2021-2022 Pennsylvania (Perelman)

[wysdoc]

Please feel free to tag a pre-medical moderator when the secondary prompt is posted.

Good luck to everyone applying!

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[rainbowpremed]

For everyone considering applying, here's last cycle's secondary questions:

• Have you taken or are you planning to take time off between college graduation and medical school matriculation? Please describe your activities during this time in 500 characters or less.
• Have you participated in any global activities outside of the U.S. prior to submitting your AMCAS application? (1000 characters)
• Are there any special, unique, personal, or challenging aspects of your personal background or circumstances that you would like to share with the Committee on Admissions, not addressed elsewhere (siblings/relatives at Penn, applying as a couple, educational environment, culture, ethnicity, etc.) (1000 characters)
• Please explain your reasons for applying to the Perelman School of Medicine and limit your response to 1,000 characters.

 

[jojofu]

For everyone considering applying, here's last cycle's secondary questions:

• Have you taken or are you planning to take time off between college graduation and medical school matriculation? Please describe your activities during this time in 500 characters or less.
• Have you participated in any global activities outside of the U.S. prior to submitting your AMCAS application? (1000 characters)
• Are there any special, unique, personal, or challenging aspects of your personal background or circumstances that you would like to share with the Committee on Admissions, not addressed elsewhere (siblings/relatives at Penn, applying as a couple, educational environment, culture, ethnicity, etc.) (1000 characters)
• Please explain your reasons for applying to the Perelman School of Medicine and limit your response to 1,000 characters.

Are these correct? prospectivedoctor.com says there are a couple more, including a COVID essay, which would make more sense.

 

[rep_the_don]

Are these correct? prospectivedoctor.com says there are a couple more, including a COVID essay, which would make more sense.

I applied this past cycle and here are a few other prompts. However, pretty much all of these prompts including the above ones shared by rainbowpremed come with a "Yes/No" option so they are optional. The only essay that is 100% required is the "Please explain your reasons for applying to the Perelman School of Medicine and limit your response to 1,000 characters" one. Obviously if the other prompts are relevant to you, I would recommend addressing them too.

1. Were there changes to your academic work and/or personal circumstances due to the COVID-19 pandemic that you would like to share with the committee? (Optional. If you select Yes, you get this additional prompt: Please describe these changes during this time in 500 characters or less.)
2. If you were offered an option to continue courses with a standard grading system or switch to Pass/Fail, and you chose Pass/Fail, please describe the reason(s) for your decision here. (500 character limit)
3. Have you taken any online courses for credit? (not due to the COVID-19 pandemic) (Not sure about the character limit for this if it applies to you)
4. Have you been nominated for or received an award from any state, regional or national organization? (if you select Yes, you can list different awards and write about them briefly)
5. Have you or your family experienced economic hardships? (Unsure about character limit -- can't check it anymore)
6. Have you been employed at the University of Pennsylvania Health System or Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and worked with a Penn faculty mentor? If yes, please indicate name, department, phone number of faculty, and start/end dates (Unsure about character limit -- can't check it anymore)

 

[4lphabet]

Just got the secondary but is it bugged for anyone else? Got a server error when pulling up the essays
(E: OOS/int'l; MD-only)

 

[326RD]

OOS Secondary MD/PhD just arrived!

 

[sesteretina]

MSTP secondary received!

 

[premedhoo731]

Just got the secondary but is it bugged for anyone else? Got a server error when pulling up the essays
(E: OOS/int'l; MD-only)

I don't see the essays listed anywhere on the secondary, does anyone else?

 

[Gwynbleidd]

I don't see the essays listed anywhere on the secondary, does anyone else?

OOS secondary received, bugged for me as well

 

[hello9478]

I think we might just have access to the portal for now; the portal says that the secondary app won't open till 7/7.

 

[4lphabet]

Ooo that makes sense. If that's the case, I love how we still have the option to pay them even though the application isn't open.

 

[elbowtienoodles]

I don't have access to the essays yet either but assuming they are the same, do you guys think most applicants won't have any state or national awards to enter for that section? Trying to make myself not feel bad for having to leave that blank lol

 

[mangowolf]

I don't see the essays listed anywhere on the secondary, does anyone else?

same here, not seeing them anywhere, probably to do with that one page that gives me errors

 

[mm_premedstudent]

I think we might just have access to the portal for now; the portal says that the secondary app won't open till 7/7.

Where did you see that?

 

[326RD]

Where did you see that?

It says under "Instructions and Deadlines" once you access the portal.

 

[RunningMSN]

MSTP OOS secondary received. I'm also experiencing a server error when I click on several of the pages.

 

[mm_premedstudent]

It says under "Instructions and Deadlines" once you access the portal.

Ohhh the menu was hidden at first, thank you!

 

[Shazthepaws]

I received the secondary, but when I go to the portal it says "status: not eligible" and below "At this time you're not eligible to proceed with completing the secondary application." Is anyone else having this issue?

 

[deleted1037524]

OOS MD 'secondary' (portal?) received. Portal is glitching and the main page says the secondary will be released on July 7.

 

[lupomed123]

OOS MD 'secondary' (portal?) received. Portal is glitching and the main page says the secondary will be released on July 7.

Can we not fill out any of the other sections until July 7th as well? I tried to fill out the "Relationship Info" and got a server error as well

 

[taccepted]

I just got the secondary app but it has bunch of bugs. anyone else having the same issue?

 

[Majora's Demise]

Can we not fill out any of the other sections until July 7th as well? I tried to fill out the "Relationship Info" and got a server error as well

I have been able to fill out the other stuff, but I get the error message when I try to open the one with the actual secondary Qs

 

[deleted1100717]

I don't have access to the essays yet either but assuming they are the same, do you guys think most applicants won't have any state or national awards to enter for that section? Trying to make myself not feel bad for having to leave that blank lol

At a top-tier school, there will always be top-tier applicants with all types of awards.

I'm leaving it blank though and I'm guessing a fair number of people do the same... I'm sure it's not a requirement for admission. Seems like a kind of silly secondary question though since these are literally listed on AMCAS

 

[redradiant]

Just got the secondary but is it bugged for anyone else? Got a server error when pulling up the essays
(E: OOS/int'l; MD-only)

mine doesn't work either. I saw on the site it doesn't open till July 7th so maybe that why?

 

[4lphabet]

At a top-tier school, there will always be top-tier applicants with all types of awards.

I'm leaving it blank though and I'm guessing a fair number of people do the same... I'm sure it's not a requirement for admission. Seems like a kind of silly secondary question though since these are literally listed on AMCAS

what if we nominated each other for SDN awards

 

[treeclimbingmonkey]

Hi all, just emailed Perelman admissions and they emailed me saying that they just fixed the secondary application website

 

[Shazthepaws]

May be a dumb question about the secondary, but does living and going to university in another country count as "global activity"? Or do they mean international shadowing and missions and such?

 

[sleepypremed22]

May be a dumb question about the secondary, but does living and going to university in another country count as "global activity"? Or do they mean international shadowing and missions and such?

I would say that would count!

 

[NormalUsername42]

Nice to know that they fixed the secondary portal so quickly!

 

[deleted1100717]

Secondary portal does appear to be fixed.

It looks like they added a diversity prompt for this year, so the required secondary essays are:

1. The Perelman School of Medicine (PSOM) is deeply committed to recruiting a diverse class to enrich an inclusive team-based learning experience. How would you and your experiences contribute to the diversity of the student body and/or how would you contribute to an inclusive atmosphere at PSOM? Please explain and limit your response to 1,000 characters.
2. Please explain your reasons for applying to the Perelman School of Medicine and limit your response to 1,000 characters

 

[yokiguz]

Secondary portal does appear to be fixed.

It looks like they added a diversity prompt for this year, so the required secondary essays are:

1. The Perelman School of Medicine (PSOM) is deeply committed to recruiting a diverse class to enrich an inclusive team-based learning experience. How would you and your experiences contribute to the diversity of the student body and/or how would you contribute to an inclusive atmosphere at PSOM? Please explain and limit your response to 1,000 characters.
2. Please explain your reasons for applying to the Perelman School of Medicine and limit your response to 1,000 characters

What are the optional ones?

 

[Redman3122]

are you able to submit it? Or do you still have to wait until July 7th?

 

[Fano]

Have you been nominated for or received an award from any state, regional or national organization? (if you select Yes, you can list different awards and write about them briefly)

Like others have mentioned, anything worth mentioning would have been listed in the application. So I wonder if it would it be worthwhile listing a state or national award from high school, especially if the accomplishment or activity isn't reflected elsewhere in the app, e.g. music, art, or Eagle Scout? I'm sure many pre-meds had put some of their talents on a back-burner in order to meet all of the med school application requirements.

 

[deleted1100717]

What are the optional ones?

Scroll up, someone else listed them. They appear to be the same as last year.

 

[yokiguz]

Scroll up, someone else listed them. They appear to be the same as last year.

Great just wanted to confirm they haven't changed

 

[rep_the_don]

Like others have mentioned, anything worth mentioning would have been listed in the application. So I wonder if it would it be worthwhile listing a state or national award from high school, especially if the accomplishment or activity isn't reflected elsewhere in the app, e.g. music, art, or Eagle Scout? I'm sure many pre-meds had put some of their talents on a back-burner in order to meet all of the med school application requirements.

Generally I think people advise against listing high school activities/awards unless you continued it in college. Since you can't really "continue" a high school award in college, I lean more towards not putting those down. If you wanted to include it, I would have advised lumping it with other awards/honors on the AMCAS primary application as one experience.

 

[palmtrees1234]

Is it better to not answer the global activities question than to write about experiences in high school? I went on several service trips in high school. However, I studied public/global health in college and it taught me the harm in "service-trip" type experiences without actual skills to contribute to the communities you are "helping". But, I am still very interested in global health and would like to do more global work in medical school when I have more skills to offer. Could I talk about my high school experiences and these thoughts? Or is it better to leave the question blank?
(Don't get me wrong, I understand there are benefits to early global work as well, and a lot can be very impactful, definitely a larger conversation than this one post)

 

[eagle_123]

Can someone post the MSTP essays please?

 

[heathgamb]

What kind of awards are they asking for? I got a music award from my university but it was already mentioned on my application.

 

[yeehaw1999]

1. Are they just asking for awards from college or also from high school?
2. Do vacations count as international experiences?

 

[deleted1100717]

1. Are they just asking for awards from college or also from high school?
2. Do vacations count as international experiences?

People were already discussing the high school thing above... Unless it continued into college or was particularly unique, I doubt you should include it

I would really shy away from listing international vacations for that prompt lol. It kinda just makes you look super-wealthy and privileged. I think they're looking for educational/service/work-oriented experiences. For instance, international shadowing, studying abroad, or doctors without borders kind of thing.

 

[artist456]

Did other people not get a confirmation email from Penn after submitting the secondary or did you guys get one?

 

[serotonin1]

Did other people not get a confirmation email from Penn after submitting the secondary or did you guys get one?

I got a complete email

 

[MedIsCool314]

Do awards from my university count for the awards prompt?

 

[overnightoats4ever]

Do awards from my university count for the awards prompt?

I do not believe so. I did not put mine. The lowest tier is regional.

 

[iceman579]

Can you submit the secondary without letters of rec being in? I have all tabs completed but the letter of rec tab still has a red check mark so it won't let me submit

 

[yeehaw1999]

Does Phi Beta Kappa count as an award

 

[Legit4296]

Is the question about Pass/Fail optional. In my coursework, I have not made this switch from graded to Pass/Fail for any course but I do not see a Yes or No for this question. Did anyone respond to this as a hypothetical where you explain the advantages of Pass/Fail over grading scale?

 

[globalatworst]

OOS regular MD secondary received at 9:00 pm after being verified by AMCAS yesterday afternoon ! In case anyone is wondering how soon after verification they will get UPenn's secondary : )

 

[rep_the_don]

Is the question about Pass/Fail optional. In my coursework, I have not made this switch from graded to Pass/Fail for any course but I do not see a Yes or No for this question. Did anyone respond to this as a hypothetical where you explain the advantages of Pass/Fail over grading scale?

It's optional. If it doesn't apply to you, leave it blank.