How long is it taking you to do the secondaries?

[wood41]

I don't know if I hsould be proofreading it myself and by other people as much as i did with the personal statement.... how long should we spend on average on the big essays for the secondaries, on avg?

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[jochi1543]

With the big essays, I generally take 3 days - the first day I write an essay that's too long (I'm naturally a very verbose writer, so it always works out that way). The second day I shorten it to the limit. The third day I proofread it from a fresh perspective, once quickly (for content and flow), then again slowly (for spelling/punctuation booboos).

 

[BigRedPremed]

I spend maybe a couple of hours on the longer essays (2000+ characters). I try not to write the essay and submit it on the same day but with applying to so many schools I typically don't have time to have anyone else read/revise it.

The UCSD autobiographical sketch was fun to write though.

 

[mvenus929]

The hardest part for me is figuring out what I want to WRITE for the essays. Once I get past that hurdle... couple days. I read it over several times just to make sure that it makes sense. Then I send away. I'm being lazy and putting off the prompts from the secondary thread last year of the secondaries I haven't received yet. I have one of them almost done, and I feel like I'm not saying anything for the other, so I have to work on that...

But yeah... couple days. JHU took forever, because I couldn't figure out what to write.

 

[wood41]

since amcas still didn't receive my transcripts yet but i already have secondaries... does that buy me more time to work on the secondaries and should i only submit it once my amcas is verfied because that's when schools will look at it?

 

[mvenus929]

since amcas still didn't receive my transcripts yet but i already have secondaries... does that buy me more time to work on the secondaries and should i only submit it once my amcas is verfied because that's when schools will look at it?

Well, schools won't look at you til you're complete, but if you send them all in now, you'll be complete as soon as you get verified...

 

[wood41]

ok so what's the avg... should i base my time off of northwestern's 2-hr rule? or what?

 

[Rikkye]

hm good question ... for me, usually I would write everything all at once, ignore it, then proofread it the next day and submit

like most ppl say, if you apply a lot, you don't really have the luxury of having someone edit it for you

 

[flaahless]

man... I'm doing about 1-2 per week. I'm moving kinda slow

 

[hp540]

ok so what's the avg... should i base my time off of northwestern's 2-hr rule? or what?

Come on now...do you ask people how long you should be taking a ****?

Use as long or as little time you feel you need to write a reply that answers the question, sufficiently expresses what you want to say, and isn't contaminated with stupid stylistic and grammatical errors.

For some, that only takes 2 hours. For others it takes a week. In the end, it just depends what kind of writer you are.

 

[MDee]

With the big essays, I generally take 3 days - the first day I write an essay that's too long (I'm naturally a very verbose writer, so it always works out that way). The second day I shorten it to the limit. The third day I proofread it from a fresh perspective, once quickly (for content and flow), then again slowly (for spelling/punctuation booboos).

I go through the EXACT SAME process...cheers!

 

[BoilerWolverine]

I submitted 7/16 and have 30 done so far... about 1 per day on average.

 

[MossPoh]

With the big essays, I generally take 3 days - the first day I write an essay that's too long (I'm naturally a very verbose writer, so it always works out that way). The second day I shorten it to the limit. The third day I proofread it from a fresh perspective, once quickly (for content and flow), then again slowly (for spelling/punctuation booboos).

This is pretty much how you should do it. Way to follow composition textbooks to a T.

Ideally, you throw someone else's proofread into it too, but we all know that isn't very realistic with 3927934723797 essays. (Can you tell I just hit numbers on my keyboards?)

 

[mq123]

I submitted 7/16 and have 30 done so far... about 1 per day on average.

WOW..pretty good.

 

[mdm2fly]

wow...I've been sitting on some secondaries for over a month. approximately how many hours are you guys spending on each secondary?...i guess what I really want to know is where you are finding the time to get in 1-2/day. i find that i only have a few hours a day to work on them.

 

[riceman04]

wow...I've been sitting on some secondaries for over a month. approximately how many hours are you guys spending on each secondary?...i guess what I really want to know is where you are finding the time to get in 1-2/day. i find that i only have a few hours a day to work on them.

some people are not doing a damn thing else...just mooching...so they can afford to do that

 

[MChitty]

wow...I've been sitting on some secondaries for over a month. approximately how many hours are you guys spending on each secondary?...i guess what I really want to know is where you are finding the time to get in 1-2/day. i find that i only have a few hours a day to work on them.

I sat on some of mine for that long too. But I'm working full-time and sometimes when I got home the LAST thing I wanted to do was work on secondaries. I tried to keep it to 2 weeks, but after a while, I wasn't writing very good essays, so I decided to slow down.

 

[mq123]

I sat on some of mine for that long too. But I'm working full-time and sometimes when I got home the LAST thing I wanted to do was work on secondaries. I tried to keep it to 2 weeks, but after a while, I wasn't writing very good essays, so I decided to slow down.

Haha..I've been doing the same too. Just the sheer number of schools I applied to is bogging me down. Plus I work all day too Anyway, I agree with that last part too. As I do more of the apps, my essays feel like they're getting worse because I just want to get them done and over with..