2025-2026 Dartmouth (Geisel)

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2025-2026 Dartmouth Secondary Prompts

All questions have 500-word limits.

1. Please indicate your plans for the 2025-2026 academic year. If in school, please list your courses. If working, let us know something about the nature of your job. If your plans or courses change (we only need to be notified about changes in prerequisite courses) subsequently, please inform the Admissions Office by email at [email protected].

2. Please reflect on your primary application and share something not addressed elsewhere that would be helpful to the Admissions Committee as we review your file:

3. What aspects of the Geisel School of Medicine draw you to apply? Please include the characteristics and strengths you will bring to our program and how you hope to contribute to our community.

4. Geisel School of Medicine values social justice and diversity in all its forms. Reflect on a situation where you were the “other”.

Good luck to all applying!

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@chilly_md +1 OOS MD-only.

All questions have 500-word limits.

1. Please indicate your plans for the 2025-2026 academic year. If in school, please list your courses. If working, let us know something about the nature of your job. If your plans or courses change (we only need to be notified about changes in prerequisite courses) subsequently, please inform the Admissions Office by email at [email protected].

2. Please reflect on your primary application and share something not addressed elsewhere that would be helpful to the Admissions Committee as we review your file:

3. What aspects of the Geisel School of Medicine draw you to apply? Please include the characteristics and strengths you will bring to our program and how you hope to contribute to our community.

4. Geisel School of Medicine values social justice and diversity in all its forms. Reflect on a situation where you were the “other”.
 
Is anyone else having issues making the payment to submit the 2º? Tried two cards and it wouldn't work for either
 
Is anyone talking about their hobbies in prompt 2? Or something else?
 
ridebiker said:
Is anyone talking about their hobbies in prompt 2? Or something else?
Click to expand...
I talked about an activity that I didn’t have a lot of space to talk about in the primary app. I think hobbies are a great option to talk about too.
 
icouldntthinkofanything said:
Anyone else stuck on the fourth prompt?
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I applied here last year and that was by far one of the toughest. I ran last year's essay by some friends (I wrote about a really awkward interaction I had with a classmate in a health ethics course), and they did NOT like it. So I'm a bit back to the drawing board myself. Are there any accepted students/professional folks who have advice on what's worked in the past?
 
Hope secondaries are going well for everyone! Question.. do I need to submit a photo? should I? does it have to be a professional headshot do we think because I don't have one
 
mountaingoat23 said:
Hope secondaries are going well for everyone! Question.. do I need to submit a photo? should I? does it have to be a professional headshot do we think because I don't have one
Click to expand...
If it's on the application, I'm fairly certain it's required. I also don't have a professional headshot, but I've heard that is the way to go. If you have a photographer friend or access to some editing software, you likely can DIY it.
 
mountaingoat23 said:
Hope secondaries are going well for everyone! Question.. do I need to submit a photo? should I? does it have to be a professional headshot do we think because I don't have one
Click to expand...
I just had a friend come over and take a pic against a blank wall in my house during a time of the day with good lighting. If you have a newer phone, they can actually come out really well! My iPhone has a "studio" setting and the photo I got was amazing for it not being a professional pic. Just put on something business professional and take it from the shoulders up
 
The website is prompting me to allow camera and mic permissions did it do that for anyone else?
 
doctor3214234 said:
The website is prompting me to allow camera and mic permissions did it do that for anyone else?
Click to expand...
Yes, it did for me too. I think it's because the mic is required if you would like to record a name pronounciation
 
doctor3214234 said:
The website is prompting me to allow camera and mic permissions did it do that for anyone else?
Click to expand...

Yes. I think it’s for the name pronunciation part iirc.
 
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Absolutely 0 clue what to write about for #2... feel like my main hobby then pretty much everything important is in my primary app
 
Now that they have raised the limit to 500 words, should I write more in the essays? All of mine are about 250 words.

What is everyone who pre-wrote doing?
 
JAH_ said:
Now that they have raised the limit to 500 words, should I write more in the essays? All of mine are about 250 words.

What is everyone who pre-wrote doing?
Click to expand...
I pre-wrote the essays, and I added a few sentences to each if I felt like I had more to say with the added word limit. In the cases where I felt like the essays said everything I wanted to say in 250 words, I left them as is. I will add that most of my essays with prompts that had unlimited words from last year were at around 450 for me.
 
JAH_ said:
Now that they have raised the limit to 500 words, should I write more in the essays? All of mine are about 250 words.

What is everyone who pre-wrote doing?
Click to expand...
I had wrote and then cut down. So I went back a few iterations in the version history 😂

But in all seriousness that might be a legit strategy if you found yourself overshooting most prompts like I did.
 
What does "other" mean exactly in question 4? I don't get what they're asking for.
 
Mpsll said:
What does "other" mean exactly in question 4? I don't get what they're asking for.
Click to expand...
I think they are asking you to talk about a time where you stood out, or were different from everyone else.
 
Mpsll said:
I'm getting confused because why include "social justice" then?
Click to expand...

They're asking you to think about a time when you were judged for something you couldn't control (preferably something that you are, vs something that you did). Bullying, harassment, social judgment, etc. falls in this category.

They include social justice because instances of bullying, harassment, social judgment, etc. on this basis would not be possible in a society that has already achieved social justice, so they're expecting you to feel compelled to fight for social justice in ways available to you.
 
polymerization said:
They're asking you to think about a time when you were judged for something you couldn't control (preferably something that you are, vs something that you did). Bullying, harassment, social judgment, etc. falls in this category.

They include social justice because instances of bullying, harassment, social judgment, etc. on this basis would not be possible in a society that has already achieved social justice, so they're expecting you to feel compelled to fight for social justice in ways available to you.
Click to expand...
I don’t think that being the “other” has to imply judgement. I think you can also reflect on any time you were in a social space that wasn’t your own. Judgement or no. How did you comport yourself in that space?
 
moltmannfanboi said:
I don’t think that being the “other” has to imply judgement. I think you can also reflect on any time you were in a social space that wasn’t your own. Judgement or no. How did you comport yourself in that space?
Click to expand...
Yeah, this is how I approached it. A time when I was different from everyone around me, how it felt, and how I handled it....and used it as a growing/learning experience. I don't think it necessarily has to come from a place of being judged or bullied (although I experienced some of that)
 
Though I did not write about this, I think a great way to approach the question would be if you were ever in any sort of position to be an ally to a marginalized group. Many times, that means stepping back and letting the group you are allying with take the lead and accepting that their space is not a place to center yourself.

Lots of great ways to creatively write about the question.
 
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