you won’t make sense to someone else. Because a lot of things you may be explaining in your medical school supplemental essays require some context, make sure you are providing enough by having someone else read it. Additionally a fresh set of eyes may be able to highlight what information was unnecessary or if there are words you are using too frequently.

7. Recycling Prompts? Read it Out Loud.

You need to read your medical school secondaries aloud. This is the fastest and most efficient way to find mistakes in your writing. A lot of the time our brains will move faster through concepts as we read them and fill in the missing pieces especially if they’re your own thoughts. This is super helpful to check for comma errors, run-ons, fragments, incomplete ideas, or just awkward sentences in general. This will also make sure that you are not accidentally leaving in a school name or not addressing the question being answered if you are recycling prompts. If you’re deleting or adding to a recycled prompt you may be taking away important components of the paragraph that contribute to its readability. Read it through out loud to make sure the flow of thoughts are still intact.