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2022-2023 Case Western

Started by chilly_md
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CWRU has kindly posted their secondary questions on their website for applicants to get a head start on:

26-27 Secondary Application Questions | MD University Program | Case Western Reserve University

2026-2027 Application Cycle**Updated June 3, 2026**We would like to provide our applicants with the essay prompts for this year’s CWRU SOM secondary...
case.edu
Good luck to everyone applying!

Interview feedback:
www.studentdoctor.net

Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine Admissions, Tuition & Student Feedback | SDN

Admissions data, tuition, degrees, location, interview feedback, essay prompts, and SDN forum links for CWRU on SDN Schools Database.
www.studentdoctor.net www.studentdoctor.net
 
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how holistic is CWRU really is?
Low gpa and sgpa even after post-bacc. Post bacc was 3.6.. For both gpa. The cgpa 3.25 and sgpa 2.92. Had to retake mcat and score is pending but on fl was scoring 508-512. I have +1000 hours of volunteering and +1000 hours working in healthcare settings. Unique background as I grew up in refugee camp until i moved here as a senior in hs. Didn’t have formal schooling till 10/11 years old. volunteers in refugee camps every summer. So gpa in undergrad was bc of adapting to america, the education system, and working full time. Trying to decide if I should even apply here this cycle? it's where my fiancé lives (and hopefully me soon). Do i have any chances at a?..
 
We are going to begin sending out invitations to our secondary application next week for those with verfied AMCAS applications in our database. The invitations will go out in small, daily batches until all are sent. This is to 1. make sure everything is working properly 2. not to overload the application platform. We already have 3,400+ verified applications in our database so we need to gradually send them out. If you want a jump on the essay prompts, you can find them on our website: Secondary Application Questions | MD University Program | Case Western Reserve University

We wish everyone the best this year!
 
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FutureDoc2112 said:
how holistic is CWRU really is?
Low gpa and sgpa even after post-bacc. Post bacc was 3.6.. For both gpa. The cgpa 3.25 and sgpa 2.92. Had to retake mcat and score is pending but on fl was scoring 508-512. I have +1000 hours of volunteering and +1000 hours working in healthcare settings. Unique background as I grew up in refugee camp until i moved here as a senior in hs. Didn’t have formal schooling till 10/11 years old. volunteers in refugee camps every summer. So gpa in undergrad was bc of adapting to america, the education system, and working full time. Trying to decide if I should even apply here this cycle? it's where my fiancé lives (and hopefully me soon). Do i have any chances at a?..
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It's reported that 10% of their accepted students had below a 513, below a sGPA of 3.57, and below a cGPA of 3.44. However, 50% of these students had above a 518, 3.86 sGPA, and 3.83cGPA.
 
Secondary Questions:
Required:
The Admissions Committee is interested in gaining more insight into you as a person. Please describe a significant personal challenge you have faced, one which you feel has helped to shape you as a person. Examples may include a moral or ethical dilemma, a situation of personal adversity, or a hurdle in your life that you worked hard to overcome. Please include how you got through the experience, how you handled the uncertainty or stress, and what you learned about yourself as a result.
Please limit your response to 1 page (about 3,500 characters), and leave a blank line between paragraphs.

Optional:
-One of the four pillars of the Western Reserve2 Curriculum is Research and Scholarship. Although research is not a prerequisite requirement for the University Program, if you have participated in research or another 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 can be broadly-defined and can include such projects as a senior capstone or a thesis and can include both medical and non-medically-related investigations. If you have not completed research, please indicate that in the text box below.
Please limit your response to 1 page (about 3,500 characters), and leave a blank line between paragraphs.

-Is there any further information that you wish to share with the Admissions Committee that may not be captured in the rest of your application?
Please limit your response to 3,500 characters.

-If you are taking time off between college graduation and medical school matriculation, please tell us what you are doing during this gap, and why.
Please limit your response to no more than 1000 characters, and leave a blank line between paragraphs.
 
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For the 'please explain' section of the "Affiliation" section of the application, is there anything in particular you are looking for? I had described the relationship in the previous boxes, but unsure of what to put here. Would a paragraph describing the impact of the institution on my connection's education suffice?
 
nerdy512 said:
For the 'please explain' section of the "Affiliation" section of the application, is there anything in particular you are looking for? I had described the relationship in the previous boxes, but unsure of what to put here. Would a paragraph describing the impact of the institution on my connection's education suffice?
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I think you'd have to specify whether they were student, staff, or faculty member. Maybe also add the years they have been/were affiliated with the school as well and what their official title is/was.
 
Can someone tell me where the optional essays are on the portal? I don't know if I'm being dumb, but I can't find it.
 
samoyedMD said:
Can someone tell me where the optional essays are on the portal? I don't know if I'm being dumb, but I can't find it.
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Additional information (tab 3) has a spot for COVID essay, Essay: additional information (tab 5) has a spot for the further information essay.
 
EricNearTheDNC 0:24 said:
Hey guys, I'm having trouble deciding which research project to writing for the research prompt. Since I'm applying to both case western and Cleveland clinic, I assume the research prompt will be seen by both programs.

I did longitudinal biomedical research in a professor's lab and I did a social science independent study concerning the health of a certain population. Since my independent study was all my own, I had more autonomy in the process and made more impact on it.

Will case western and Cleveland clinic value the longitudinal research that is more biomedical oriented or the social science one that I had more impact in?
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I went to an information session, and they said the CC values longitudinal research.
 
EricNearTheDNC 0:24 said:
"Please tell us about ONE research project to which you made a significant contribution. In your essay, describe your role on the project, the hypothesis of your research and whether you contributed to hypothesis generation, why the methods were selected to answer that hypothesis, your results, and interpretation of your results with respect to future findings. In addition, please briefly share your motivation for pursuing this research project and reflect on how this experience affected you."

What does "interpretation of your results with respect to future findings" mean?
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How your current results shape the project's future directions. What are some other interesting things to look at based on your data? Etc
 
All the research projects I’ve made a significant contribution to are still in progress (clinical research studies). Can I still write about them? 😕
 
@CWRU.Sman Does the CCLCM Admissions Committee also view responses to the University Program questions (i.e. Challenge, Additional Info, COVID)? Or is it only the College Program-specific questions?
 
pr2000 said:
@CWRU.Sman Does the CCLCM Admissions Committee also view responses to the University Program questions (i.e. Challenge, Additional Info, COVID)? Or is it only the College Program-specific questions?
Click to expand...
Challenge is required for all applicants to any program. Additional info is a UP-only optional essay. Optional Covid is accessible by all programs.
 
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apple_juice said:
All the research projects I’ve made a significant contribution to are still in progress (clinical research studies). Can I still write about them? 😕
Click to expand...
@CWRU.Sman would appreciate your input on this one! I’m stuck on the “Please tell us about ONE research project to which you made a significant contribution” question
 
PalaceLover said:
It is; under the "Required Essay: Research" tab.
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Ok, ok - that is the prompt for those that are applying to our CCLCM program and the prompt continues with other requests for the response. I thought you were saying it was just that one sentence. There is a slightly different research/scholarship prompt for applicants applying only to the University Program (4 yr. MD) too. Anyways, before I respond, lemme check with my friends in the CCLCM admissions to get their opinion.
 
Does anybody know how strict the 2 week deadline is? If it's in around day 17 or 18 will that make a difference in how the application/interest in CWRU is perceived?
 
MDApplicant! said:
Does anybody know how strict the 2 week deadline is? If it's in around day 17 or 18 will that make a difference in how the application/interest in CWRU is perceived?
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It is not a strict deadline. It is a recommendation. We don't track exactly when someone does or does not submit their application. It's not a game. That said, if an applicant receives our secondary application in July and doesn't complete it until November, it does make us wonder why they took so long...

But, no, day 17 or day 18 or day 19... won't show a "lack of interest."
 
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Will both the College and the University programs see the optional "additional information" essay? The essay only appears if I select that I am applying to the University program. Therefore, I may use the space to indicate my interest in the UP specifically, although this is not specified.
 
Hello all! For the essay about the research we did, how should it be formatted? Should I make it a mini-paper with an intro, methods, results and discussion? @CWRU.Sman
 
Hi! For the university MD program research prompt (pasted below), may I talk about multiple research experiences? I see that unlike the college MD program, it is not restricted to "ONE" project.

"-One of the four pillars of the Western Reserve2 Curriculum is Research and Scholarship. Although research is not a prerequisite requirement for the University Program, if you have participated in research or another 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 can be broadly-defined and can include such projects as a senior capstone or a thesis and can include both medical and non-medically-related investigations. If you have not completed research, please indicate that in the text box below.
Please limit your response to 1 page (about 3,500 characters), and leave a blank line between paragraphs."
 
Hello All! I have two questions: Firstly for the UP research essay is it better for me to write about my undergraduate research experience, on which I worked for 3 years, or my current gap year research on which I have been working full time for last year and intend to continue doing so for the next year as well. I read someone saying that they prefer longitudinal research experience, but I'm going to be spending more time on my gap year research than the undergraduate one. So confused on which one to write about.

Secondly, for the "Please tell us about ONE research project to which you made a significant contribution" question, I already have one publication from the lab but its like an 8th author publication, and I'm currently in the process of submitting another paper for publication from my gay year research and I'm the 2nd author on this paper. So would it be better to talk about an already published paper or one that we're going to submit, even though I worked more and have a higher authorship on the in progress one. Also what's the character limit for this questions?

Also is it advisable to talk about different research experiences for both the questions instead of just one.
@CWRU.Sman would appreciate your input on these.

Thanks.
 
pre-spring said:
Hello All! I have two questions: Firstly for the UP research essay is it better for me to write about my undergraduate research experience, on which I worked for 3 years, or my current gap year research on which I have been working full time for last year and intend to continue doing so for the next year as well. I read someone saying that they prefer longitudinal research experience, but I'm going to be spending more time on my gap year research than the undergraduate one. So confused on which one to write about.

Secondly, for the "Please tell us about ONE research project to which you made a significant contribution" question, I already have one publication from the lab but its like an 8th author publication, and I'm currently in the process of submitting another paper for publication from my gay year research and I'm the 2nd author on this paper. So would it be better to talk about an already published paper or one that we're going to submit, even though I worked more and have a higher authorship on the in progress one. Also what's the character limit for this questions?

Also is it advisable to talk about different research experiences for both the questions instead of just one.
@CWRU.Sman would appreciate your input on these.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
2nd author paper
 
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Also, someone told me that Case had a couple of other diversity and other such essays on the portal last year. Do we still have them this year? Asking from people who already got the secondary.

Thanks
 
PotatoFarmerOnAPotatoFarm said:
Hi! For the university MD program research prompt (pasted below), may I talk about multiple research experiences? I see that unlike the college MD program, it is not restricted to "ONE" project.

"-One of the four pillars of the Western Reserve2 Curriculum is Research and Scholarship. Although research is not a prerequisite requirement for the University Program, if you have participated in research or another 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 can be broadly-defined and can include such projects as a senior capstone or a thesis and can include both medical and non-medically-related investigations. If you have not completed research, please indicate that in the text box below.
Please limit your response to 1 page (about 3,500 characters), and leave a blank line between paragraphs."
Click to expand...
Has anyone responded to you, can you talk about multiple experiences?
 
pre-spring said:
Hello All! I have two questions: Firstly for the UP research essay is it better for me to write about my undergraduate research experience, on which I worked for 3 years, or my current gap year research on which I have been working full time for last year and intend to continue doing so for the next year as well. I read someone saying that they prefer longitudinal research experience, but I'm going to be spending more time on my gap year research than the undergraduate one. So confused on which one to write about.

Secondly, for the "Please tell us about ONE research project to which you made a significant contribution" question, I already have one publication from the lab but its like an 8th author publication, and I'm currently in the process of submitting another paper for publication from my gay year research and I'm the 2nd author on this paper. So would it be better to talk about an already published paper or one that we're going to submit, even though I worked more and have a higher authorship on the in progress one. Also what's the character limit for this questions?

Also is it advisable to talk about different research experiences for both the questions instead of just one.
@CWRU.Sman would appreciate your input on these.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
If you're applying to the UP and CCLCM then the research prompt defaults to the CCLCM research prompt. You don't have to write two different research essays. If you're only applying to the UP, then you get a slightly different prompt - more broad-based scholarly work description.

It's really up to you what you want to write about. Which project do you feel you had a greater contribution to? We're not trying to trick you. You choose what you want to share.
 
Has anyone gotten an interview invite? If not do we know whether they send out II this week? Goodluck everyone 🙂
 
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